The President Bola Tinubu has come under attack from Peter Obi for holidaying abroad when Nigeria is facing a myriad of problems from insecurity to multidimensional poverty ravaging her people.
Tinubu is currently in Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, a place the Presidential Candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, said, “In terms of land size, Makurdi is 937.4Km², which is over 59% bigger than St Lucia, which is 617 km², and Minna is 6789 square kilometres, which is 10 times bigger than St Lucia. St Lucia, with a population of 180,000, is less than half of Makurdi’s 489 839 and Minna, with 532, 000 is almost three times the population of St Lucia.”
Obi’s remark is part of his response to the President’s visit to the Caribbean for official engagements and private leisure, which a statement by his media aide, Bayo Onanuga, said were for those purposes.
Obi’s X handle was the means he used to condemn the president saying the latter is fiddling while Nigeria burns.
“In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war.
“Without any twilight, Nigeria ranks among the most insecure places in the world. Nigerians are hungrier, and most people do not know where their next meal will come from. With such a gory picture of one’s country, you can imagine my bewilderment when I saw a news release from the Presidency announcing that President Bola Tinubu is departing Nigeria today for a visit to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean.
“The Presidency release merely confirmed an earlier news report since last week where the Prime Minister of the Caribbean Philip J. Pierre announced at a pre-cabinet press briefing on Monday, last week that President Bola Tinubu is expected to depart Nigeria on Saturday, June 28, 2025, for Saint Lucia for official engagements and private leisure time.
“According to the Prime Minister’s announcement “two of these days, June 30 and July 1, will be dedicated to an official visit, with the remainder of the trip set aside as a personal vacation,” Obi wrote.
“I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority, more so the President, on whose table the buck stops in this country, with all the myriad problems in virtually all areas of governance, would contemplate a leisure trip at this time.
“This is a President going for leisure when he couldn’t visit Minna, Niger state where over two hundred lives were lost and over 700 persons still missing in a flood natural disaster. I wonder which type of incident will happen before a President is attracted to show physical sympathy to the distressed citizens,” he continued.
Before he added: “In terms of land size, Makurdi is 937.4Km², which is over 59% bigger than St Lucia, which is 617 km², and Minna is 6789 square kilometres, which is 10 times bigger than St Lucia. St Lucia, with a population of 180,000, is less than half of Makurdi’s 489 839 and Minna, with 532, 000 is almost three times the population of St Lucia.
“I don’t think the situation in this country today calls for leisure for anybody in a position of authority, more so the President, on whose desk the buck stops. This regime has repeatedly shown its insensitivity and lack of passion for the populace, going by the way it prioritises the rich and shows indifference to the poor.
“One had expected the President to be asking God for extra hours in a day for the challenges, but what we see is a concentration of efforts in the 2027 election and on satisfying the wealthy while the mass poor continues to multiply in number.”
