THE PRESIDENCY OF ABSENCE: FROM PARIS, TO LAGOS, WHILE KENYA TAKES OUR REFINERY MODEL
Nigeria has become a global joke, and Senator Jimoh Ibrahim is the punchline.
His defence at the UN that the President did not attend UNGA because China and Russia were not there is stark, illiterate diplomacy. It shows he has no idea what his job entails. It is shameful, disappointing, unacceptable, and unfortunate that such a man represents us.
But the rot is deeper than Jimoh Ibrahim:
1. THE PARIS LOITERING:
The President spent 28 days on an unconstitutional “Working Vacation” – a phrase that exists nowhere in our Constitution or Administrative Guidelines. For 21+ days away, the Constitution demands transmission of power to the Vice President. The National Assembly that should have demanded this is silent.
For those 28 days, President Tinubu was loitering in France. And in a final humiliation, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, left France and left Tinubu in Paris, and flew to New York for UNGA to defend France’s national interest. Our President was left behind in another man’s country with nothing to show but a meeting with Femi Otedola and a few friends, packaged as “work.”
2. THE LAGOS HIDEOUT:
Yesterday, after 28 days, the President returned. But not to Abuja, the administrative capital of Nigeria. He returned to Lagos, claiming he will “work from Lagos” for another week before coming to Abuja. What is he hiding from in Abuja? Since when does a President govern from his private home while the seat of government lies empty? This is an abdication.
Tinubu was among those who fought strongly against President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua when Yar’Adua was sick and out of the country in Saudi Arabia in 2010. Tinubu issued a press statement and declared that Nigeria was “drifting and groping in the dark, like a ship without a captain, in a stormy ocean” because Yar’Adua left the country without transmitting power. He demanded Yar’Adua hand over to Goodluck Jonathan immediately. He said “While that happened” – while Yar’Adua was out of the country – Nigeria had become leaderless.
Today, he is doing worse than what he condemned.
3. THE KENYAN CONTRAST – WHAT SERIOUS LEADERS DO:
While our President was idle in Paris and now hiding in Lagos, look at what serious leadership looks like:
The President of Kenya, William Ruto, flew into Lagos, visited the Dangote Refinery, and flew back to Kenya with Aliko Dangote himself for the groundbreaking of a multi-billion dollar refinery project in Kenya.
Kenya is importing our own success story while we are exporting incompetence. Ruto chased investment for his people. Tinubu chased photo-ops in Paris. One President is building a refinery, the other is avoiding his capital.
4. THE SECRET $700 BILLION SALE:
And as this circus continues, the Minister of Solid Minerals has secretly signed a $700 Billion USD mineral agreement with the US, details hidden from the National Assembly and Nigerians. This is not investment, it is a bribe.
It is an open secret that for 5 months Tinubu has been trying to appease Donald Trump and the US Government over his drug trafficking and money laundering files. The FBI and DEA have come out to defend him as their asset. A foreign government now has what it can use to blackmail a sitting President to do its bidding, and the result is $700 Billion of our minerals handed covertly to one country in the name of investment. We are being enslaved.
This is the full picture:
A Judiciary issuing contradictory judgments.
A National Assembly that cannot ask why a President was gone for 28 days without transmitting power.
A Presidency that invents “Working Vacation” and governs from Paris and Lagos instead of Abuja.
And MDAs secretly selling our future.
Jimoh Ibrahim is not an anomaly. He is a reflection of the representation we have – illiterate, incompetent, and compromised.
Nigeria deserves better than being absent at UNGA while Kenya takes our industrial model.
Baffa Saleh Hadejia writes from Abuja, Nigeria.
