Six days have passed since President Bola Tinubu left New York after attending the 78th UN General Assembly (UNGA). However, he has not returned to Nigeria yet.
This has left Nigerians wondering about his whereabouts and stoking rumors that the president does not consider himself as being accountable to the people he was elected to serve.
On September 18, an individual named Mr. Tinubu traveled to New York and departed the United States on Thursday at 8:25 p.m. local time from JFK Airport. There has been no communication from Mr Tinubu to Nigerians regarding his travel plans, which is similar to the previous president, Muhammadu Buhari, who was known for extended stays abroad.
The State House has not commented on Mr. Tinubu’s itinerary, but according to senior administration officials, he is currently addressing strategic issues in Paris and is expected to return to the country by the end of this week.
“We understand that the president is tending to important matters and holding strategic meetings in Paris, and he will be returning to the country before the end of this week,” a senior official, familiar with Mr Tinubu’s itinerary, told Peoples Gazette on Wednesday.
The State House deliberately failed to reveal when the president would return after his trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly. There was no mention of his plan to linger in Paris for over a week after concluding his assignment in New York.
Mr. Tinubu’s lack of communication might be perceived as a lack-luster attitude that mirrors that of Mr. Buhari, the ex-president, who did not see the need to explain his whereabouts and brazenly gallivanted around the globe, leaving his media aides befuddled and scrambling for the best way to defend their principal to the public.
Mr Buhari’s frequent and prolonged overseas trips made critics deride him as a “remote president.”
Mr Buhari’s presidency, with reckless spending and unproductive policies, plunged the nation’s economy into dire straits.
Since Tuesday, the naira has been trading at N1000 to one dollar, signposting Mr Tinubu’s flopped experiment to float the national currency.
Despite Mr. Tinubu’s repeated assertions that he is different from his predecessor, his actions demonstrate that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.