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WHERE IS OUR PRESIDENT? BY SULEIMAN SULEIMAN
Of course, everyone knows that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is in France. He has been there since the second day of this month, just about three weeks now. That one is clear. What is unclear is precisely what Nigeria’s president is doing in a foreign country for three weeks, or who is in charge at home right now.
Since 1999, three parallel but often connected cultures are taking hold in Nigerian politics and the press. The first is the increasing tendency by government officials to be dishonest with Nigerians about critical or even the most basic governance issues. The second is the unsettled position of the vice president and deputy governors, particularly when a president or governor is unavailable to do their jobs. And perhaps worse, there is the tendency for the press to treat both of these issues very differently, depending on the ‘colour’ of the people involved. The press goes hysterical when some kinds of people are involved, but becomes silent when other kinds of people are involved in the same kinds of political events and activities. I will discuss the first today, and the rest some other time.
Yes, we know that President Tinubu is in France. But it is becoming increasingly clear that Tinubu is not there for what the government claimed, which could mean that the presidency has been dishonest with Nigerians about a critical issue. As the Punch newspaper reported on Wednesday, April 2, Tinubu took off for Paris “on a two-week working visit” that morning. The report cited a statement released by presidential adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, and stated further that during his stay in Paris, “the president will appraise his administration’s mid-term performance and assess key milestones”. It added that the president will use the visit as “a retreat” to “review the progress of ongoing reforms and engage in strategic planning ahead of his administration’s second anniversary”.
All of that would have seen him returning home by Wednesday, April 16. But in response to mounting criticism from opposition politicians, the presidency released yet another statement late Thursday, April 17, indicating that the president’s “two-week working visit” in France has been extended. As Daily Trust reported the following day on April 18, Tinubu would now return “to resume his official duties after the Easter holidays,” although he has been “closely monitoring developments in the country.”
“The president left Paris for London at the weekend and has maintained constant communication with key government officials, overseeing critical national matters, including directives to security chiefs to address emerging threats in some parts of the country,” the same presidential source, Onanuga, was reported to have added.
The contradictions in the two versions of the stories are evident to Nigerians, or at least should be, if not to the presidency itself. First of all, presidents do not work in foreign lands, except during bilateral or multilateral state visits or other meetings. None of that is the case for Tinubu’s stay in Paris. He has not been reported meeting with any French or European officials, and there is not any multi-lateral or international event in either London or Paris that he is attending. If there is, many African and other leaders would also have been there, and we would know about it. This, in short, is not the sort of meetings that happen between leaders to strike deals on the sidelines of a major international event. In any case, “after the Easter holidays” is not a specific date, and the specifics are important in this context.
The government has released reports and pictures of Tinubu’s meeting with a senior US state department official in Paris mid last week, but that is all. But Paris is neither the seat of the Nigerian government nor of the United States. A Nigerian president does not need to travel all the way to Paris to meet with no more than mildly consequential US government officials. That is why presidents have an office and a house in the same building in their own home countries. And if the meeting were that important, then the president can go to Washington directly, or those US officials can come to Abuja, or better still both can meet via Zoom to save taxpayer money.
Moreover, this newspaper reported Onanuga as saying that the “US State Department’s representative conveyed President Trump’s interest in deepening direct engagement with Nigeria as a cornerstone of US relations with Africa.” The US government, Onanuga added, “wanted to work closely with President Tinubu to expand America’s investment in Nigeria and Africa, support energy and infrastructure development, and align trade and job creation efforts.”
The spin in this statement should be clear to readers. The Nigerian presidency is trying to frame Tinubu’s long stay in Paris as a plus for Nigeria, an active-duty event, even at a moment of violent inter-communal conflicts back home. This spin falls flat on its face, however. Not only that such a meeting should not be happening in France, but more importantly, it should not take a Nigerian president three weeks away from home to hold. How can a presidential meeting with middling American officials be more important than the leader’s presence at home at this time?
Three weeks is too long a time for any presidential meeting, even when everything is normal back home. This is why the idea that President Tinubu is “monitoring” the situation at home rankles deeply. Monitoring the situation at home and issuing “directives” from elsewhere? That is like treating a country like property or one’s private business. But Nigeria, it must be said, is not anyone’s farm or private business. It is like telling Nigerians directly that their lives do not matter, or matter enough for the president. Of course, a president can travel out of their country to other countries for official functions or even personal business or holiday. They are human beings too, and deserve their time away from work.
However, once there is unrest, natural disasters or other emergencies at home, the leader is expected to return home to lead from the front, not “monitoring the situation” on the phone, if at all. The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer cancelled a planned holiday to lead his government’s response to the far-right riots last year. Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, cut short his then ongoing official tour of Europe and returned home to lead relief efforts when a deadly earthquake broke out across several states in April 2015. Perhaps President Tinubu can learn a thing or two about citizen-focused political leadership from his peers around the world.
This brings us to the crux of the matter. President Tinubu is most likely not in France for an extended “working visit”, however the government spins it. The president is probably there for a medical check-up, holiday or some other reasons. Whatever the actual reason for this trip is, the statements put out by the government so far are merely intended to hide it. But hiding information such as that from citizens can be more harmful than useful. And it is high time Nigerian leaders began to take their relationships and connections with Nigerians more seriously. More than that, the government’s spin is probably designed to prevent Nigerians from asking the important question of who is in charge of the country right now?
While we wish the president a safe return, whatever the trip, we must also ask: Where is our president?
