Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 election, called President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday to postpone his vacation in France and return home to confront the country’s increasing violence and killings.
Obi made the appeal in a statement uploaded to his official X account.
The request comes four days after the presidency refuted allegations that Tinubu left the shores of the country to meet doctors in France, stressing that it was a professional visit.
Daniel Bwala, Special Adviser to the President on Policy Communication, clarified during a guest appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
Bwala was responding to the claim made by popular activist and politician Omoyele Sowore that the president’s visit to France was for medical treatment.
Although his spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, stated that Tinubu, who left Nigeria on April 2, is anticipated to return in ‘approximately a week’, Sowore claimed in a post on his official Facebook page that the trip was for medical treatment.
However, Obi warned that the president’s continued stay in a foreign land will further exacerbate the rising wave of insecurity in the country.
Obi said, “I am compelled at this time in our lives as a nation to call on our retreating president’s attention to the security challenges at home, which entails that he immediately suspend his ongoing retreat in a foreign land and come home to address the overwhelming security situation across the country.
“In the 2 weeks you have been away, over 150 Nigerians have lost their lives to insecurity across Nigeria, especially in Plateau and Zamfara states. The repeated pipeline explosions in the Niger Delta further reflect a nation in distress.
“In the North East, Borno State leaders are bemoaning the return of insurgency, with troops and civilians being killed randomly. In the Southeast, the story is the same: killings and abductions. Amid all these, the CEO of the troubled company called Nigeria is retreating to a faraway land in France from the company’s headquarters.
“I, therefore, like to urge Mr President to quickly suspend whatever he is doing in France and rush home to take responsibility by addressing these disturbing issues. That is the new Nigeria that the nation seeks.”
