***Urges him to drop the Passport, Pick Up the Problems
Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has launched a stinging attack on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, accusing him of treating Nigeria like a layover stop while the country faces deepening crises.
In a fiery post on X titled “Again, Our President Moves as the Nation Bleeds,” Obi slammed Tinubu’s decision to embark on a 12-day, two-nation trip—his latest journey pushing his tally to over 200 days abroad in just 806 days in office. The President’s itinerary takes him from Abuja to Dubai, then Japan for the TICAD9 summit (August 20–22), and onward to Brazil, with no confirmed return date.
“Mr. President is not a tourist,” Obi charged. “He is the Chief Executive of a troubled nation, and his duty is here—not in endless foreign conferences that add little or no value to our people.” He questioned the urgency of the trip, noting it comes only weeks after Tinubu’s last visit to Brazil and months after an extended absence in St. Lucia before the BRICS Summit.
Obi argued that any necessary foreign engagement should be “short and targeted,” suggesting the current trip could have been completed in five days. Instead, he urged Tinubu to redirect his energy into visiting Nigeria’s most distressed states, confronting insecurity, hunger, and economic collapse head-on.
“Nigerians know we can’t fix all our problems overnight,” Obi said. “But they need to see their leader fully present and committed. We are a country on fire. The President must act like the firefighter-in-chief, not a globe-trotting dignitary.”