Former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi has sharply criticized President Bola Tinubu, accusing him of abandoning Nigeria amid a period of historic national distress.
Data shows President Tinubu spent 196 out of 365 days abroad in 2025, as Nigeria grappled with worsening poverty, hunger, insecurity, and high unemployment rates. Obi argues that Tinubu’s extended absence—including a European holiday since December without delivering a New Year’s address—signals a profound leadership failure.
“A nation of over 200 million people cannot be governed by press releases and aides while its president is missing in action,” Obi stated on his verified X account on Monday, January 12.
Obi highlighted Nigeria’s dire realities: home to the largest population of extremely poor people worldwide, one of the hungriest nations, and more than 80 million unemployed youths. Yet the president has not directly addressed the Nigerian people during this critical juncture.
He condemned what he termed the “outsourcing of leadership,” noting that Nigerians learned about foreign military strikes on their soil primarily through U.S. and international media, rather than from their own president.
Referencing an earlier controversy involving a digitally generated presidential photograph, Obi emphasized, “Leadership is not about dishing out AI-generated images or press statements; it’s standing before your people when they are afraid, hungry, and uncertain.”
Obi warned that Tinubu’s frequent foreign trips and prolonged silence have left a dangerous vacuum, undermining national unity and depriving Nigeria of the direction, reassurance, and shared purpose it desperately needs.
He concluded that in times of crisis, absence is not neutrality—it’s failure. “No economic reform, security strategy, or political agenda can survive in a country where citizens feel abandoned by their own government,” Obi said.
