Former Vice-President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, on Sunday, lambasted President Bola Tinubu for embarking on overseas trip while the country is battling crisis on many fronts.
Tinubu on Sunday left Abuja for Europe on a three-week vacation as part of his annual leave.
Presidential spokesperson, Sunday Dare, said the trip is well deserved because the President had worked hard and needed to refuel.
But Atiku, in a statement posted on his social media handles, on Sunday, faulted the timing of the trip.
According to him, “Nigeria may not be facing a constitutional vacuum today, but there is a disturbing vacuum of political leadership.
“I have travelled, lived and spent time abroad, and I have never pretended otherwise. But there is a fundamental difference between the travels of a private citizen and the responsibility of the sitting President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“Consider what Bola Tinubu is leaving behind. Petrol priced beyond the reach of ordinary people. Families rationing food. Transport fares that have turned a journey to one’s own village into a luxury. Insecurity that buries Nigerians week after week. And in the middle of all this, President Tinubu has packed his bags for three weeks in Europe.”
Atiku said the fact that Vice-President Kashim Shettima, who is currently attending the 21st Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU) in Luanda, Angola, is on official duty abroad makes the President’s travel decision even more difficult to understand.
He added, “Leadership is not merely the constitutional right to occupy an office; it is the judgment to know when your country needs you at home.
“A father may travel when all is well. But when his roof is burning and his family is trapped inside, he does not pick up his suitcase and head for the airport.
“That is the issue here. It is not that a President must never rest or travel. It is that Nigeria is burning, and the President has chosen a boarding pass over the fire extinguisher.
“Millions of Nigerians are being grounded by hardship while their President is airborne. The people can barely afford to move, but the President keeps moving.
“A government that cannot feel the pain it inflicts will never summon the will to end it. Tinubu made Nigeria expensive. I will make Nigeria affordable again.”
