This Isn’t Time For Holidaying, Peter Obi Frowns At Tinubu’s Saint Lucia Trip

Posted by African Examiner
Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria
Sunday, June 29th, 2025

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Former presidential candidate and Labour Party leader, Mr. Peter Obi, has kicked against the Saint Lucia’s trip of President Tinubu, describing it as an ill-timed and insensitive decision considering the happenings in the country.

Obi stated this in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, saying that he was “struggling with my senses to understand what is happening to governance in this country”.

The African Examiner writes that President Tinubu is to leave Nigeria on Saturday (today) and is expected to visit Saint Lucia and attend the BRICS summit in Brazil.

“What I have seen and witnessed in the last two years has left me in shock about poor governance delivery and apparent channelling of energy into politics and satisfaction of the elites, while the masses in our midst are languishing in want,” Obi declared.

Speaking on the increase in insecurity and hunger in the country, he added: “In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war.

“Without any twilight, Nigeria ranks among the most insecure places in the world. Nigerians are hungrier, and most people do not know where their next meal will come from.”

The former Anambra governor also expressed surprise upon learning of President Tinubu’s departure to the Caribbean nation, especially coming shortly after what he termed as a holiday in Lagos.

It read: “With such a gory picture of one’s country, you can imagine my bewilderment when I saw a news release from the Presidency announcing that President Bola Tinubu is departing Nigeria today for a visit to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean.”

Referencing a press briefing by Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre, Obi stated that the visit included both official engagements and personal vacation.

“According to the Prime Minister’s announcement, ‘two of these days, June 30 and July 1, will be dedicated to an official visit, with the remainder of the trip set aside as a personal vacation,” he said.

Obi stated that he had earlier dismissed the report as unbelievable: “I told the person who drew my attention to the Caribbean story that it cannot be true and that the President is just coming back from a holiday in Lagos.

“I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority, more so the President… would contemplate a leisure trip at this time.”

He slammed the failure of the president to personally visit disaster-affected areas, like Minna in Niger State, where over 200 people were reportedly murdered and 700 still missing because of flooding.

“This is a President going for leisure when he couldn’t visit Minna, Niger State where over two hundred lives were lost and over 700 persons still missing in a flood natural disaster,” Obi lamented.

Also, he kicked against Tinubu’s recent visit to Makurdi, which according to him was politicized.

Obi said: “The other state in crisis where over two hundred lives were murdered, the President yielded to public pressure and visited Makurdi… for what turned out to be a political jamboree than condolence as public holiday was declared and children made to line up to receive the President who couldn’t even reach the village, the scene of the brutal attack.”

He drew comparisons between the size and population of Saint Lucia and the Nigerian cities ignored by the President.

“Makurdi is 937.4 Km², which is over 59% bigger than St Lucia, which is 617 km², and Minna is 6789 square kilometres, which is ten times bigger than St Lucia. St Lucia, with a population of 180,000, is less than half of Makurdi’s 489,839 and Minna, with 532,000 is almost three times the population of St Lucia,” he quoted his stats in the post.

Demanding for leadership hinged in empathy and urgency, Obi said: “I don’t think the situation in this country today calls for leisure for anybody in a position of authority, more so the President, on whose desk the buck stops.

“This regime has repeatedly shown its insensitivity and lack of passion for the populace…”

He also slammed the administration of prioritizing elites at the expense of the masses.

“This very obvious indifference of the federal government to the suffering of the Nigerian poor should urgently be reversed.

“One had expected the President to be asking God for extra hours in a day for the challenges, but what we see is a concentration of efforts in the 2027 election and on satisfying the wealthy while the mass poor continues to multiply in number,” Obi’s tweet further read.

He also called for national reflection and redirection.

He concluded: “Finally, I like to let our leaders know one thing: that the God-given resources of this country belong to all, not to a few.

“The time has come to put a stop to this drift before it consumes all and focus on pulling people out of poverty.”

Short URL: https://www.africanexaminer.com/?p=103344