Former Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, has taken a swipe at President Bola Tinubu over his recent trip to Saint Lucia,...
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Former Labour Party presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, has taken a swipe at President Bola Tinubu over his recent trip to Saint Lucia, describing it as ill-timed and insensitive to the dire conditions in Nigeria.
Obi made his position known on Saturday via a post titled “No, Mr President, this is not the Time for Holidaying” on his official X (formerly Twitter) handle. He expressed shock at what he described as the government’s failure to prioritize governance, particularly at a time of deepening insecurity, hunger, and national distress.
“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 said.
He lamented that in the last two years, Nigeria has lost more lives to criminal violence than many countries at war and accused the Tinubu-led administration of showing indifference to the plight of ordinary Nigerians. He added that Nigeria had become one of the most insecure places in the world, with many citizens unable to afford their next meal.
The former Anambra State governor said he was stunned when he learned of the presidency’s announcement that President Tinubu would be travelling to Saint Lucia, a Caribbean island nation, for both official engagements and personal leisure. According to the release, Tinubu’s visit was to span several days, with only two of those — June 30 and July 1 — set aside for official business.
“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,” Obi said. “I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority… would contemplate a leisure trip at this time.”
He criticised the president’s failure to visit Minna, Niger State, where over 200 lives were lost and more than 700 others were still missing due to devastating floods. He also referenced the mass killings in another unnamed state, where Tinubu’s visit to the capital, Makurdi, was marked by a political jamboree rather than a genuine condolence mission. According to Obi, school children were made to line the streets while the president failed to visit the actual village where the massacre took place.
Obi compared the size and population of Makurdi and Minna with Saint Lucia, noting that both Nigerian cities are far larger and more populous than the island nation Tinubu chose for his vacation. “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 pointed out.
He accused the administration of being detached from the realities on ground, saying that instead of focusing on the suffering masses, it had channelled more energy into politicking ahead of the 2027 elections. “This regime has repeatedly shown its insensitivity and lack of passion for the populace, going by the way it prioritises the rich and shows indifference to the poor,” Obi added.
Obi ended his statement with a warning to the nation’s leadership: “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.”
He urged Nigerian leaders to remember that the nation’s resources belong to all citizens, not just the privileged few. “The time has come to put a stop to this drift before it consumes all and focus on pulling people out of poverty,” he concluded.
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