By Oyinkansayo Wole-Bodunde.
Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate in 2023, has slammed President Bola Tinubu over his trip to Saint Lucia. He called the trip “ill-timed and insensitive.”
According to Obi, the timing of the visit is wrong considering the country’s struggles with poverty, insecurity, and natural disasters. In a statement titled “No, Mr President, This is Not the Time for Holidaying,” Obi expressed his disappointment, saying, “I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority—more so the President, on whose table the buck stops—would contemplate a leisure trip at this time.”
He also said, “In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war.” He emphasized the country’s insecurity, saying, “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.”
Obi also criticized President Tinubu’s decision to publicize the trip, calling it insensitive to the nation’s struggles. He condemned the President’s absence from disaster-hit areas, such as Minna in Niger State, where floods have claimed over 200 lives. Obi questioned the sincerity of Tinubu’s visit to Benue State, labeling it a “political jamboree.”
Finally he said, “What I have seen and witnessed in the last two years has left me in shock about poor governance delivery and the apparent channelling of energy into politics and elite satisfaction, while the masses in our midst are languishing in want.”
