The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has said the disappearances of President Bola Tinubu after every summit give Nigeria a bad image before the world. ADC in a statement by the interim National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, challenged the president to tell Nigerians his whereabouts for five days, after the BRICS Summit in Brazil. Tinubu came back to the country in the early hours of yesterday after the summit, but ADC said Nigerians deserve an official explanation to his whereabouts.
The party noted that the summit ended on Monday, July 7, and other world leaders who were in attendance returned home, briefed their citizens, and got back to work, but Tinubu only reappeared in Abuja in the early hours of yesterday with out a briefing, or any explanation as to why his return to the country had been delayed.
“A whole five days is significant in the life of a country, especially a country like ours battling with several existential challenges of insecurity and a tottering economy that has made life increasingly difficult for the majority of Nigerians. “The president was not on holiday, he was on official duty. We therefore cannot wish those five days away and we demand a clear explanation for them,” ADC stated.
The party noted what it called Tinubu’s disdain for accountability around his overseas trips, and recalled that in January 2024, after a private visit to France for two weeks, the president came back without any photo or a statement.
ADC added that: “In April 2024, President Tinubu travelled to the Netherlands, and then to Riyadh, for the World Economic Forum. “The summit ended on April 29, 2024, but there was not a word from him until May 8, 2024. Those were nine days of unexplained vacuum.
“In August 2024, President Tinubu flew to China via Dubai. After his engagements in Beijing, he vanished from public view on September 5, and mysteriously surfaced in London on September 11. “He was missing for six days – no explanations, no letter transmitted to the National Assembly, just silence.
“And in the same August 2024, the president also embarked on yet another ‘brief work stay’ in Paris. He remained incommunicado for three days, then quietly returned, as if the nation did not deserve to know.”
The party noted that each episode of President Tinubu’s “mysterious disappearances has sparked all manners of speculations and rumours that are not only unhealthy to the polity, but also endangers Nigeria’s perception in the eyes of the world.”
It told Nigerians that a president who disappears without explanation cannot be trusted to be present to solve the crises that the country faces. “A president that vanishes without accountability has no moral authority to demand sacrifice from citizens.
“Most importantly, a ruling party that makes excuses for these serial disappearances has nothing but contempt for the people it governs and has no regard for accountability,” ADC stated.
