Much ado about Tinubu’s extended holidays

Wednesday Column By Egena Sunday Ode

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When the Presidency announced last week that President Bola Tinubu had extended his vacation by a few more days, I came under a barrage of calls. Friends, colleagues and even politicians wanted my take. But I was not moved. We have travelled this road before.

As I settled to write this column, some former presidents and heads of state kept ringing in my head. General Sani Abacha was one of them.

His reign was turbulent, no doubt. But not on account of poor economic performance. He is still credited with naira stability. Nigerians remember him 27 years after for the infrastructure wonders of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund, PTF – the body created to manage the N3 margin from the petrol price increase.

But Abacha was holed up in the Presidential Villa for five years until he passed. That made him the least-travelled Nigerian leader since Independence. The reason is an open secret. His administration was accused of poor human rights record and battled Western sanctions till death. That credential would have been celebrated for saving money for development, but the uncovering of funds stashed abroad by his family, popularly known as Abacha loot, remains a sore point.

Unlike Abacha, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had the whole world to conquer. He was seen as a total break from our pariah past. And he didn’t hesitate. Nigerians of that era quickly called him a globetrotter.

And whenever the opposition criticized his trips, his supporters would counter with the need to break the diplomatic jinx. The ready gain always pointed to as justification was the Paris Club debt forgiveness.

In between them was Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a man not given to much travelling. His poor health imposed a natural limitation on him. But when you recall that he chose to spend his vacation at the Obudu Cattle Ranch in Cross River State, you would agree that he was simply not disposed to junketing abroad.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan also travelled widely. He remains one of the few Nigerian leaders in recent times to brave the extreme Davos cold for the World Economic Forum.

Late President Muhammadu Buhari too travelled extensively abroad, three times more than his local trips. Despite the health challenge he encountered in his first tenure, he still scored very high in foreign travels.

And Nigerians did not keep quiet. They shouted to the high heavens about their President’s endless shuttles across the world. Not even repeated spins about shopping for foreign investors could assuage them. The low point was when he was literally forced out of his hospital bed in London to return home. The OurMumuDonDo movement led by Charles Oputa (Charly Boy), Deji Adeyanju and Omoyele Sowore kept the nation awake to achieve that mission.

That is why the current agitation surrounding President Tinubu’s extended holidays did not impress me.

He made his movement public knowledge in August. A press release was issued by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, to that effect. When the initial three weeks became insufficient, Tinubu did not leave Nigerians in the dark. The extra one week was swiftly communicated. And then two more days, which by the grace of God terminated yesterday as the President was scheduled to returned to Lagos.

Three weeks plus one week plus two days, if you asked me, is only a trigger for the opposition to sustain the sentiment that President Tinubu had travelled enough even if he had served two terms.

According to an analysis of government expenditure records by GovSpend, this latest trip is Tinubu’s 52nd foreign trip since assuming office on May 29, 2023, spending about 261 days abroad. The Presidency is said to have spent N37.64 billion on travel between June 2023 and April 2026.

A section of the opposition has placed a tab on these trips to drive the impression that our leader is spending scarce foreign exchange junketing across the globe while hunger suffocates the masses at home.

Some have also argued along constitutional lines that if the President will be away for a certain period, he must transmit power to his deputy. But if the phrase “working vacation” as used by the Presidency has solved that riddle, who is the opposition to call illegal what the law has validated?

But I did not agree with the Presidency on the generalization that in this digital age, the President can work from anywhere in the world. Of course he can. But that response did not fit the context. It oversimplified a rather contentious issue.

It took my memory back to the Yar’Adua days when his Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, told agitated Nigerians that his boss could sign the national budget from anywhere. The context was the illness that kept Yar’Adua on a hospital bed in Saudi Arabia for months and the year’s Appropriation Bill was purportedly signed by him. Nigerians disbelieved the minister and their outrage increased.

If that explanation was inappropriate and unconvincing then, it cannot be right now either. There is nothing here to suggest that the President does not have a right to his holidays. But Nigerians need to be persuaded that their President is always in full control of affairs and that nothing will be left unattended on account of his absence.

Last week, before leaving London for Paris, President Tinubu witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ogun State Government and DP World to build a Gateway deep seaport in Ogun Waterside and create a Blue Marine Economic Zone.

DP World, one of the world’s leading ports and logistics operators, plans to invest $7 billion for the seaport and the economic zone. The President pledged regulatory clarity for investors.

Engagements like this may be worth the endurance of Nigerians. And it answers the question of what these trips have achieved: if one trip brings $7 billion in investment commitments to one state, perhaps the much ado about holidays is, indeed, much ado about nothing.