Labour Party leader and former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has strongly criticised President Bola Tinubu’s planned visit to Saint Lucia, calling it poorly timed and deeply insensitive, especially given the severe economic and security challenges currently facing Nigeria.
President Tinubu is scheduled to depart the country on Saturday, heading first to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean before proceeding to Brazil to attend the upcoming BRICS summit.
Reacting to the announcement, Obi took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his dismay and concern. He questioned the priorities of the current administration, arguing that such a trip reflects a pattern of poor governance and detachment from the suffering of ordinary Nigerians.
> “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 stated.
Highlighting the rising levels of hunger and insecurity, Obi said Nigeria is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous and unstable countries in the world. He decried the alarming number of lives lost to crime and violence, drawing comparisons to countries officially at war.
> “In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war,” he wrote.
“Nigerians are hungrier, and most people do not know where their next meal will come from.”
Obi expressed disbelief over the timing of Tinubu’s trip, particularly after what he described as a recent personal holiday in Lagos. Quoting Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre, he revealed that the visit would span both official duties on June 30 and July 1 and a personal vacation afterwards.
> “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,” Obi said.
He added that he initially dismissed the news as untrue, believing it was unthinkable for a leader to embark on a leisure trip during a national crisis.
Obi also condemned Tinubu’s failure to visit flood-ravaged areas in Minna, Niger State, where over 200 people reportedly died and 700 remain missing. He contrasted this neglect with what he viewed as a politically motivated visit to Benue State, where he claimed the President’s actions were more theatrical than compassionate.
> “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 rather than condolence.”
Obi drew sharp contrasts between Nigeria’s troubled regions and Saint Lucia, questioning the wisdom of prioritising a visit to a small Caribbean nation over addressing major domestic crises.
> “Makurdi is 937.4 km², over 59% larger than St Lucia at 617 km². Minna is ten times its size at 6789 km². St Lucia’s population of 180,000 is less than half of Makurdi’s 489,839, and Minna’s 532,000 is nearly three times more.”
He concluded by urging for more compassionate leadership, stating that current government actions show a lack of empathy and seriousness about Nigeria’s critical issues.
> “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.”
Obi warned that the administration’s apparent disregard for the masses must be urgently corrected, lamenting that instead of addressing the nation’s crises, the focus appears to be shifting toward the 2027 elections and the comfort of the wealthy elite.
> “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.”
