While ordinary Nigerians grapple with fear, loss, and rising insecurity, President Bola Tinubu’s continued stay in France feels like a painful silence from the very top, when what is needed is urgent leadership at home.
Development Diaries reports that President Tinubu left for France on 02 April, 2025, on a two-week working visit, according to his Special Advisor on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
This trip has attracted criticisms as expected, given the country’s security challenges. According to media reports, about 144 persons have been killed by herdsmen in Plateau and Benue states in the past two weeks.
At a time when families in Plateau, Benue, and other parts of the country are burying their dead, the president’s decision to remain abroad under the guise of a ‘working visit’ sends a disturbing message: that the blood of innocent citizens is not compelling enough to warrant his physical presence.
This is not just a failure in leadership optics; it is a grave neglect of responsibility.
No amount of remote coordination or virtual briefings can substitute the urgency and symbolic reassurance that come with a president being physically present during a national crisis.
The growing death toll, displacement of thousands, and destruction of entire communities require more than press statements and delegated authority.
Tinubu’s silence and absence have created a dangerous perception of indifference, and that perception is fast becoming reality.
The argument that there is no leadership vacuum in Nigeria because the vice president is active or the president can give orders from abroad is misleading and ignores how important it is for people to see and feel that their leader is present during national tragedies.
People are not just asking for policies; they are asking for accountability, empathy, and solidarity from the highest office in the land.
When a president is absent in the face of collective grief, the social contract between leader and citizens begins to unravel.
The absence of the president in a time of national grief is enough to break down the trust and connection between the government and the governed.
Moreover, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)’s attempts to defend the president’s absence by shifting focus to past officeholders or downplaying the urgency of the situation further highlight the administration’s detachment from the people’s pain.
Governance is not just about issuing commands; it is about responding visibly and decisively when the nation is bleeding. Anything less is a betrayal of the public trust and the mandate upon which the president was elected.
Development Diaries calls on President Tinubu to cut short his stay in France and return home to take charge of the deteriorating security situation.
He should meet with victims, hold his security chiefs to account, and show Nigerians that their lives matter more than overseas strategy sessions.
