Presidency Defends Tinubu’s Absence: ‘He Does Not Need to Be in Abuja’

The Presidency has pushed back against questions surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s prolonged absence from Abuja, saying the President is hale and hearty and has continued to discharge his responsibilities.

ValidViewNetwork reports that Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, made the clarification in a statement on Sunday.

Onanuga said Tinubu had been on a working vacation and was entitled to it, adding that modern communications made it unnecessary for the President to be physically present in Abuja to perform his duties.

The Presidency said Tinubu had continued working during the trip, including meetings with investors in France.

The statement comes shortly before Tinubu’s expected return to Nigeria on Tuesday.

The argument, however, has reopened an old Nigerian political debate about whether presidential authority depends on the President’s physical presence in Abuja.

Interestingly, the controversy carries an echo from the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua era.

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Michael Aondoakaa, who served as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice under Yar’Adua, was famously drawn into political arguments over the his assertion over the then President’s ability to govern while away from Nigeria, Aondoakaa stated “the President can rule from anywhere in the world”.

Opposition politicians at the time mocked Aondoakaa for that statement as the number one legal officer in the country at that time and in one of their political banters, Aondoakaa was described as a “failed lawyer from Gboko”.

That old political ammunition now makes the current controversy rather ironic.

A position once attacked by opposition politicians has resurfaced under a government whose political actors were once on the other side of that argument.

The substantive issue, however, remains larger than political banter. Whether a President can work remotely is different from whether Nigerians receive adequate information about the President’s location, schedule and official engagements.

ValidViewNetwork reports that Tinubu’s expected return tomorrow will probably shift the debate from where he is to what he does upon his return.