ADC Raises Questions Over Tinubu’s Whereabouts After BRICS Meeting

The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has challenged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to tell Nigerians where he was for five days after the end of the BRICS summit in Brazil.

Tinubu had attended the summit, which ended on July 7. But there was no news as to the president’s whereabouts until his return to Nigeria in the early hours of Sunday, July 13.

“The President, who returned in the early hours of Sunday, had been missing from public view since the end of the Summit in Brazil without any official explanation as to his whereabouts,” the ADC said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement, signed by the spokesman of the ADC, Bolaji Abdullahi, wondered where President Tinubu had been since July 7, when other leaders that attended the summit had since returned to their respective countries.

“Since the summit ended on Monday, July 7th, all the other world leaders who were in attendance returned home, briefed their citizens, and got back to work.

“But our President? He only reappeared in Abuja in the early hours of Sunday, July 13—without a word, without a briefing, or any explanation as to why his return to the country was delayed.

“A whole five days is significant in the life of a country, especially a country like ours battling 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 holidays, he was on official duty. We therefore cannot wish those five days away and we demand a clear explanation for them,” Abdullahi stated.

The. opposition qualition noted with concern what it considered the president’s disdain for accountability in many of his foreign trips, a trend it said, has become a distinct hallmark of the administration.

“In January 2024, a so-called private visit to France turned into a two-week disappearance. No photos, and no statements from our President.

“In April 2024, President Tinubu travelled to the Netherlands, and then to Riyadh, for the World Economic Forum. The summit ended on April 29th, 2024, but there was not a word from him until May 8th, 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 5th, and mysteriously surfaced in London on September 11th.

“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 does not deserve to know,” the party added.

The ADC noted that each episode of the president’s” “mysterious disappearances” had sparked all manners of speculations and rumours that are not only unhealthy to the polity, but also endanger Nigeria’s perception in the eyes of the world.

“We urge Nigerians to take note. A president that disappears without explanation cannot be trusted to be present to solve the crises that we face.

“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,” the party added.

ADC Raises Questions Over Tinubu’s Whereabouts After BRICS Meeting is first published on The Whistler Newspaper