PHOTOS: Tinubu Arrives Rome For Pope Leo XIV’s Inauguration

President Bola Tinubu, on Saturday, arrived in Rome, Italy, to join other world leaders for the installation mass of Pope Leo XIV as the 267th Bishop of Rome and the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

The mass will take place on Sunday, May 18.

Tinubu was received at the Mario De Bernardo Military Airport by Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and officials from Vatican City and the Nigerian Embassy after the plane touched down at 6 pm local time.

Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga said Pope Leo’s invitation of Tinubu, communicated by the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, sought the Nigerian leader’s physical presence “at this moment of particular importance for the Catholic Church and the world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts.”

“Your great nation is particularly dear to me, as I worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos during the 1980s,” Pope Leo XIV further said in the invitation.

President Tinubu’s entourage includes the Archbishop of Owerri and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Archbishop Lucius Ugorji; Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja; and Alfred Martins of Lagos.

Mathew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, is also in the president’s entourage.

PHOTOS: Tinubu Arrives Rome For Pope Leo XIV’s Inauguration is first published on The Whistler Newspaper