While President Buhari and his wife, Aisha, left Nigeria on Sunday for New York, United States, for a 10-day annual meeting of global leaders at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77), Vice-President Osinbajo is in the United Kingdom to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has attacked President Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, for leaving Nigeria at the same time, describing their action as disconcerting.
While President Buhari and his wife, Aisha, left Nigeria on Sunday for New York, United States, for a 10-day annual meeting of global leaders at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77), Vice-President Osinbajo is in the United Kingdom to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
Reacting to their absence in the country, HURIWA described Nigeria as a nation on autopilot since 2015 when Buhari took over power.
According to a report by Daily Post, the rights group also noted that the decision of the President and Vice-President to leave the country to "fritter away resources at a time of hyperinflation and worrying state of insecurity shows that the current administration does not care about the well-being and welfare of Nigerians, rather, they are simply after satisfying their insatiable tastes for globetrotting and epicurean tendencies".
A statement by Buhari’s Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina earlier stated that among many other activities, President Buhari will take his turn to deliver an address on the second day of the General Debates on Wednesday, September 21 while Osinbajo joins other world leaders at the funeral service scheduled to hold at Westminster Abbey.
But HURIWA berated President Buhari for junketing out of Nigeria at about the same time as his deputy to attend ceremonial events that won’t positively or constructively contribute to any solution to the economic and security challenges facing the country.
According to the group, the Nigerian constitution did not envisage a situation such as this when both leaders will abandon their duties for some days to attend ceremonial events.
HURIWA further maintained that according to the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it is expected that either the President or the Vice-President must be on the ground in the country.
The group argued that if President Buhari loves his country more than the pursuit of his passion for globetrotting, he could have asked Osinbajo to stay back in the country while he attends the funeral ceremonial event for the late Queen of England and then go to the US for the General Assembly meeting of the United Nations.
“We are beginning to believe that President Muhammadu Buhari is scared of joining other invitees to the Queen’s funeral in a bus ride to the venue except for the President of the USA who is allowed to ride in his presidential SUV cars but all other world leaders are restricted to the use of buses.
“There is no reason both the President and his Vice will disappear from Nigeria at the same time if not that from the word go, they haven’t been in the right frame of mind to provide quality leadership but have all this while governed Nigeria in an autopilot way which is why armed non-state actors are causing unprecedented commotion and bloody insecurity all across the country and inflation has ballooned out of control at over 20 percent,” the statement said.