Tinubu and Shettima Both Left Nigeria at the Same Time, and Odinkalu Is Not Having It

Chidi Odinkalu has said it plainly: this is the first administration where the president and vice president are making it a habit to leave the country at the same time without proper leadership. President Bola Tinubu is in Paris on an extended vacation. Vice President Kashim Shettima is in New York for the 81st UN General Assembly. So who is actually running Nigeria this week? Nobody has answered that question, and that silence is the loudest thing coming out of Abuja right now.

Odinkalu, former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, appeared on Channels Television's Politics Today and did not soften a single word. He said, "This is the first administration where the vice president and the president are making it a habit to leave the country without providing proper leadership." He went further: "Under Obasanjo, Obasanjo would never contemplate it. Yar'Adua did not contemplate it. Jonathan did not allow it." He also pointed at Section 145, noting there is no mention of a working vacation anywhere in the text, and that the section deals with being away for a period of 21 days. That is not a small technical point. That is the Constitution being read aloud to people who swore to uphold it.

Some will say the man is just politicking, that presidents deserve rest and the country will not collapse because two men are abroad. I have heard that argument before, and it has never once explained who signs what when the house is empty. My father used to complain about the same thing in the 1980s, and I am now complaining about it in 2026. That is the part that worries me more than the vacation itself. Be honest with me, if your landlord travelled and the caretaker travelled on the same day, would you still pay your rent on time?