Foreign trips: HURIWA berates Buhari, Osinbajo for departing Nigeria same time
President Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy,Vice President Yemi Osinbajo are under fire for departing the country for foreign trips at the same time.
While President Buhari has left Abuja for New York, United States, for 10 days to attend the annual meeting of global leaders, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77) Vice President Osinbajo, at the same time, is attending Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in the United Kingdom.
A Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has described their combined absence as disconcerting.
According to HURIWA, their departure at the same time on foreign trips shows a nation on autopilot since 2015.
HURIWA also stated that the decision of the President and the Vice President to both depart the shores of the country to fritter away resources at a time of hyperinflation and a worrying state of insecurity shows that the current administration does not care about the well-being and welfare of the populace.
The group said both of them are simply after satisfying their insatiable tastes for globetrotting and epicurean tendencies.
A statement from the Presidency had disclosed that Buhari, among many other activities, will take his turn to deliver an address on the second day of the General Debates on Wednesday, September 21, while Osinbajo would join other world leaders at the funeral service scheduled to hold at Westminster Abbey ahead of the service.
HURIWA berated President Buhari for jetting out of the shores of the nation at about the same time as his deputy to attend to ceremonial events that won’t positively or constructively contribute any solution to the economic and security challenges facing Nigeria.
The group said the Nigerian constitution did not envisage a situation such as this when both leaders will abdicate their duties for some days to attend to ceremonial events.
The rights group emphasized that the Constitution expected that either the President or his Vice must be on ground in Nigeria.
HURIWA stated if the President loved his nation so much more than pursuing his passion for globetrotting, he could have asked the Vice President to stay back in Nigeria whilst he attends the funeral ceremonial event for the departed Queen of England and then fly to the United States of America to attend the General Assembly of the United Nations.
HURIWA said: “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 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 minds to provide quality leadership but have all these 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”.
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