Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s 2023 presidential candidate, has expressed strong disapproval of President Bola Tinubu’s recent trip to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, condemning it as ill-timed and insensitive, given Nigeria’s severe economic and security challenges.
Obi’s criticism comes on the heels of a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) report that reportedly ranks Nigeria as the 12th poorest country in the world by GDP per capita in 2025.
In a lengthy post on his X handle, titled ‘No, Mr President, this is not the time for Holidaying’, Obi expressed his “bewilderment” at what he perceives as a disconnect between the government’s priorities and the struggles of ordinary Nigerians.
Obi stressed the alarming state of insecurity, stating “In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war. Without any twilight, Nigeria ranks among the most insecure places in the world. Nigerians are hungrier, and most people do not know where their next meal will come from.”
His sharpest critique centred on the President’s trip, particularly after the recent IMF report. “Just this week, the International Monetary Fund, IMF released per capita data showing Nigeria as the 12th poorest country in the World and we remain the country with the highest number of people living in poverty,” Obi stated.
“With such a gory picture of one’s country, you can imagine my bewilderment when I saw a news release from the Presidency announcing that President Bola Tinubu is departing Nigeria today for a visit to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean.”
Obi referenced an earlier announcement by Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre, indicating that President Tinubu’s visit, which commenced on Saturday, June 28, 2025, would include “two of these days, June 30 and July 1, will be dedicated to an official visit, with the remainder of the trip set aside as a personal vacation.”
“I told the person who drew my attention to the Caribbean story that it cannot be true and that the President is just coming back from a holiday in Lagos,” Obi continued.
“I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority, more so the President, on whose table the buck stops in this country, with all the myriad problems in virtually all areas of governance, would contemplate a leisure trip at this time.”
The Labour Party chieftain further drew sharp contrasts between the President’s foreign travel and his perceived lack of visits to local disaster zones.
He criticised the President for going “for leisure when he couldn’t visit Minna, Niger state, where over two hundred lives were lost and over 700 persons still missing in a flood, natural disaster.”
He also recounted Tinubu’s visit to Makurdi, Benue State, following a massacre, describing it as a “political jamboree than condolence” where children were made to line up to receive the President who “couldn’t even reach the village, the scene of the brutal attack.”
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