Labour Party standard bearer, Peter Obi, has taken a critical look at President Bola Tinubu’s leisure trip to St. Lucia in the Caribbean as unwise given the myriad problems at home he needs to tackle.

In a long write-up on his X handle on Saturday titled, ‘No, Mr President this is not the time for Holidaying’ Obi wrote,

“Dear Nigerians I am struggling with my senses to understand what is happening to governance in this country.

“What I have seen and witnessed in the last two years has left me in shock about poor governance delivery and apparent channelling of energy into politics and satisfaction of the elites, while the masses in our midst are languishing in want.

“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.

“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.

“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.

The Presidency release merely confirmed an earlier news report since last week  where the Prime Minister of the Caribbean Philip J. Pierre announced at a pre-cabinet press briefing on Monday, last week that

President Bola Tinubu is expected to depart Nigeria on Saturday, June 28, 2025, for Saint Lucia for official engagements and private leisure time.

“According to the Prime Minister’s announcement “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. 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.

“This is a President 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. I wonder which type of incident will happen before a President is attracted to show physical sympathy to the distressed citizens.

“The other state in crisis where over two hundred lives were murdered, the President yielded to public pressure and visited Makurdi the state capital for what turned out to be a political jamboree than condolence as public holiday was declared and children made to line up to receive the President who couldn’t even reach the village, the scene of the brutal attack.

“In terms of land size, Makurdi is  937.4 Km², which is over 59% bigger than St Lucia, which is 617 km², and Minna is 6789 square kilometres, which is ten times bigger than St Lucia.

St Lucia, with a population of 180,000, is less than half of Makurdi’s 489 839  and Minna, with 532, 000  is almost three times the population of St Lucia.

“I don’t think the situation in this country today calls for leisure for anybody in a position of authority, more so the President, on whose desk the buck stops. This regime has repeatedly shown its insensitivity and lack of passion for the populace, going by the way it prioritises the rich and shows indifference to the poor.

“This very obvious indifference of the federal government to the suffering of the Nigerian poor should urgently be reversed. One had expected the President to be asking God for extra hours in a day for the challenges, but what we see is a concentration of efforts in the 2027 election and on satisfying the wealthy while the mass poor continues to multiply in number.

Finally, I like to let our leaders know one thing that the God given resources of this country belong to all, not to a few. The time has come to put a stop to this drift before it consumes all and focus on pulling people out of poverty.”

“A new Nigeria is POssible”.

By Akinjide Aina, Abuja Bereau Chief

“Real Reason Ganduje Was Forced Out,  The Shettima, Kwankwaso Angles”

Apparently living up to his hype moniker cum chieftaincy title, “Jagaban”  which roughly translates to ” a war leader” or “strong man” and signifies someone who is powerful and influential, President Bola Tinubu has formally commenced high stakes re-election strategies and he is taking no prisoners.

Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, the loquacious immediate past Governor of Kano state and until Friday, National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC is the president’s first victim. The next in line, some  APC sources told this magazine, is Vice President Kashim Shettima.

Contrary to his lame duck reasons  for leaving his plum party position , Ganduje, This  Magazine was told, was given just 24 hours to resign or be disgraced out. He complied promptly having got the wind that his corruption cases have been dusted up and were about to be acted upon with dispatch by the EFCC. In effect, the  former Governor was forced to resign.

But why?

Ganduje, it was learnt, was not ready to share the Kano political space with anyone and was, therefore, resisting the Tinubu- inspired defection to the APC, of the presidential candidate of the New Nigerian Peoples Party, NNPP in the 2023 presidential election, Dr Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso. Recall that Ganduje was Kwankwaso’s Deputy and was instrumental to the ex- APC National Chairman becoming Governor. However, no sooner had Ganduje settled down as Governor than he started fighting Kwankwaso.

Meanwhile, President Tinubu who sources claimed has sworn to bulldoze his way back to Aso Rock  irrespective “of the politcal cost,  encounberances and opposition”, has engaged 2027 cold calculations while Ganduje was busy flexing his muscles with his former boss.

Realising that Kwankwaso is a bigger pie and wields enormous electoral strength than Ganduje and with the former refusing to have anything to do with the APC if the latter remained as the party’s National Chairman, Tinubu wasted no time in ditching Ganduje to court Kwankwaso.

With the core Muslim North not disposed to supporting his re-election, President  Tinubu is believed to have talked Kwankwaso into joining the APC to shore up his ( Tinubu) electability and dwindling support base and goodwill in that part of the country.

Though, the President is considering running with a Northern Christian Deputy in 2027- reportedly either former Speaker of the House of Reps, Yakubu Dogara from Bauchi state or former Benue state Governor and current Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, George Akume- Kwankwaso may likely replace Shettima in another Muslim-Muslim ticket as a last minute effort to placate the core North.

Multiple APC sources allege that if it becomes clear, as 2007 approaches, that replacing Shettima with another Muslim VP is the only life-wire for Tinubu’s re-election, Shettima will  resign the same way as Ganduje  so that Kwankwaso will be named the VP and run with the President as a sitting VP in 2027.

This medium was unable to confirm this.

There is also the  suggestion that to fully take control of the Kano APC, the Senator representing Kwankwaso’s Senatorial district should be asked to resign so that the former Governor will go to the Senate; that way he will automatically become the APC leader in the State in line with President Tinubu’s determination to have him as a member of his inner caucus knowing his electoral worth.

The magazine gathered that even if Kwankwaso is not eventually picked as Tinubu’s running mate for 2027 presidential election, the President will reconfigure the power equation in the country in his second term to accommodate him in the top echelon.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed sources allege that President Tinubu’s decision to drop Shettima is on the table. “Take it to the bank, Vice President Kashim Shettima is a one-term VP; he will not return in 2027 because Baba (President Tinubu) will not re-nominate him as his running mate. In 2023. Shettima brought nothing to the table in terms of votes and the man (Tinubu) does not want to take chances in 2027”, a highly placed APC source told the magazine.

Besides, some party chieftains that have the ears of the President  reportedly alleged that the number two citizen  orchestrated the recent fracas at the APC North east Summit in Gombe  to curry sympathy within and outside the Northeast with the view of forcing the President’s hands.

Recall that violence erupted at the summit following the organisers failure to also endorse Shettima after endorsing President Tinubu for second term.

The said APC chieftains, mostly from the South west, point to the incident as another of Shettima’s alleged desperation and vaulting ambition, recalling that the VP, as a running mate, had, during the electioneering campaign for the 2023 presidential election, emphatically declared that if he and Tinubu eventually got elected, he (Shettima) as Vice president will be in charge of security while Tinubu takes charge of the economy, a remark many viewed as a notice of an impending power struggle with his principal if elected.