Former presidential spokesman, Laolu Akande, has stated that it is not ideal for both Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima to be away on foreign trips at the same time, leaving governance unattended.
Akande made this remark on Thursday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme.
“It is important for one of them to be on the ground because the work of governance requires a lot of hand-holding,” he said.
“In my view, we still have a very serious problem of sustained trust in the relationship between Tinubu and Shettima over time,” Akande added.
Tinubu left Nigeria on October 2, 2024, for a two-week working leave in the United Kingdom, while Shettima departed Abuja on Wednesday for a two-day visit to Sweden, where he is representing Nigeria in bilateral discussions with the Scandinavian country.
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In a statement released Wednesday, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga assured the public that both leaders “remain fully engaged with the nation’s affairs, even while abroad,” emphasizing that there is no vacuum in governance.
However, Akande said, “The ideal thing is for us not to have a situation where both the president and the vice president are not in town, that’s the ideal situation.
I remember that during the eight years I served, that happened only once during the burial of the Queen (of England) which also fell at the same time as the UNGA and I knew how the president and the vice president were checking on each other to ensure that somebody gets back.
“So, in eight years, they managed to ensure that for the most part, one person is always on the ground. I know quite a few times when the vice president had to just wrap up foreign trips because something happened and the president will have to travel.”
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