Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has issued a stinging demand for an explanation from President Bola Tinubu over his decision to skip the 81st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York for the third consecutive year, raising questions about whether the President’s past legal controversies in the United States have become a diplomatic liability for Nigeria.
President Tinubu has mandated Vice President Kashim Shettima to lead Nigeria’s delegation to the high-level General Debate, continuing a pattern established during the 79th and 80th UNGA sessions.
In a statement released by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku argued that while Vice President Shettima is capable, delegation cannot permanently substitute for the personal authority, visibility, and responsibility of a sitting president on the world’s most important diplomatic platform.
“Tinubu cannot continue to treat Nigeria’s seat at the world’s biggest diplomatic table as though it were an inconvenient appointment that can be endlessly outsourced,” Atiku stated. He warned that such serial absenteeism causes Nigeria to lose critical opportunities to engage investors, development partners, and foreign governments, noting that “international capital does not pursue a country whose leader repeatedly abandons the room in which consequential economic relationships are being built.”
Atiku further highlighted a glaring contradiction in the administration’s foreign policy strategy. He pointed to recent documents filed under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, which reveal that the Federal Government retained the Washington-based DCI Group through a $9 million contract to advocate for Nigeria’s security efforts and maintain U.S. support.
“Why hire lobbyists to speak for Nigeria in America when the Nigerian President cannot summon the courage to appear at the world’s biggest diplomatic gathering on American soil?” Atiku questioned.
The former vice president did not shy away from linking the President’s absence to his controversial legal history in the United States. Atiku referenced a 1993 forfeiture case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, where funds in accounts controlled by Tinubu were alleged by an IRS criminal-investigation agent to be connected to narcotics trafficking and money laundering, ultimately resulting in the forfeiture of approximately $460,000.
Atiku asked whether “one man’s personal history” had become a burden on Nigeria’s diplomatic engagement, demanding that the Presidency clarify if the President is legally free to travel to the United States. “If there is no impediment, the Presidency must explain this serial absenteeism. If an impediment exists, Nigerians have a right to know,” he asserted.
He concluded with a direct, pointed challenge: “Mr. Bola, your seat was reportedly secured near President Donald Trump. Why did you refuse to occupy it? What exactly are you afraid of in America?”
In response to the growing criticism, Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Jimoh Ibrahim, defended the President’s absence. In a statement from the Nigerian Mission in New York, the envoy noted that over 60 percent of countries listed to speak at the 81st session are being represented by vice presidents or foreign ministers. He clarified that President Tinubu is currently on annual leave in France and emphasized that the Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs are “adequately positioned to represent Nigeria” and participate fully in the session’s diplomatic engagements.
As the General Debate unfolds in New York, Atiku’s broadside ensures that the President’s empty chair will remain a focal point of domestic political scrutiny, framing the absence not merely as a scheduling conflict, but as a potential surrender of Nigeria’s global voice to the shadows of personal history.
Promise Idoko is Junior Reporter working with moderncrux He covers global politics and international affairs. Based in Nigeria,
