Clerics Decry Tinubu’s State Visit to UK

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Enugu

As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his entourage continue to bask in red carpet receptions and diplomatic niceties in London, United Kingdom, a group of clerics has vehemently condemned the presidential visit to the UK.

The clerics, under the umbrella of the Concerned Igbo Ministers, expressed their “utter disgust and righteous anger (at) the spectacle of Nigeria’s president parading in London while Nigeria burns.”

In a statement signed by the Coordinator of the CIM, Rev Tony Uzo Anthony, the group argued that Tinubu’s visit to the UK has come at an inauspicious time when Nigeria is bleeding profusely.

The group of clerics argued that Tinubu has displayed insensitivity by remaining in London, clicking glasses at a royal banquet, and hobnobbing with the British Prime Minister while a suicide bomber unleashed carnage in Maiduguri, Borno State.

It also lamented that the president prefers to remain abroad “while mass slaughter continues unabated across the North and even in the president’s own backyard in Osun State and the entire Western region.

“This is not leadership. This is criminal negligence,” the clerics said, describing the presidential trip to London as “callous abandonment of a nation bleeding to death.

“Any patriotic world leader confronted with such heightened insecurity would have immediately cancelled the trip, flown to the scenes of slaughter, comforted the victims, and taken personal command of the crisis.

“Instead, President Tinubu has chosen foreign diplomacy over the lives of Nigerians,” the group said, adding that Nigeria’s leader has chosen “red carpets, handshakes with King Charles III and photo-ops with Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the blood of his citizens.”

Referencing the Chatham House analysis, which was “brutally clear (that) diplomacy alone will not fix Nigeria’s problems,” CIM regretted that Tinubu’s government, through the Information Minister, has dismissed all criticism as “ignorance and mischief.”

The clerics rejected the federal government’s response to critics as “arrogant nonsense,” reminding them that “the blood flowing in Borno State, the corpses in the North, and the fear gripping Osun State are not figments of anyone’s imagination.”

According to CIM, the harrowing situations “are the direct consequence of a government that has lost both the will and the capacity to protect its people.”

The group stated that “facts on the ground” have ultimately “exposed the lie that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is Nigeria’s problem,” while on the contrary, he remains the only leader with a workable vision for security.”

It pointed out that Kanu’s “timely establishment of the Eastern Security Network (ESN) has transformed the South-East into the safest region in the country today – a reality no amount of propaganda can erase.

“While the rest of Nigeria drowns in blood, the East stands as a shining exception because of IPOB’s proactive defence of its people.”

The Concerned Igbo Ministers maintained their earlier stance that the UK Government has a hand in the travails of Kanu (a British citizen) in the hands of Nigerian authorities.

The group, therefore, stated that the “only one worthwhile mission President Tinubu can accomplish during this ill-timed UK visit is that he must use the occasion to formally and urgently request the British monarch and the PM.

“It is an open secret that the British institutional fear of a sovereign Biafra is the real chain holding Mazi Nnamdi Kanu captive.

“The British Government remains one of the critical parties that must be assuaged for justice to be done. President Tinubu now has the perfect platform – face-to-face with the very authorities whose influence matters – to end this national shame,” the clerics said.