Former presidential spokesman, Laolu Akande, says it is not ideal for President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima to leave governance for foreign trips simultaneously.
Akande spoke on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday.
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“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 the President and the Vice President over time,” Akande added.
While Tinubu departed Nigeria on October 2, 2024, for a two-week work leave in the United Kingdom, Shettima left Abuja on Wednesday for Sweden on a two-day visit to represent Nigeria in bilateral engagements with the Scandinavian nation.
In a statement on Wednesday, presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga said the two leaders “are fully engaged with the nation’s affairs, even while they are away” and 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.”
