Nigeria's president skips the UN: Governing "by remote control" - is that possible?

Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu wants to be re-elected in early 2027. But he has been on holiday since August 30, first in Britain and then in France, and he has not traveled from there to the UN General Assembly in New York as expected. The 74-year-old was scheduled to travel home this Sunday, the presidential office announced last week - on Sunday, Nigerian media reported that the date had been postponed.

The largest opposition party, PDP (Peoples Democratic Party), responded that the statement about the impending return home was “disappointing and an impudence”. The statement is “disappointing” because “no reasonable parent goes on vacation while their house is on fire,” said PDP spokesman Ini Ememobong. "The president and the presidential office seem to suggest that the president - a servant of the people - is free to decide what duties he performs and from where. There is no greater insult to his office. When the president is not in Nigeria and is not solving the country's problems, he should be seeking international support for the country at the UN General Assembly, but instead he is hanging around and having fun in a country whose president has traveled to the UN General Assembly." French President Emmanuel Macron attended the UN General Assembly in New York.

The President's Office calls the president's four-week vacation a "official vacation," during which he is "constantly in contact with his homeland and regulates state affairs." This includes setting up an independent investigative commission to investigate the deaths of 37 miners in the custody of the security authorities after their arrest for allegedly illegal mining in Minna.

The sharp reaction from the opposition taps into public concerns that Nigeria may have slipped into a power vacuum. As usual, President Tinubu had handed over the reins of office to Vice President Kashim Shettima during his vacation. But in that capacity, Shettima traveled to New York last Sunday to represent Nigeria at the UN General Assembly in Tinubu's absence and is therefore not in Nigeria. Also abroad is Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who, according to the constitution, takes office when the president and vice president are both unable to hold office due to death, resignation, removal from office or incapacity. Akpabio traveled to Rome last week to pray for Nigeria.

It is not clear to some Nigerians who governs Nigeria when the President, his deputy and the Senate President are all abroad at the same time. Tinubu's office refers to the Secretary to the Federal Government, Senator George Akume, who represents the President at some of the ceremonies. In the ruling APC (All Progressives Congress) party, campaign manager Senator Abubakar Yari runs the business. But these are not legally secured solutions.

Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria's first vice president during democratization in 1999 and a failed presidential candidate since then, finds this situation unsatisfactory. "Nigeria cannot be governed by guesswork. You cannot govern Nigeria by social media from Europe or photos of private dinners from the Elysée Palace," he said.

Political expert Auta Ibrahim in Nigeria's capital Abuja says the concern is justified. Nigeria is traumatized by a past instability, he says, pointing to the long-term illness of President Umaru Yar'Adua before his death in office in 2010 and later the constant long health-related absences of President Muhammadu Buhari (2015-2023), Tinubu's predecessor. In both of these cases, you could always rely on the respective vice presidents, says Ibrahim. Now things are different for the first time.

“The simultaneous triple absence of the President, Vice President and Senate President catapults concern to unprecedented heights,” said Ibrahim. Nigeria, with its current major economic and security problems, is not suitable for governing “by remote control”.

The Constitution provides in Articles 145 and 146 that the President of the Republic shall report vacation or other unavailability in writing to the Presidents of both Houses of Parliament, thereby transferring his powers to the Vice President. What applies in the absence of such written notification or in the event of further complications such as those that have now arisen is not specified, and so there are always controversial debates about whether or not a president carries out his official duties while traveling.