Paul Ibe, an aide to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has said the reported decision by President Bola Tinubu to stay away from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is becoming harder to dismiss as an ordinary change of travel plans.
Ibe recalled that for months, the Tinubu administration spent enormous political and financial capital trying to repair its standing in Washington. He said the Federal Government entered into a $9 million lobbying arrangement aimed partly at countering damaging narratives about Nigeria, while senior officials, including NSA Nuhu Ribadu, were deployed for sustained engagements with the American establishment.
He noted that the government also advertised a proposed Nigeria-US mining agreement expected to be advanced around UNGA.
He said amid all of this, an unresolved FOIA litigation arose seeking the release of US law-enforcement records concerning President Tinubu.
"Tinubu has filed litigation to block the release of those documents. It is, however, not a trivial political inconvenience for a government seeking privileged access to a Trump administration that has elevated the destruction of drug-trafficking organisations and transnational cartels into a major national-security priority.
"The White House's own 2026 National Drug Control Strategy speaks of dismantling cartels, pursuing foreign narcotics networks, prosecuting money launderers and disrupting international drug supply chains," Atiku's aide said.
He said that after the millions spent on lobbying, the diplomatic groundwork and the public boasting about deals supposedly ready for signature, Nigerians deserve to know why President Tinubu is reportedly staying away from UNGA.
"What happened between the celebration and the cancellation? Were the meetings the Presidency expected in New York and Washington actually secured? Is the much-advertised mining arrangement proceeding as announced?" he asked.
"And, most importantly, has the controversy surrounding the outstanding US law-enforcement records, particularly the ones linking the President to alleged heroin trafficking become an obstacle to the kind of high-level political embrace the Tinubu administration desperately wants from Washington?
"The optics are unmistakably awkward: Tinubu government spending heavily to improve its image in Washington at precisely the moment an American administration is intensifying its war against international narcotics networks, while litigation continues over American law-enforcement records concerning the Nigerian President.
"That is the contradiction the Presidency cannot lobby away.
"Instead of propaganda, Nigerians deserve disclosure. Instead of expensive image laundering, let the records speak. And instead of telling Nigerians that everything is normal, the Presidency should explain why, after all the lobbying, all the diplomatic exertions and all the advance celebration of American deals, the President is reportedly no longer going where all that groundwork was supposed to matter most."
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