‘He’ll see his doctors’ – Sowore dismisses Tinubu’s UK visit as ‘diplomatic excursion’

Human rights lawyer and African Action Congress presidential candidate Omoyele Sowore has dismissed President Bola Tinubu’s ongoing state visit to the United Kingdom as a “diplomatic excursion” devoid of any real benefit to Nigeria.

Sowore made the remarks during an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Wednesday, as Tinubu continued his historic two-day visit — the first official trip by a Nigerian leader to the UK in nearly four decades.

Taking aim at the optics surrounding the visit, Sowore insinuated that the president’s health may be among the unstated motivations for the trip.

“These visits are nothing more than diplomatic excursions. Perhaps the president will also see his doctors; he has not travelled in about a month,” he said.

The activist-politician argued that the fanfare accompanying the visit masked a fundamental absence of tangible returns for Nigeria.

“Beyond the fanfare you are seeing on TV, it’s not bringing anything to Nigeria that Nigeria cannot get or should not have. That’s the point I’m making, and we are just deceiving ourselves all the time by saying this time we travel,” he said.

Sowore further challenged the broader justification by the Tinubu administration for the president’s numerous foreign visits since assuming office in May 2023. 

While the presidency has consistently maintained that the trips are aimed at attracting investment, Sowore insisted that not a single result had materialised.

“The cost of these travels is far more at the end, outweighing whatever we come from the so-called investment they claim is going to happen,” he said, describing the trips as a waste of resources.

“If you have it right, investors will come to your country. You don’t need to travel,” he added, arguing that Nigeria is “just burning fuel in the air with our aircraft.”

Sowore also suggested that Nigerian musicians deliver more economic value from their foreign tours than the president does from his diplomatic trips.

“Sometimes, some of these our musicians who go and perform in the UK bring more money into the country than when the president travels to the UK or anywhere,” he said.

President Tinubu and the First Lady, Oluremi, arrived at London’s Stansted Airport on Tuesday for the state visit, which includes a meeting with King Charles III and bilateral talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

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