President Tinubu Heads For France From London Amid Crisis At Home

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has departed the United Kingdom for Paris, France, where he is expected to attend an “important engagement”.

His Senior Special Assistant on Political and other matters, Ibrahim Kabir Masari, disclosed this.

Tweeting via his verified X handle, @KabirIbrah64, Masari said he had the honor of visiting President Tinubu at his private residence in the UK, where they engaged in productive discussions before he departed for Paris.

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“Today, I had the honor of visiting President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR at his private residence in the United Kingdom, where we engaged in productive discussions. We then departed for Paris, France, for another important engagement”, Masari said.

However, details of the engagement were not made public.

President Tinubu departed Nigeria on Wednesday, October 2, for a two-week working vacation in the UK, as part of his annual leave.

Recall that Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement on October 2, announced Tinubu’s departure for the two-week vacation

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will depart Abuja today for the United Kingdom to begin a two-week vacation, part of his yearly leave.

“He will use the two weeks as a working vacation and a retreat to reflect on his administration’s economic reforms.” Onanuga had said.

While Tinubu is on vacation abroad, Nigerians are hard hit by petrol scarcity which has led to long queues at filling stations across Nigeria.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and other marketers, on Wednesday, increased the price of petrol by 16 percent, the third increase in two months.   This signalled the beginning of deregulation in the downstream petroleum sector as marketers now have access to direct petrol purchase from Dangote refinery.

Petrol price was increased from N950/litre to N998/litre in Lagos and as high as N1,003 in northeastern states.

The deregulation means that marketers are free to determine their own prices without government interference.  However, queues have not ceased at filling stations across Nigeria despite high petrol prices.

Also, food inflation in August 2024 stood at 37.52 percent on a year-on-year basis, which was 8.18 percemt points higher compared to the rate recorded in August 2023 (29.34 percent).  The World Bank has ranked Nigeria fifth in the list of top 10 countries worse hit by food inflation in the world.

President Tinubu promised a zero importation of some food items, but this is yet to commence. He had approved the regulation for the implementation of zero percent duty and value-added tax (VAT) exemption on selected basic food items, with the policy slated to run between July 15 and December 21, 2024. The policy has however failed to take off, dashing the hopes of millions of Nigerians who had anticipated its immediate implementation in July.

ABN TV findings showed that the delay in the commencement of full implementation of the policy was due to the Federal Ministry of Finance’s failure to publish a list of importers qualified to participate in the process as required by the guidelines earlier issued by the Customs in August.

Also, the Customs is yet to receive the list of importers and companies qualified to participate as stipulated in the guidelines.

“The moment the Customs issued the guidelines conveying the approval of the Federal Ministry of Finance, technically, the implementation started. But since the guidelines came from the Federal Ministry of Finance, they are also supposed to provide the list of the importers qualified to benefit from the import waiver,” Abdullahi Maiwada, national public relations of the NCS, told BusinessDay on the phone.

According to the guidelines, Maiwada said, the Federal Ministry of Finance is supposed to provide the Customs with the list of importers qualified to benefit from the import waiver.