Reuben Abati, former presidential spokesman now Morning Show anchor on Arise News, has slammed the two sons of Bola Tinubu, Seyi and Yinka, for travelling with the President’s official delegation to Qatar last week.
Abati, Aso Rock spokesman under former President Goodluck Jonathan, said Seyi and Yinka are parading themselves as jobless and feel entitled to tax payers’ money as sons of the President.
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The delegation contained 18 people more than the 20 Tinubu announced in January as the number of individuals who would henceforth accompany him on foreign trips.
In effect, Tinubu broke his own rule, which Nigerians had thought he put in place as part of measures to cost the huge cost of governance in order to free up funds to invest in the productive sectors of the economy.
The inclusion of Seyi and Yinka in the delegation to Qata has again generated backlash on social media.
Abati took it up on the Morning Show on Arise TV, criticising how Seyi and his brother presented themselves as “jobless” and “invalids” because of their father’s status.
He announced having obtained his doctorate and was doing well in life when he was their age at 24.
“May we begin to ask, what do the President’s children do for a living? I don’t know specifically how old they are but looking at them, by the time I was their age, I was doing something concrete with my life. I got a PhD at 24. I wasn’t depending on any father,” he said.
It is also public knowledge Abati worked at The Guardian for 20 years, after which he became Villa spokesman for eight years, and later joined Arise TV.
“People must get to a stage in their lives when they will hold themselves together, I don’t want adults behaving like invalids hanging around just because your father is in a position,” he added.
“All these children of privilege sometimes overdo it, and these are boys that would probably have wives at home. Some of these girls, what they go through is very embarrassing. You can’t have a husband that’s just hanging around, that cannot stand on his two feet as a man.’’
Government officials who travelled with Tinubu to Qata included Borno Governor Babagana Zulum, Kaduna Governor Uba Sani, Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar, and Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun.
They also included Solid Minerals Minister Dele Alake; National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, and Nigerian National Petroleum Company Group Chief Executive Mele Kyari.
Tinubu’s sons accompanying him on every foreign travel
Seyi and Yinka have accompanied Tinubu on every foreign trip since he became President on 29 May 2023.
Seyi also uses the presidential jet, which Nigerians condemned in October 2023 when he travelled on the jet on a private trip to Kano to watch a polo tournament.
This despite the fact Tinubu reportedly has two private jets and his wife Remi once boasted the family is wealthy enough not to live on public funds.
Seyi rode on the presidential jet to Kano along with his friends and they were welcomed on arrival by state government officials.
The waste of public funds by the Tinubus while other citizens are groaning in hunger repeats the example set in January 2020 when Hanan, daughter of then-President Muhammadu Buhari, took a private photography trip to Bauchi in a presidential jet.
Tinubu’s spin doctors distort examples of children of Obama and Trump
Tinubu’s spin doctors have cited but distorted the examples of how the children of Barack Obama and Donald Trump also travelled with their fathers when they were United States Presidents.
The difference, however, is that Ivanka Trump and two of her brothers, as well as her husband, Jared Kushner, officially worked in the White House when Donald Troup was President.
And the Obama girls, Malia (born 4 July1998) and Sasha (born 10 June 2001), were kids when their father was President from 20 January 2009 to 20 January 2017, which made him take them along on some foreign trips.
Some leaders of other countries pay the cost of taking their family members with them on such travels.
Seyi and Yinka do not have official portfolios in their father’s administration, and they are grown up men, not kids who need to go on jolly rides with dad at public expense.