There are derelictions born of error, and there are derelictions born of disdain. President Bola Tinubu’s refusal, or perhaps his inability to set foot in Washington, the nerve center of global power and Nigeria’s greatest trading partner, belongs to the latter. It is not an omission; it is an affront – a betrayal wrapped in silk arrogance. While other world leaders queue in the antechambers of the White House to secure investment, strategic cooperation, and legitimacy, Nigeria’s president has made France his unofficial residence. Tinubu has turned Paris into an annex of Aso Rock; a floating court of indulgence where, governance dissolves into café diplomacy and perfumed idleness. Yet the United States, Nigeria’s largest foreign investor, its top export market, its major security partner; has not seen the visiting Nigerian President. In this world of alliances, neglect is itself a declaration of priorities. Washington has invested blood, treasure, and political capital in Nigeria’s stability. To spurn that relationship is not neutrality; it is ingratitude weaponized. President Tinubu’s neglect of the United States constitutes more than broken protocol; it is a dereliction of duty.
Since his inauguration in 2023, Tinubu, the Paris Pilgrim, has flown to France more times than he has faced the Nigerian people in a true national address. By his own official tally, he has spent nearly sixty days in Paris across eight trips – a monarch in exile from the reality he governs. Yet in all that time, he has not once crossed the Atlantic to the United States – Nigeria’s largest foreign investor, its biggest export market, and its most consequential security partner. To call this neglect is to use a weak word for a grave sin. This is diplomatic dereliction; the abdication of statesmanship at the altar of vanity.
America invests more in Nigeria than any other nation on earth. It buys Nigeria’s crude, fuels its trade, and trains its soldiers. It anchors the fight against Boko Haram and ISWAP, and props up democracy across West Africa’s turbulent horizon. And yet, under Tinubu, this indispensable ally has been treated as an afterthought; a footnote to his itinerary of leisure and self-indulgence. The Founding Fathers of diplomacy taught that the first duty of a nation is to tend its alliances. Tinubu has tended none. He treats statecraft like spectacle; foreign policy like theatre; diplomacy like décor. His preference for the cobblestones of Paris over the corridors of Washington is not strategy; it is frivolity elevated to principle.
Let no one mistake what is at stake. When a Nigerian president neglects Washington, Nigeria becomes invisible. Trade talks stall. Security cooperation weakens. The flow of investment; the lifeblood of a struggling economy, slows to a crawl. The message to the world is unmistakable: Nigeria’s leadership is unserious, its priorities inward and incoherent. “He who despises instruction despises his own soul,” says the Proverb. And Tinubu, by despising the counsel of strategy, now imperils the very soul of Nigeria’s diplomacy.
It is no defense to say: “I visited Africa, I visited Asia, I visited the Caribbean.” The heart of diplomacy lies not in quantity of stamps, but in quality of alliances. By repeating trips to France while neglecting the US, Tinubu made his choice visible. Leadership is visible in presence. Absence is intent. The Nigerian economy, battered by inflation, naira weakness and energy shortfall, needs not just investment, but signals of confidence. The United States is not secondary. It is primary. If a president chooses his destinations, the message is clear to the world: to whom do we truly look? His defenders will say: “He meets investors everywhere; he doesn’t need Washington.” But such sophistry collapses under scrutiny. Washington is not a mere destination; it is the axis of global power. The man who ignores it declares, by omission, that he is content to play provincial politics on a global stage. When others travel to court power, Tinubu travels to court comfort. When others forge alliances, he forges excuses. His passport is active; his purpose is absent.
Tinubu’s failure is not only moral but strategic. By refusing to visit Washington, Tinubu allowed a diplomatic vacuum to fester. Without Nigeria’s ambassadorial presence and high-level engagement, the narrative in the US gained clarity: Nigeria is distant, uninterested, unaligned. Meanwhile, the US legislature, driven by evangelical constituencies and investor networks, perceived Nigeria as drifting; its commitment to religious-freedom and security cooperation called into question. The result? A growing tilt in America toward punitive measures and distancing from Nigeria’s priorities. When a key partner is ignored, indifference becomes invitation.
Let it be said plainly: the United States and Nigeria share a long, pragmatic history, from anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Guinea to counter-terrorism aid. The US–Nigeria relationship is not illusory: trade surpassed US$13 billion in 2024; American investment anchors Nigerian oil & gas, services and trade; and Washington remains a key security ally in counter-terrorism, piracy-watch and West-Africa stability. Yet Tinubu chooses to dance in the salons of Paris while the corridors of the White House sit empty. Washington has invested blood, treasure, and political capital in Nigeria’s stability. To spurn that relationship is not neutrality; it is ingratitude weaponized. “Qui tacet consentire videtur” – those who are silent appear to consent. That silence speaks volumes: Nigeria has turned its back. While SME owners, youth entrepreneurs and diaspora Nigerians hoped for renewed US visits, they got none. The most puzzling absence: the US capital, home to Congress, think tanks and the arteries of global investment, was never visited. Why? The people deserve a reason.
In the jurisprudence of diplomacy, silence is acquiescence. By his silence and absence, Tinubu consents to Nigeria’s marginalization. He is like Nero fiddling in the salons of Paris while the fabric of statecraft burns. History will not remember the number of countries Tinubu visited; it will remember the one he pointedly ignored. The verdict will be merciless: Tinubu inherited Africa’s largest democracy and shrank it to the size of his ego. He was handed a bridge to America and chose instead the boulevards of France.
He was offered a platform for statesmanship and traded it for a photo-op in Paris. “Salus populi suprema lex esto” – the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law. Yet Tinubu’s law is leisure; his creed is complacency; his gospel is grandstanding. Nigeria’s welfare demands strategic partnerships, not diplomatic vanity.
Diplomacy is not tourism. Leadership is not escapism. The terrain of diplomacy is not meant for pleasure-sojourns, but for purpose. Yet these so-called “working visits” to Paris ring hollow when Nigeria’s largest partner waits. America is now the forgotten partner. To lead Nigeria and not visit Washington is to play Hamlet without Denmark; a tragic theatre of absence and delusion. France may offer him fine wine, but America holds the keys to Nigeria’s economic redemption. Mr. President, history keeps its own ledgers. And when the chronicles of your presidency are written, one line will glow with unforgiving clarity: “He went everywhere, except where it mattered.” Veritas vincit. Et memoria manet. – Truth conquers, and memory endures. One day, the record will ask: where was the President when America knocked? And the answer will echo: somewhere in Paris, again!