By Okoi Obono-Obla
Godwin Ogeneokere,
Greetings and best wishes.
Your post claiming that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has never attended the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) is misleading and replete with misrepresentations.
1. The record is clear: He has attended.
President Tinubu personally attended and addressed the 78th Session of UNGA in New York in September 2023. It is true that he did not attend the 79th Session in 2024 and the 80th Session in 2025, and will not attend the 81st Session in September 2026. On all three occasions, he mandated Vice President Kashim Shettima to lead Nigeria’s delegation — a fact confirmed by the Presidency.
On the margins of the 2023 UNGA, President Tinubu was received at the NASDAQ Stock Market — not the New York Stock Exchange as I earlier stated — on the invitation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He addressed investors, rang the closing bell, and was presented with a plaque.
2. UNGA attendance is not mandatory — and many world leaders regularly do not attend.
Attendance at UNGA is discretionary, not compulsory. A Member State can be represented by its Head of State, Head of Government, Vice President, or Foreign Minister. This is standard diplomatic practice.
Indeed, non-attendance is common even among the major powers:
In 2025 (80th Session), India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was represented by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, China’s President Xi Jinping was represented by Premier Li Qiang, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
In 2023 (78th Session), four of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council did not have their top leaders present — Presidents Emmanuel Macron of France, Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the UK all skipped the high-level week.
This pattern has continued into 2026 (81st Session), where President Xi Jinping is again skipping the gathering and sending a Vice President, President Putin is not coming, and Prime Minister Modi has backed out.
If Presidents of China, Russia, France, India and the UK can routinely delegate representation without their countries being deemed absent, Nigeria’s decision to be led by its Vice President cannot be portrayed as an anomaly.
To claim President Tinubu has never attended UNGA is therefore factually incorrect.
Best regards.
