Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima visited President Bola Tinubu at his Lagos residence on October 3, days after returning from leading Nigeria's delegation to the 81st UN General Assembly in New York. Tinubu had been out of the country since August 30 — nearly a month — without formally transferring power, and his prolonged absence has triggered a lawsuit and a constitutional debate over who was actually running Nigeria.
On September 20, Shettima departed Abuja with Tinubu's mandate to head Nigeria's delegation to the UN General Assembly. On September 24, he delivered Nigeria's national statement at the General Debate, demanding at least two permanent seats for Africa on the UN Security Council with full rights — including the veto "for as long as the veto exists" — plus five non-permanent seats, in line with the Ezulwini Consensus. "The world of 2026 cannot remain captive to the distribution of power in 1945," he said. "Africa cannot continue to fill the Council's agenda while remaining absent from its permanent membership."
Beyond the plenary, Shettima attended the Africa Minerals Strategy Group roundtable, a Nigeria–Italy co-hosted education financing event, and meetings with the Nigerian diaspora and UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed. He returned to Nigeria on September 28.
On October 3, Shettima traveled to Tinubu's Lagos residence — confirmed publicly by Dada Olusegun, the President's special assistant on social media. Shettima told journalists he had been "in regular contact… we speak almost every other day," updating Tinubu throughout his trip abroad. He defended the administration's removal of the fuel subsidy and unification of multiple exchange rates, and said the government would roll out e-mobility programs in the northeast in the coming weeks.
Tinubu himself landed at Lagos's Murtala Muhammed International Airport at about 6:22 p.m. on September 29 aboard the presidential aircraft from Paris, greeted by the Lagos governor, the chief of staff, and other officials. "I enjoyed myself… I'm healthy and sound," he told reporters, brushing aside speculation about his health. His return was timed ahead of Nigeria's 66th independence anniversary on October 1.
At the heart of the dispute is Section 145 of Nigeria's 1999 Constitution: whenever the President goes on vacation or cannot discharge his duties, he must transmit a written declaration to the Senate President and the House Speaker, after which the Vice President acts as President. If no declaration is transmitted within 21 days, the National Assembly must, by simple majority in each chamber, mandate the Vice President to act.
Tinubu left for London on August 30 for what the Presidency called a three-week working vacation, then moved on to Paris, where he met French President Emmanuel Macron and business figures. On September 21 the Presidency announced the vacation was extended "by a few days" — stretching the absence to nearly a month.
On September 28, the African Action Congress (AAC), the party of 2027 presidential hopeful Omoyele Sowore, filed suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja. Named as defendants are Tinubu, Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, House Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, and the National Assembly itself. The suit, filed by the party's national legal adviser Inibehe Effiong, argues that Tinubu's extended absence without the required written declaration violated Section 145(1), and that the legislature acted unconstitutionally by failing to empower Shettima as Acting President once the absence passed 21 days. It seeks declarations that both omissions are unlawful and a perpetual injunction barring Tinubu and future presidents from vacationing abroad without complying with the constitutional procedure.
ADC spokesman Bolaji Abdullahi publicly asked who exercised presidential powers while both Tinubu and Shettima were out of the country, calling the dual absence a constitutional problem. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar questioned whether the required declaration had ever been transmitted.
Akpabio pushed back at an event in late September: "I am the Senate President… I am not the acting President of Nigeria, because President Tinubu is still in power. He is on a working leave, and there is no absence in Aso Rock… The world is a global village, you can give instructions from the internet." He insisted there was "no vacancy" and that only he, as chairman of the National Assembly, could declare one.
The Presidency's September 21 statement said Tinubu "had continued to direct affairs of government" from abroad and had delegated Shettima to represent him at official functions. The two sides are talking past each other: one side sees a procedural violation, the other sees uninterrupted governance.
The court has not fixed a hearing date. With Nigeria's 2027 general election approaching, the fight over the President's absence already carries the flavor of a pre-campaign skirmish. Tinubu marked his return with a national independence-day address, and the government is trying to steer the agenda back to economic reforms. But the Section 145 question will not go away quietly — how the courts treat the idea of governing a country by remote control from a Paris vacation will be one of the defining political storylines in Nigeria in the months ahead.