President Bola Tinubu yesterday arrived in Rome, Italy, to join other world leaders at the solemn mass marking the beginning of the Pontificate of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, the 267th Bishop of Rome and the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
According to a statement issued by the presidential spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, the new Pope’s installation mass will take place today, May 18.
President Tinubu was received at the Mario De Bernardo Military Airport by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu and officials from Vatican City and the Nigerian Embassy after the presidential plane, Nigeria Air Force 1, touched down at 6 pm local time.
The President is in Rome to honour the new Pope’s invitation, conveyed by the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
The Papal invitation underscored the need for President Tinubu’s physical presence “at this moment of particular importance for the Catholic Church and the world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts.”
“Your great nation is particularly dear to me as I worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos during the 1980s,” Pope Leo XIV further said in the invitation.
On the President’s entourage are the Archbishop of Owerri and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Archbishop Lucius Ugorji, Archbishops Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, Alfred Martins of Lagos and Mathew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto Diocese.
