Tinubu arrives Rome for papal inauguration – Thage

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu arrived in Rome, in Italy, Saturday to join other world leaders with the solemn mass that mark 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.

The installation mass will take place on Sunday 18 May.

President Tinubu was received at Mario De Bernardo’s military airport with a white ambassador Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Minister of Foreign Affairs and officials of the Vatican City and the Nigerian Embassy after the plane touched local times.

President Tinubu is in Rome to honor the invitation of the new Pope, broadcast by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State.

The papal invitation underlined the need for the physical presence of President Tinubu “in 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 while I was working in the Apostolic Nunger in Lagos in the 1980s,” said Pope Leo XIV in invitation.

The entourage of President Tinubu includes the archbishop of Owerri and the president of the Nigeria Conference of the Catholic bishops, the archbishop Lucius Ugorji, the archbishop IgnaTius Kaigama of Abuja and Alfred Martins of Lagos.

Mathew Hassan Kukah, Catholic bishop of the diocese of Sokoto, is also in the president’s entourage.

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