The Federal Government is currently under fire online after President Bola Tinubu and his entourage left the Nigerian booth at the ongoing Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) unmanned, prompting random participants-turned-volunteers to step in for the country.

A social media user Idris Ayodele Bello first brought the story to the public attention in a X post on Wednesday, revealing that he was prompted to take charge of the Nigerian booth and attend to visitors after foreigners kept asking him why the stand was without a representative.

“I hate to show negative things about Nigeria, but it is sad that Nigeria is the only unmanned booth at TICAD9 in Japan. Upon all the folks who probably got estacode for coming to Japan,” Mr Bello said. “Only God knows how many Japanese folks have asked me about the unmanned booth seeing my dressing. So ashamed I have now designated myself as Honorary Consul and taken over the booth to engage visitors.”

In a follow up post, he added, “I have now answered questions ranging from solid minerals to housing to landmines to manufacturing to automobiles. No time to even ask ChatGPT. Thanks for the residual knowledge from investing.”

Mr Bello’s claims were later confirmed by another attendee of the conference, Ola Brown, in another post on X, stating that she “Had an interesting time manning the Nigeria booth today with Idris. Unfortunately, the booth was left unstaffed by the Nigerian public sector team, but we still had engaging conversations with academics, private business owners, and NGOs who asked great questions.”

As expected, the story sparked outrage among Nigerians on social media, with my demanding answers to why Mr Tinubu spent millions of naira on individuals accompanying him to the conference but left Nigeria’s booth unstaffed in Japan while other countries have theirs open to visitors.

Reacting to the story, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement on X, doubled down on posts made by Mr Bello and Ms Brown, claiming that the country’s booth at the three-day conference had yet to be opened but would be inaugurated on Thursday.

“Contrary to a tweet made by a participant at TICAD, the Nigerian Booth at #TICAD9 has not yet been opened. The booth will be officially inaugurated on Thursday, 21st August 2025, after which it will become fully operational and serve the delegates of TICAD,” the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the ministry’s statement left most netizens unimpressed with questions on the rationale behind the decision to open the booth a day before the conference ends.

“Whoever cleared this tweet should be fired. The person that tweeted this should be fired. Everyone involved should be fired. This response is a disgrace and sends the wrong message to investors. My God!,” a X user with the account @NamexTechnocrat, said in response to the ministry’s statement.

Another account with the username @ihuomah_ said, “This is public service BTW. This was supposed to be a vacation for some ogas. They will refuse to sign up young people that can represent for the trip cos oga needs to vacation and collect vacation allocation.”

“Una no get shame! Simple thanks to the young man who stood and represented the nation and then assure us you have or will resume swiftly. Very Simple but una incompetent won’t let Y’all. What a country!” said user @iamChinwambia.