President Bola Tinubu arrived in Rome, Italy, on Saturday to join other world leaders at the solemn mass marking the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV.

The installation mass of the 267th bishop of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church’s new leader will take place on Sunday, May 18.

Presidential aide Bayo Onanuga said in a statement that Mr Tinubu was received at the Mario De Bernardo Military Airport by Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and officials from Vatican City and the Nigerian Embassy after the plane touched down at 6:00 p.m. local time.

Mr Tinubu is in Rome to honour the new pope’s invitation, conveyed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.

The papal invitation underscored the need for Mr 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.

Mr Tinubu’s entourage includes the Archbishop of Owerri and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Archbishop Lucius Ugorji, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, and Alfred Martins of Lagos.

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

(NAN)