President Bola Ahmed Tinubu arrived in Rome, Italy, on Saturday to participate in the inauguration mass marking the official start of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, the 267th Bishop of Rome and the new head of the Roman Catholic Church.
The solemn installation mass is scheduled for Sunday, May 18.
Upon arrival at the Mario De Bernardo Military Airport at 6:00 pm local time, President Tinubu was received by Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, along with representatives from the Vatican and the Nigerian Embassy.
President Tinubu is attending the mass following an invitation extended by Pope Leo XIV through Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.
The invitation emphasized the significance of the occasion, stating it was a “moment of particular importance for the Catholic Church and the world afflicted by many tensions and conflicts.”
The Pope added, “Your great nation is particularly dear to me as I worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Lagos during the 1980s.”
Accompanying the President are notable members of the Nigerian Catholic hierarchy, including Archbishop Lucius Ugorji of Owerri and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria; Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja; Archbishop Alfred Martins of Lagos; and Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah of the Sokoto Diocese.
