Fact-check: False! President Tinubu is not the First Nigerian President to Be Granted Access to Kaaba

Claim: President Bola Tinubu is the first Nigerian President in history to be granted special access to the Kaaba to perform his religious duties.

Verdict: False

Background:

A social media user with the username ‘Sarki‘ has made a claim that President Bola Tinubu is the first Nigerian President in history to be granted access to the Kaaba, which is an exclusive part of his religious activities on his Umrah pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

The social media user went on to describe the privilege as a sign of President Tinubu’s relevance and respect he commands on the global stage. “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the first Nigerian President in history to be granted special access to the Kaabah to perform his religious duties.

“No Nigerian President before him has enjoyed this rare privilege. It speaks volumes about the respect, recognition, and value President Tinubu commands on the global stage,” he noted in his tweet, which has generated over 30,000 views, 121 retweets, 351 likes, and 222 comments.

On October 28th, 2026, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, disclosed that President Tinubu would be travelling to Makkah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to perform Umrah, an Islamic spiritual exercise involving a pilgrimage to the Holy City.

According to Mr Onanuga, the spiritual journey would afford the “President an opportunity for spiritual reflection, devotion, and prayers for Nigeria’s peace, unity, stability, and continued progress. While in Makkah, President Tinubu will perform the religious rites associated with Umrah, seeking Allah’s guidance and blessings for Nigeria and its people,” he stated.

President Tinubu, who, since he arrived in Saudi Arabia, was performing other Islamic rites entailed in his journey before he was granted access to enter the interior chambers of the Holy Kaabah at Masjid al-Haram in Makkah, Saudi Arabia on Monday, a development that was considered a rare privilege for any Muslim to get from the authority of the religion and the country.

The Kaabah is a large, granite, cube-shaped structure draped in a gold-embroidered black silk cloth (Kiswah) located at the centre of Islam’s holiest mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Rather than an object of worship itself, it serves as the literal and symbolic focal point of the global Muslim community, acting as the Qibla, the universal direction that hundreds of millions of Muslims face during their five daily prayers.

The privilege of entering the interior of the Kaabah is one of the most exclusive and tightly controlled diplomatic and spiritual duties in the world. It is subject to various conditions and limited to a select group of people.

The physical custody of the Kaabah and its key remains solely with the Bani Shaybah (Al-Shaibi) family, in accordance with the historical decree made by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) following the conquest of Makkah. Saudi protocol states that the door to the Kaabah cannot be unlocked without a direct royal order issued by the King of Saudi Arabia, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, or the Crown Prince, Muhammad Bin Salman.

Before the door is opened, the family’s senior custodian is formally summoned to lead the physical ceremony, accompany the dignitaries, and oversee the locking mechanism. Due to the stringent policies attached to opening the religious centre, opening the Kaabah for a visiting foreign Muslim president is considered a significant phenomenon.

As a result, NDRFactcheck decided to check the veracity of the claim that President Tinubu is the first ever Nigerian President to get access to the Kaabah, especially as the claim is coming at the time the country is preparing for the coming elections, in which politicians and their supporters are flooding the information space with claims that can either promote their candidates or de-market the opposition.

Verification

NDRFactcheck’s investigation revealed that President Bola Tinubu is not the first Nigerian president to be granted access to the Kaabah, as a social media user claimed.

According to multiple reports from reputable media platforms, the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, was also granted the same privilege to enter the interior of the Kaabah in 2016, barely a year after his inauguration. A video clip from the official YouTube channel of the Nigerian Television (NTA) showed the former president being ushered into the interior part of the religious centre.

Former President Muhammadu Buhari coming out of the interior of the Kaaba in 2016

Moreover, the Guardian newspaper, in its publication on February 27, 2016, reported on Buhari’s visit to Saudi Arabia, where he had been engaged in various activities in the Kingdom and he met with King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud on Tuesday. Other media reports that established the fact that President Buhari was also granted access to the Kaaba are here, here and here.

Therefore, the claim that President Bola Tinubu is the first Nigerian President in history to be granted special access to the Kaaba to perform his religious duties is false.