Make Public Buhari’s Health Status, Nigerians Tell FG

Abuja & Port Harcourt – The Federal Government has been told to make public the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari and actual reasons he has been frequenting hospitals abroad in the past months.

President Buhari has gone overseas three times within the past twelve months for what the Presidency announced was for routine medical check-ups, the recent being on Thursday, January 19, 2017.

Announcing the president’s recent trip on Thursday, Femi Adesina, Presidential Spokesman, said Buhari would “undergo routine medical check-ups” during the short holiday and was expected to resume work on February 6.

Adesina’s statement circulated on Thursday shortly after a letter from President Buhari was read out at the National Assembly, saying he would go on medical leave.

“While away the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, will perform the functions of the Office of the President,” Adesina said in his statement.

Although the President had applied to the National Assembly to be away from duty for 10 days, he will actually be outside the country for 18 days when he resumes on February 6, 2017.

However, a cross-section of Nigerians have expressed worry over the frequent medical trips of the president to hospitals abroad, arguing that the reasons usually adduced as going only for check-ups are rather too scanty to assure the nation.

Most people who spoke with Independent on the issue of the president’s health expressed deep concern for him while demanding of the Federal Government to come open on issues of hishealth status.

Popular Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, Ebun-olu Adegboruwa, said in an interview yesterday with Independent that the Nigerian people deserved to know the health status of their leader.

Adegboruwa said as a human being, the president was not immune to falling sick and when that does happen the citizenry should unite with him in compassion and prayers, saying there is no reason for the government to make a purely human issue like the president falling sick a cult affair.

The lawyer warned that to continue to shroud the president reason for visiting hospitals abroad in secrecy will expose his person and the government to dangerous speculations among the concerned public.

As Adegboruwa said, the supposed cause of the president’s sudden trip abroad is already being bandied in the rumour mill across the worldwide social media platforms.

It was being speculated that the health of the president had relapsed on Wednesday following his hectic schedules of attending to the impasse on the Gambia presidential election.

A source informed this newspaper that he was so weak that medical team in the Aso Rock Clinic had to be drafted to attend to him, but there was nothing alarmist after he became stabilised.

On each occasion that Buhari has made the medical trip, he informed the nation through the Senate as constitutionally mandated of his office that he was taking a short vacation, which usually spans about two weeks. Except his trip in June 2016 when the nation was told that he was to take treatment for ear infections, no disclosures had been made of his reason for visiting the hospitals on the two other trips he had made.

Earlier in February, Buhari had a stop over in a London hospital during a tour that took him to three countries declaring he had only gone for medical check-ups. It was the first after he moved into the Aso Villa on May 29, 2015, although an earlier incident had been recorded shortly after he won the election and jetted out to the UK where he stayed until the eve of his swearing-in before returning to the country.

Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice Eze Onyekpere has advocated better information management around President Muhammadu Buhari’s health concerns, and this, in the interest of the nation.

Onyekpere said such pragmatic disposition by the presidency would attract prayers and goodwill from concerned citizens who ought to know about the health care needs of their president.

The rights campaigner also thumbed down Buhari’s penchant to seek medical attention abroad as his leading would worsen the run on the economy, and cast huge shadows on the competence of arrays of highly qualified medical professionals that abound in the country.

“Nigerians are entitled to know about the health status of the President. The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria is no longer a private citizen. His health status should necessarily generate public interest, besides the fact that he is paid by tax payers”.

Stressing the seriousness of the matter, Onyekpere cited the concerns that was raised by Americans when it was thought that an aspirant,  Mrs Hilary Clinton fell down during the recent presidential campaign in America. The incident raised issues about whether the candidate was hiding serious health problems.

“That was merely a candidate, not that she is the President of USA. That further justifies the fact that Nigerians are entitled to know about the health of the President. They are not managing the information well; so that we can also pray for him and wish him well,  instead of his disappearing and appearing with nobody knowing what has happened”, says Onyekpere.

Alhaji Yaqub Chaffe, a business man and second republic politician in Gombe, said the president’s frequent medical trip abroad would be sending scary signals of uncertainty about the leadership of the country to the international community. This is in line with the position of Adegboruwa who also opined that it was demarketing Nigeria in the investors world as the president’s health that is kept a secret to Nigerians is being exposed to people in the foreign countries where he is seeking treatment. He said those who are privy to the president’s health status in the UK hospital would be the ones to tell their business investors that the situation in Nigeria was too fluid to invest their money.

Wealthy Nigerians frequently travel overseas for medical treatment because of the poor state of healthcare in the country.

The president’s decision to seek medical help in June 2016 sparked anger, including from the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), which said it contradicted President Buhari’s pledge of ending medical tourism.

On Thursday analysts criticised his frequent foreign trips at a time the country needs economic recovery plans to take the nation out of economic recession.

Dr. Osahon Enabulele, Vice President, Commonwealth Medical Association, had in June last year expressed disappointment over Buhari’s 10-day medical trip to London for an ear, nose and throat (ENT) infection, saying, “It is a tragic blot on Nigeria’s collective professional and national image.”

The former president, Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), who condemned frequent medical trip by government officials, said Nigeria has suffered a great loss to medical tourism in recent past.

“I am very constrained to state that this foreign medical trip flies in the face of the Federal Government’s earlier declaration of her resolve to halt the embarrassing phenomenon of outward medical tourism, which as at the end of the year 2013 had led to a humongous capital flight of about $1 billion, particularly from expenses incurred by political and public office holders and their accompanying aides, whose foreign medical trips most of which are unnecessary, were financed with tax payers’ resources”, Osahon had said.

Adegboruwa had on January 4, 2017 raised the alarm on Buhari’s health.

Writing in his Facebook Page, the lawyer had affirmed thus: “The President is truly and truly sick, to the very point that sickness can be inferred, and this is known to many people around him, but they are denying and “padding” it because of their personal and selfish interests”.

He said although it does not gladden his heart to kick against anyone over sickness, Nigerians have a right to know the true state of health of their leaders, especially the president given the enormous functions and powers attached to his office.

“He cannot rule us by proxy”, Adegboruwa said.

He said the nation could not continue to be held in the dark, saying “first we must pray for the president and then demand for true information on his state of health.

“Nigeria cannot be in the pocket of some cabal, who were never voted into office to exercise any mandate, but have captitalised on the state of health of the president to take over power, indirectly”.