Buhari: After A Week of Speculations, Uncertainties
MP to Okupe: North-East Should Produce President’s Successor
President Muhammadu Buhari’s absence at the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings for three consecutive times has continued to elicit reactions. The president had not been seen at any public event for some time; hence, for the past few weeks, there have been growing concerns about his health.
Cabinet members appeared surprised at the president’s absence in the meeting, held on April 26. There were indications that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who later presided over the meeting, had no prior information that the president would not attend the meeting. A security officer had guarded the president’s official seat before the State Chief of Protocol, Malam Lawal Kazaure, suddenly stepped in and whispered to the vice president, apparently informing him that Buhari would not attend the meeting.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, told State House correspondents after the meeting that President Buhari asked that “he be allowed to rest and that all his files be sent to his house.”
The following day, the Presidency deemed it fit to further dispel all sorts of insinuations over the president’s health condition. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, issued a statement clarifying that his principal’s absence at the FEC meeting the previous day was a last minute decision; otherwise the cabinet and the general public would have been alerted in advance.
Shehu also stated that President Buhari had been recently spending the majority of his time in his private residence; and that, as eager as he was to be “up and about,” his doctors had advised him to take things slowly as he fully recovered from the long period of treatment he underwent in the United Kingdom between January and March.
The presidential spokesman, however, emphasized that despite the insinuations in the media, “There is no need for apprehension over the health of our president. President Buhari himself, on his return to the country, made Nigerians aware of the state of his health while he was in London. Full recovery is sometimes a slow process, requiring periods of rest and relaxation as the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, intimated in his press briefing after the FEC meeting on Wednesday.’’
Shehu added that in spite of President Buhari’s “lack of visibility,’’ Nigerians should be rest assured that he had not abdicated his role as commander-in-chief as he “receives daily briefings on the activities of government and confers regularly with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. His private residence, in which he has been spending the majority of his time recently, also has a fully equipped office.
“God is the giver of life and health. We are grateful that He has seen our president through the worst period of his convalescence in London. We are thankful that the president has passed a number of benchmarks already. We pray that God continues to see him through this period of recuperation,’’ he said.
On March 19, while reacting to media reports that President Buhari had been invisible from office, Shehu disclosed that he had another office in his living room, from where he worked after official hours. During an interview with the Pyramid Radio in Kano at that time, he had said, “The president doesn’t follow official working hours because he is on duty all the time. He has another office in his living room. So he works from home when most civil servants have closed.’’
Before now, government officials had often spoken to State House reporters only when solicited. But since last month, the president’s protocol liaison officer, Shehu Usman Bello, has been bringing ministers and other officials to the State House Press Gallery for interviews. The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winfred Oyo-Ita and the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, who had never addressed State House journalists before, were recently brought to speak on their briefings to the president.
When the Head of Service was brought to speak on her meeting with President Buhari on April 18, she intermittently interjected with, “Thank you gentlemen.”
The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Usani, who claimed to have briefed the president shortly before he was brought for an interview on April 20, did not hold any file. Usani said he briefed the president on “matters of concern” in the Niger Delta region.
The ministers of Solid Mineral Development, Sports, Transportation and Justice, Kayode Fayemi, Solomon Dalung, Rotimi Amaechi and Abubakar Malami respectively, had also told journalists that they briefed President Buhari on issues affecting their respective ministries.
President Buhari’s failure to show up for Juma’at prayer at the State House mosque on April 28 also made tongues to wag. The hopes of the governors of Kano, Zamfara and Ogun states, Abdullahi Ganduje, Abdulaziz Yari and Ibikunle Amosun respectively, to join the president for the prayer were seemingly dashed.
However, the president’s presence at the State House mosque for Jum’aat prayer last Friday must have doused the rumoured deterioration of his state of health. President Buhari, who put on a white flowing baban riga with a matching cap, arrived the mosque at exactly 1.30pm, accompanied by his aide-decamp, personal physician, chief security officer and the state chief of protocol. After the prayer, the president shook hands with some members of the congregation comprising the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammed Musa Bello and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.
Also in the mosque with the president on Friday were the National Security Adviser, General Babagana Monguno (retired); the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Malam Lawal Musa Daura; the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu; and the president’s nephew, Malam Mamman Daura.
Meanwhile, late Thursday night, the Presidency announced in a statement that the visit of President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger Republic to Buhari, earlier scheduled for Friday, had been put forward.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, noted that the rescheduling was at the instance of President Issoufou, who had another domestic engagement.
“All arrangements had been concluded for President Buhari to receive his Nigerien counterpart and his delegation at the forecourt of the Presidential Villa and attend the Juma’at prayers together, as well as lunch, before the last-minute postponement. A new date for the visit will be announced in due course,’’ the presidential spokesman stated.
But many pundits did not take this excuse seriously, arguing that it would be difficult for the Nigerien president to shelve a visit to Buhari after all arrangements had been concluded.
The speculation over Buhari’s health condition appeared to have reached a crescendo when three former Nigerian leaders, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar met in Minna on Tuesday. It was widely speculated that the former leaders discussed the president’s health condition. That seemed to have prompted the wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, for the first time, to comment on her husband’s health since he returned from a medical vacation in the United Kingdom on March 10. She took to her twitter and Facebook accounts to debunk the rumour of her husband’s worsening health status.
In her posts, Mrs Buhari stated that the president’s health condition was not as bad as being perceived. Thanking Nigerians for their concern, love and prayers over her husband’s health status, she said: “I wish to inform everyone that his health is not as bad as it is being perceived. Meanwhile, he continues to carry out his responsibilities during this period.”
Reactions to President Buhari’s health condition APC governors Governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had, on April 26, said they were not worried about President Muhammadu Buhari’s health. Fielding questions from journalists at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, Kaduna State Governor Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai said, “We are not worried about the development. It is not compulsory for Mr President to preside at every Federal Executive Council meeting. That is why our constitution makes provision for a vice president. Mr President is over 70 years old, and at this age, it is not strange to have one medical challenge or another.
“At 57, I take medication for one ailment or another. Our prayer is that the president gets better, and he will. The vice president is there precisely for this reason. It may not be because he has a medical challenge that he didn’t go for the FEC meeting. He may have other pressing matters to attend.
“As governor, I have not chaired every Executive Council meeting, even when I am in Kaduna. This is because my deputy is there if there are other things that are of greater
priority than the Council meeting. We are not worried yet. But we ask Nigerians to join all of us in praying for the president’s improved health,” Governor El-Rufai said. Soyinka Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka had, at a news conference in Lagos on April 28, observed that the president’s failure to disclose his health status created unnecessary political manipulations in the land. “Why is the president hiding his state of health? He is supposed to understand that he is a public property. I am still a private property; that is why I am not in Aso Rock. Let him address the nation and stop all these speculations, which create unnecessary political manipulations, among other things,” he said. Bisi Akande The former interim national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Bisi Akande, in a statement last Monday, expressed concern that Buhari’s sickness was taking a toll on the nation’s health. He stated: “The health of the leader is intricately intertwined with the health of the nation. It is more so in a delicately fragile union of nations called Nigeria. I did not see President Buhari at the wedding of his grandson in Kaduna last Saturday. I was sad and I wept. <http://punchng.com/ buharis-doctors-advised-him-to-takethings-slowly-presidency-2/> When last we met at the wedding of his daughter in Abuja last December, I complained to him that I was not happy about his stressful look. His reply connoted some allusions to circumstances where an honest man fighting corruption is surrounded mostly by unpatriotic and greedy ruling class. He felt painfully frustrated.
“He assured me that he would soon be going on vacation. I then knew that corruption had effectively been fighting back. And I prayed for Nigeria. That was why Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and I rushed to meet him in London in February this year when he was sick and could not return as scheduled from his vacation. The rest is history, but we must appreciate that his poor health is already taking its toll on the health of Nigeria as a polity. There are two challenges facing the country today. The first and the most critical is the health of the president, which unfortunately, is a development beyond his control and for which we did not prepare. The second is the disorder and lack of cohesion between the National Assembly and the Presidency. These are two great red-flag dangers that have the potential of plunging the country into unprecedented chaos and destabilising the gains of democracy since 1999.” Femi Falana, others Also on Monday, Lagos lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana, alongside leaders of seven organisations, in a joint statement, called on the president to urgently seek medical leave. The organisations included Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, Coalition against Corrupt Leaders, Civil Society Network against Corruption, Pro-Democracy Vanguard, Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, Procurement Observation and Advocacy Initiative, Centre for Information Technology and Development in Nigeria.
“Due to the apparent deterioration in the president’s health condition, he did not attend the last two meetings of the FEC. Officials of the Federal Government should have regularly briefed Nigerians on the actual state of President Buhari’s health.
“As we join the Nigerian people of goodwill to pray for a speedy recovery of President Buhari, we are compelled to advise him to heed the advice of his physicians by taking a rest to attend to his health without any further delay,” the statement read.
Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF)
The ACF, on Tuesday said President Buhari needed prayers, not careless remarks. Its national publicity secretary, Muhammadu Ibrahim, in a statement, said: “The Arewa Consultative Forum has observed with concern that some individuals are carelessly making unnecessary remarks pertaining to the health of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“What Nigerians need to do now is to pray for his good health and not to speculate or draw conclusions, which will do no one any good. The ACF advises Nigerians to please pray for the improvement of Mr President’s health so that he can serve the nation with more vigour.”
Free Nigeria Group: Nigeria sitting on keg of gunpowder
A group of political pressure associations under the auspices of Free Nigeria Coalition, in a statement on Wednesday, asked the president to urgently seek medical attention from his doctors in the United Kingdom and take some rest. The group also wanted a bipartisan investigation by the National Assembly into the allegations that Buhari’s administration had been hijacked by a cabal, said to have taken an unconstitutional advantage of the president’s health challenge
“It is obvious to everyone that our volatile nation is sitting on a keg of gunpowder while the state of the nation is becoming increasingly uncertain due to our widening fault lines. In particular, the palpable apprehension over the health of Mr President has worsened the atmosphere of regional and ethnic suspicions and lack of trust among our people,” the group stated.
CNPP: President Buhari’s health must not be politicised
The Kaduna State chapter of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), in a statement on Wednesday by its chairman, Alhaji Umar Faruq Ibrahim, advised that rather than politicise the president’s health status for pecuniary gains, the citizenry must exhibit a high level of patriotism and pray for the president in the overall national interest.
‘‘As a matter of overall national interest and people with common destiny, we need to constantly include President Muhammadu Buhari in our prayers for quick recovery. Indeed, all our leaders should exhibit a very high level of patriotism, be proactive, make objective, not distractive actions and criticisms, proffer progressive advice and solutions devoid of political, selfish, ethnoreligious considerations,” he stated.
Ohaneze Ndigbo
The Ohaneze Ndigbo, also on Wednesday, condemned Buhari’s failure to disclose his state of health. At a press conference in Enugu, the president-general of the socio-cultural group, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, said: “We note with sadness, the state of health of the president and his incapacity to attend to important state functions. We pray for his speedy recovery. We advise the Presidency to be more open with the state of the president’s health. Nigerians ought to know what is wrong with their president and how adequately he is being treated.” The Nigerian Baptist Convention The Nigerian Baptist Convention (NBC), in a statement after its 104th annual session in Abuja on Tuesday, also lent its voice on the need for President Buhari to go for further medical attention so that he could adequately attend to the affairs of the nation.
“We urge Nigerians to pray for President Muhammadu Buhari. We advise the president not to hesitate to go for further treatment if that would help in restoring him to sound health so that he would continue to perform his duties to the country,” the statement read. The CLO The Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) had asked President Buhari to resign if his health could not sustain the pressure of work, saying Nigerians would still respect him for his “ardent fight against corruption.”
The CLO president, Igho Akeregha, in a statement, said: “This is a fraudulent setup that the All Progressives Congress (APC) government is taking Nigerians through. The information minister said the president wanted to rest and asked the vice president to stand in for him. At another time, the minister said the president had asked for files to be brought to him at home. Now, what time does a man who wants to rest indeed have to start working on files? Why is the president continuously missing the very important FEC meeting?
“The conclusion to all of these is that this is a butterfly regime that flies around and lies to Nigerians. Nigerians voted for change and these individuals, including Mr President, have shown that they are not ready to govern. The way out is that the president should resign and Nigerians will have a big place in history for him as a man who came and vehemently challenged corruption. But hanging around the office and trying to protect the cabal is not good for the country. You cannot run a country in this manner.”
However, on Friday, it became a big story when President Buhari suddenly turned up for prayers. His appearance at the Aso Villa mosque is said to have doused tension in no small measure, although there are is still the argument that appearing in mosque is different from discharging his responsibilities as president.
Others are saying that the mere fact that the president, who was fond of travelling abroad for official engagements, has confined himself to his official residence in the Villa, and not even his office, remains a source of concern. Some people are also of the opinion that having appeared in public after several days of speculation, President Buhari should speak to Nigerians directly about his health.
It is said that at the mosque on Friday, the president was better than how he looked when he returned from his sick vacation in London.
He reportedly walked to the mosque and took some minutes to exchange pleasantries.
This was at a time when the social media, and to a certain extent, the mainstream media, were awash with speculations that Buhari had been in coma, unable to eat or drink, and was being fed intravenously.
Although some key government officials, such as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru and the CBN governor, last week said they had audience with the president in his private office at the Villa, they were not taken seriously, especially by the opposition, who believed it was all a gimmick because no single picture of the meetings was shown.
But speaking during the BBC Hausa Service programme, Ra’ayi Riga, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media said there was never a time they hid the health status of the president, insisting that the social media was blowing the issue out of proportion.
“We are really under siege by the social media because Buhari never abdicated his responsibilities. The fact that he does not appear in public does not mean he’s not working as president and commander-inchief.
“There’s a lot of politics, personal interests and greed in the political circle. There has never been any president as transparent as President Buhari. Those in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are only making noise because they have forgotten the past easily,” he said.
On the need for Buhari to speak directly to Nigerians, Shehu said, “Sure, he will talk to Nigerians directly. He is preparing his twoyear anniversary speech, which comes up on May 29.”