Buhari is “Neither Ill nor Admitted” Presidency Insists

For the second day on Thurs­day, key officials of the Fed­eral Government allayed fears over the health of President Muhammadu Buhari in London where he is spending a 10-day medical holiday.
Those who spoke on the Pres­ident’s health condition were the presidential spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina and the Minister of In­formation and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
Adesina said that President Buhari is “neither ill nor admit­ted” in any hospital in London as being speculated in some quar­ters.

He gave the clarification in a live interview programme on CNBC Africa, which was moni­tored in Abuja by the News Agen­cy of Nigeria (NAN).
Adesina said: “The President is in London on vacation. He is not in any hospital and he is not ill.
“When he was travelling last week, the statement we put out was that he was going on vacation and during the vacation he would do routine medical checkup and nothing has changed from what we pushed out last week.
“If anybody has fed some­thing else into the rumour mill, that is just what it is – rumour,’’ he said.
On whether Buhari would talk to Nigerians while on vaca­tion, Adesina said the President had the fundamental right to talk from anywhere or not.
“The fact that he is a presi­dent, he still has his rights. Com­pelling him to come out and talk will be infringing on his rights. The President will talk if he wish­es to, and if he doesn’t wish to, no­body can compel him to talk.
“The truth is that the Presi­dent is on vacation and he has giv­en a date on which he will return to work,’’ Adesina maintained.
In his comment, Mohammed refuted a media report alleging that Nigerian governors are plan­ning to send a delegation to con­firm the health status of President Buhari in London, saying there is no need for such emissary since the President is in good shape.
The minister made the re­buttal in Abuja when he received members of the Presidential Committee on the North East In­itiative’s Sub-Committee on Eco­nomic Development.
He said: “I think it is very much in order to use this oppor­tunity to debunk the report in a section of the press today (Thurs­day) that governors are meeting in Abuja and they will at the end of the meeting send an emissary to London to see President Bu­hari.
“I want to say categorically and emphatically that there is no iota of truth in this. Governors are not meeting here in Abuja be­cause there is no need for it and there is no plan to send any em­issary to London to see the Pres­ident. Again, I want to say that the President is hale and hearty in London where he is observing his 10-day vacation,” he said.
On the humanitarian crisis in the North East, Mohammed said that he fully appreciated the enormity of the challenge, having visited parts of Borno State, in­cluding the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps, upon his assumption of office in 2015.
He said that the development had prompted him to launch a massive public sensitisation campaign for Nigerians to take ownership of the war, thus com­plementing the efforts of the mili­tary, which has succeeded in dec­imating Boko Haram.
“We believe that until Nige­rians take possession of the war, the full rehabilitation, reconstruc­tion and resettlement will not take place. We are also aware that there is a bigger war to be won, and that is healing the psycholog­ical wounds that have been creat­ed by the insurgency,” the minis­ter said.