Buhari not ill or in any London hospital – Presidency

The Presidency yesterday insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari is hale and hearty.

It declared that President Buhari is neither receiving treatment nor in an hospital in London, where he has been holidaying.

Looters are behind the death rumours, it added and denied that governors are sending a delegation to see the president.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity Femi Adesina told CNBC Africa that speculations on the President being critically ill heightened following his vacation trip to the United Kingdom last week Thursday.

He described the rumoured hospitalisation of the President as a figment of the people’s imagination.

He 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 check-up 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’”, Adesina said.

He also said it was at the discretion of the President to choose whether to talk to Nigerians from the UK 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 if he doesn’t wish to, nobody will 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,’’ he stated.

Presidential Political Adviser Babafemi Ojudu also yesterday accused looters and those at the receiving end of the president’s clean-up of the mess created in the past, of being behind the romour.

Ojudu, speaking on a radio programme, said: “Certainly government is not distracted about this and ordinarily we would not have responded to it but when a lot of people started calling to find out the truth, that was why we responded to it.

“I just suspected mischief makers, people who do not wish the government well. You know when you are fighting corruption, it fights back. All manner of things on the internet against the government it is not proper and it is been done everyday. They attribute fake quotations to people and I think it should be stopped.

“I think some people are bent on destroying the country. That is what I can see from this entire thing. An elderly man, the president of the country went on vacation and he announced it to the country and while on vacation he felt it is right to have a medical checkup. There is no crisis of any kind and no body is putting anybody on pressure there was no meeting of governors in Abuja, so where are they getting it from? Governors cannot meet in secret not to talk of coming to put pressure on the Vice President to resign. It is so ridiculous and unthinkable.

“A lot of people are miss-informing Nigerians. I see thing issue coming from the angle of people who are asked to answer questions as to what they have done with the nation’s resources. They are the ones who want the government to collapse so that they can be free to go and enjoy their loot. They are the ones doing this. It is not about anybody within the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“If they have any evidence to show that it is people within the APC that are behind this let them come out with it. Some people are also thinking that the President and Vice President should be fighting over what? No. The two of them are responsible, patriot and they are carrying out their duties according to the constitution.

“You know those who are under going trial, you know those whose properties were seized due to corrupt practices. You know those who have been making all kinds of fake allegation against the president and members of his family. They set-up groups who are employed and paid to go on social media to be issuing falsehood and they register in all kind of names. The security agencies will go after them and bring them to trial.

“President Muhammadu Buhari on vacation has the time to rest, have his breakfast and the company of his children and grand children.”

Minister of Information Alhaji lai Mohammed denied that a delegation of governors were on the way to London to see the president.

Speaking when he received members of the Presidential Committee on the Northeast Initiative’s Sub Committee on Economic Development, Mohammed said: “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.

Courtesy: THE NATION