Fellow Nigerians, Buhari Ain’t Coming Back Home Now , Extends Leave Of Absence
Fellow Nigerians, Buhari Ain’t Coming Back Home Now , Extends Leave Of Absence
The Oasis Reporters
February 06, 2017
President Muhammadu Buhari has extended his vacation indefinitely. This has fueled suspicion and tongues are wagging.
According to his spokesman, Femi Adesina, Buhari wrote to the National Assembly , February 5, 2017, informing of his desire to extend his leave in order to complete and receive the results of a series of tests recommended by his doctors.
“President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the national assembly , February 5, 2017, informing of his desire to extend his leave in order to complete and receive the results of a series of tests recommended by his doctors,” read a statement issued by Adesina.
“The president had planned to return to Abuja in the evening of 5th February , 2017, but was advised to complete the test cycle before returning.
“The notice has since been dispatched to the Senate President and Speaker, House of Representatives.
“Mr. President expresses his sincere gratitude to Nigerians for their concern, prayers and kind wishes.”
Adesina did not give a specific date when the tests would be completed, as such, no one exactly knows when the President is expected to return.
The President, Mr. Muhammadu Buhari was originally scheduled to return to Abuja at the expiration of his 10-day vacation to the UK with a number of rumours circulating that the President was seriously ill.
Meanwhile tongues are still wagging in Abuja when it became apparent that the President would not keep his scheduled appointment to be back on time.
Nigeria experienced the same scenarios with Mr. Muhammadu Buhari’s kinsman, Mr. Umaru Yar’adua another Fulani man from the same Katsina State, Nigeria’s President from 2007 to 2010 who could not complete his tenure due to recurring ill health as he was always outside of the country either in Saudi Arabia or Germany attending to his health, despite having a well stocked medical center at Aso Rock villa, the seat of the Nigerian Presidency.
His then attorney general, Mr. Aondoakaa imperially scoffed at Nigerians who complained about the President’s long spans of absence, that his principal can “rule from anywhere”, he boasted.
Mr. Yar’adua neglected to handover to his deputy, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan and the brinkmanship of the National Assembly led by Mr. David Mark, a retired Brigadier General, dexterously solved the constitutional imbroglio by cashing in on an innocuous telephone interview Yar’adua had with a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter by claiming that the President had ‘transmitted’ a message to the National Assembly ‘electronically’, and therefore invoking the ‘doctrine of necessity’ to swear in Mr. Goodluck Jonathan as acting President to douse the rising tension in the country and cut short the demonstrations of the Save Nigeria Group, asking for the then vice president to quickly takeover. Incidentally, Mr Buhari himself gave backing to the group in a radio interview granted the Freedom Radio (FM) station in Kano in 2010.
In this dispensation, Muhammadu Buhari properly handed over to his deputy, Mr. Yemi Osinbajo, a former professor of law at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.
Nigerians are curious because Muhammadu Buhari in his 2016 budget allocated over 700 million naira more to his Aso Rock Clinic than the combined budget of all of Nigeria’s teaching hospitals put together, yet he never treats his ailments there, often flying abroad to seek for medical attention.
Just two days after the commencement of his ten day vacation in London, the leadership of the Nigerian Police showed up in London ostensibly to visit Mr. Buhari. Nigerians were curious, and no satisfactory explanation has been offered for this.
