Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed gave an insight to the health status of President Muhammad Buhari a few hours after the president returned to Abuja after a medical check-up in the British capital.
President Buhari’s fitness to govern the country has been questioned after he spent lengthy periods in a foreign hospital which sparked widespread criticism.
Mr. Buhari left the country for London on May 7 to continue with his medical treatment and returned to Nigeria on March 10 after spending 51 days in the British capital during which he attended to his health.
Upon his return, the president said he “couldn’t recall being so sick since he was a young man, including in the military with its ups and downs.”
He also said he could not recall ever having a blood transfusion before.
Reacting to the questions by the civil society groups if the taxpayers’ money was used for the private treatment, Prof. Lai Mohammed said, “It’s not strange at all for a sitting president to be ill and it’s not strange either for the state to take care of his medical bill.
“I think there’s so much speculation as to what he’s been treated for.
“I think we would rather respect his privacy. If Mr President feels like telling the world his ailment, so be it. I don’t think he’s under an obligation to tell anyone.”
The health of Nigeria’s head of state is a sensitive issue. Former president Umaru Musa Yar’Adua fell ill and died while in office in 2010, sparking months of political turmoil. Buhari’s mystery illness also comes as political parties and potential candidates jockey for position ahead of the next presidential election in 2019.
Buhari’s women’s affairs minister Aisha Alhassan claimed earlier this month that he had said he would only serve one, four-year term of office. But Mohammed, who was the spokesman for Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) that unseated Goodluck Jonathan at the last vote in 2015, refused to be drawn.
“If he’s going to run that’s left to him but right now, his major preoccupation is delivering on all his electoral promises,” he said.
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