All roads lead to London

In what many see as the opening of a new chapter in the desperate attempt to cover up the true state of health of President Muhammadu Buhari and to convince Nigerians that all is well with the ailing president whose nature of illness is not public knowledge, Abuja House, the official residence of the Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, last week became some sort of pilgrimage centre as the Nigerian political class practically fell over themselves in a bid to catch a glimpse of the president.

Buhari has spent the better part of 2017 receiving medical attention in London, despite promising in 2015 during his presidential campaign that he would end medical tourism and ensure the government’s hard-earned cash would not be spent on treating officials overseas, especially for illnesses that Nigeria has the expertise.

The president spent 51 days in London earlier in the year (January 19-March 10) on medical grounds and returned to London again on May 7. He had in June last year travelled to the same city to treat an ear infection.

Pilgrimage to London

First, it was John Odigie-Oyegun, national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), who on Sunday led a delegation of his party men that included Governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, Tanko Almakura of Nassarawa State, Nasiru El-Rufai of Kaduna State, and Yahaya Bello of Kogi State to London where they had a lunch with Buhari.

Apart from a press statement issued by Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, where he claimed he spoke with the delegation via telephone while they were with the president and that Governor Okorocha specifically said Buhari was “very cheerful and has not lost any bit of his sense of humour”, nothing concrete came out of that trip.

Rather, Nigerians were served a cold dish of what was meant to be a hope-lifting picture of the president dining with the APC chiefs. Ironically, the picture failed to lift any hope. While many doubted its authenticity, some flayed the entire arrangement as a desperate attempt by the Aso Rock cabal to perpetuate themselves in power.

Dayo Adeyeye, spokesman of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), said it was pure contempt and a collective insult on Nigerians for a group of party leaders to just go and meet the president and come and show pictures without saying anything either from them or from the president to Nigerians.

“They don’t even think that it is necessary for the president to send message to Nigerians or for themselves to come and tell us what happened during that meeting. They merely planted pictures in the front pages of all the newspapers, and they think that is alright,” Adeyeye said.

“That is not the way to behave in a civilised country. At least, ordinarily we should have been having daily bulletins on the president’s health, the man is being treated there in London with taxpayers’ money, and we elected him to do a job,” he said.

Femi Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister, who denounced the picture as fake and old and a conspiracy by the cabal to sustain themselves in power, raised some critical questions.

“Why were the Nigerian and foreign media not allowed to cover the proceedings and participate in this celebrated photo-shoot and merry London feast? Why did the Villa press corps not take one of their own cameramen to London and make a short video of this ‘historic’ event? Why were the whole proceedings shrouded in so much secrecy? Why is it that only one picture was taken? Why were more pictures not shot? Why was Buhari not put on audio tape and interviewed while he was with his celebrated and important guests? Why did he not offer a few words of hope and encouragement to the Nigerian people to ease the tension that has been generated in the land by his prolonged absence?” Fani-Kayode asked.

“Again, why did Buhari not shake anyone’s hands during the photo-shoot? Why did he not get up from his chair, say ‘cheese’ and give us a big Daura smile? Why was he just sitting there? Why all the tall tales that he is getting much better?” he added.

Second missionary journey

Perhaps it was the tide of disbelief by Nigerians that led the Office of the National Security Adviser to arrange another visit to London, this time involving two governors from the opposition PDP.

Governors Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom State and Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State joined Governors Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, Abdulahhi Ganduje of Kano State, Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State, Kashim Shettima of Borno State, and Samuel Ortom of Benue State on the London visit, where they also had lunch with Buhari on Wednesday.

The Guardian reported on Thursday that the state governors spent barely an hour at the Abuja House, did not see Buhari until about 15 minutes after arrival, and looked morose and refused to speak to the press after meeting the president.

“They deliberately parked their vehicles at the entrance of the house to prevent The Guardian and another reporter from seeing who was seeing them off, but it was still possible to observe that, though they were smiling with the president’s aides as they came out of the house, the president was conspicuously absent from the door to see the governors off,” the report said, insinuating that the visiting governors could have been briefed on what they were allowed to say afterward.

Breaking the ice

It is not known why the governors refused to speak to The Guardian reporter in London, but they have since found their voices. From Umahi who talked about how “excited” he was to see the president in a good frame of mind, to Ganduje who said the president was in a good state of health and “will soon be back to Nigeria”, Ajimobi who said in a tweet that they “were warmly received” by Buhari in London, and another unnamed governor who said the president cracked jokes with the delegation without any speech inhibition, the governors have spoken, and Nigerians have heard them loud and clear but are not convinced.

‘We want to hear from Mr President’

“Until President Buhari speaks to us live, all na wash. These visits are a complete waste of public funds. He has to address the nation on live TV holding up a newspaper with date of the broadcast. He is a very public figure. Nigerians have a right to know what is wrong with him.”

The above statement by a concerned Nigerian on Nairaland encapsulates the sentiments of many citizens who are not happy with the secrecy with which the president’s men have managed information around his ill-health.

Nigerians, while wishing Buhari quick recovery, are apprehensive because of the desperation of the president’s men who have been making frantic attempts to deceive citizens. In February during Buhari’s first medical vacation, amid rumours that the worst may have happened, there was so much talk about a purported telephone conversation between him and the then newly sworn-in US President Donald Trump. Thereafter, “I spoke with him” or “He called me” became a byword among Buhari’s handlers. Even Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had told Nigerians on February 6 that he had a long conversation with Buhari and that “the president is hale and hearty”, only for Buhari to return on March 10 and say he had never been so sick all his life.

Following the recent visits to London, some allege that the governors on those trips were teleguided and were in no position to tell Nigerians the truth. They argue that a more encompassing delegation would have included more vociferous and fearless governors like Nyesom Wike of Rivers State or his Ekiti State counterpart, Ayo Fayose, who has been particularly critical of the secrecy surrounding the president’s true health status.

“We do not want pictures anymore, we want to hear from Mr. President. Let him address Nigerians from wherever he is. We want to see him speaking on video,” one keen observer told BDSUNDAY on condition of anonymity.

History on playback

Out of 32 months he was in office from 2007 to 2010, late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua spent 109 days on foreign medical trips. Though his administration tried to regulate foreign trips by Federal Government officials by making the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation the clearing house for officials who wished to embark on foreign trips, records have it that between November 23, 2009 when Yar’Adua was flown to Saudi Arabia for medical attention and January 13, 2010, his ministers, special assistants, advisers and other aides had embarked on indiscriminate foreign trips that gulped over N10 billion in the guise of visiting the ailing president or carrying out other official mission.

That cycle is here again following Buhari’s ill-health. Earlier this month, Osinbajo had visited Buhari in London barely 24 hours after Aisha Buhari, the president’s wife, returned from a similar trip to assure Nigerians that all was well with the president. Now it is the turn of the governors. The unanswered question, however, is how much these trips are costing the Nigerian taxpayers.

 

CHUKS OLUIGBO