• Friday, January 03, 2025
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BusinessDay

Updated: Buhari absent at FEC, after wife says condition over-rated

President Muhammadu Buhari for the fourth time in a row failed to show up at the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting.
This is even as in house sources confided that the President may be due to return to London for proper medical attention anytime this week.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who was obviously aware that the President would be absent from the meeting, arrived and immediately started the meeting with an almost full hall this time around.
Yesterday (Tuesday), Buhari supposedly received the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami and the General Managing Director of the Nigeria’s State Oil, NNPC. The President’s wife, Aisha Buhari had later taken to her twitter handle to say her husband’s condition was not as bad as Nigerians were being led to believe. Earlier, an online media reported that the President’s health condition had deteriorated that he couldn’t eat or drink.
BusinessDay gathered that the two people who actually came to meet with the President on Tuesday met him at home and not in his office. They were said to have met with him in his office at the official residence.
Last week Wednesday, after the President failed to show up at the FEC meeting, the minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed said he will be working from home that day. However, from indications, the President had been working from home since that day.
“The President asked that he be allowed to rest and asked the VP to preside. He asked that all his files be taken to him at home that he will work from home” Mohammed said.
A statement by Presidential Media Aide Garba Shehu, last Thursday, obviously necessitated by reports following the President’s absence at the Federal Executive Council meeting, said his doctors have advised that the President takes things easy.
According to him, the president’s absence was a last minute decision. “otherwise, the cabinet and the public might have been alerted in advance. As eager as he is to be up and about, the President’s doctors have advised on his taking things slowly, as he fully recovers from the long period of treatment in the United Kingdom some weeks ago” he said.
Since returning from a medical vacation in the United Kingdom on March 10th, where he spent almost 50 days, Buhari has attended and presided over three FEC meetings. At the last FEC meeting he attended, the President launched the country’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. He has hardly been seen at public functions even as concerns mount in the polity over his health condition.

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