President Buhari's
failing health has left the nation on tenterhooks. It's 2010 all over again. President Muhammadu Buhari's health
challenge has worsened, top Aso Villa officials have disclosed to Pulse.
The Nigerian leader returned home on
March 10, 2017, after spending some 50 days in the United Kingdom. What was supposed to be a short leave
period soon morphed into a full blown medical vacation.
"I can't recall being so sick in my
life", Buhari
said upon his return. Since his return, the Nigerian
Presidency has been managing information concerning the President's health,
while ensuring that nothing unauthorised is given away.
Buhari has missed two of the last three
federal executive council meetings.
The President was also absent from
Friday prayers last week and skipped the wedding of his grandson and aide. Buhari was also conspicuously missing
from the nation's May Day celebration in the capital city.
"All is not well here", one top ranking Villa official told Pulse while
craving anonymity for this story because he hadn't been authorised to comment
on the subject. "Baba
needs the prayers of all Nigerians", he
added.
Buhari has looked gaunt, frail and
shorn of colour on the few occasions he's been seen in public recently.
There are reports that the Nigerian
leader is battling a prostate cancer condition, however, Pulse hasn't been able to independently
verify those. The signs that all hasn't been well
with Buhari gained currency recently when APC chieftain Bisi
Akande said the
President is being held hostage by a cabal.
"The greatest danger, however, is for
political interests at the corridor of power attempting to feast on the health
of Mr. President in a dangerous manner that may aggravate the problems between
the executive and the national assembly without realising if, in the end, it
could drag the entire country into avoidable doom", Akande, a former chairman of the APC, said.
Akande and former Lagos Governor Bola
Tinubu, were
among the first set of Nigerians to visit Buhari in February, during the
latter's medical sojourn in London.
Akande added that: "Let me warn today that those who wish to harvest political gains
out of the health of the President are mistaken. This is not Nigeria of 1993.
"We are in a new national and global era
of constitutionalism and order. We hope Nigerians have enough patience to learn
from history. "My greatest fear, however, is that the
country should not be allowed to slide into anarchy and disorder of a
"monumental proportion."
Akande also said: "We
must appreciate that Buhari's poor health is already taking a toll on the
health of Nigeria as a polity." Our sources have disclosed that Buhari
is being pressured to relinquish power to Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo.
However, added the sources, the cabal
within the Presidency has stood its grounds, insisting that an apparently
ailing President, carries on.
Akande was obviously referring to this
cabal in his comments.
Pulse was also told that reports in certain sections of the media
detailing how the Nigerian leader has been unable to feed or drink properly in
the last couple of days, are correct.
The Presidency cabal is being led by
Chief of Staff Abba Kyari and Mamman
Daura, Pulse was told. "It's a power game in here", another Villa official disclosed. "The
tussle for power is intense".
There are indications from within the
corridors of power that a political solution is being fashioned out by the
nation's former Presidents and prominent leaders.
On Monday, former Presidents Ibrahim
Badamosi Babangida (IBB), Abdulsalam Abubakar and Olusegun
Obasanjo, converged
on IBB's Minna mansion to seek a solution.
The fear within this circle of former
Presidents, Pulse was told, is that Buhari's lingering
health crisis is capable of steering the nation down another path of leadership
crisis last seen during the Umaru Yar'adua era.
The meetings are being held to
forestall the Yar'adua scenario, Pulse was told.
Back in the day, the national assembly
had to invoke the 'doctrine of necessity' before power was handed to then Vice
President Goodluck Jonathan.
This time, no one wants it to come to
that.
"They are meeting to see how they can
resolve this as quickly as possible", Pulse was told as it pertains to the Minna meeting. Those meetings and many others will
continue in the next couple of days, it has been learned; even as civil society
organisations have prevailed on Buhari to step aside in order to better deal with
his health.
"Why is the president hiding his state of
health?" Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka queried
in disbelief last week. "He's supposed to
understand he's public property."
Buhari's ministers would rather not
discuss the President's health in the media.
Information Minister Lai
Mohammed who came under a barrage of attacks after
saying the President will be working from home, has reiterated that his initial
comments had been taken out of context. Mohammed and the President's
spokespersons have maintained that Buhari only needs a period of sustained rest
after undergoing a series of tests and treatments abroad.
Transportation minister Rotimi
Amaechi says instead of sustaining speculation
around the President's health, Nigerians should be concerned with whether
Buhari is delivering on his campaign promises. Amaechi said given his advanced age,
there's nothing strange with respect to the President's failing health.
In March of 2010, Buhari called for the
impeachment of then President Yar'adua, insisting that he's left the national
assembly with no choice after failing to disclose the status of his health. Buhari also called on Yar'adua to
resign for failing to disclose the status of his health. Yar'adua passed on weeks later.
The state of health of a Nigerian
President has become a rather sensitive subject in Africa's most populous
nation; even before Yar'adua's death. Obasanjo battled allegations concerning
the state of his health as democratic President and General Sani Abacha passed
away in the Villa with no information to this day regarding what ailed him.
There are fears that Nigeria is headed
down the path of another constitutional logjam with Buhari's illness and with
the insistence of the cabal that he wouldn't be handing over the reins to Vice
President Osinbajo who has been calling the shots rather admirably amid
Buhari's disappearing acts. Getting an ailing President out of
office in Nigeria hasn't been made any easier by the constitution.
Section 144 (1) of the Nigerian
constitution, as amended, reads as follows:
The President or Vice President shall cease to
hold office if:
a) By a resolution passed by two-thirds
majority of all the members of the executive council of the federation, it is
declared that the President or Vice President is incapable of discharging the
functions of his office and
b) The declaration is verified, after such
medical as may be necessary by a medical panel established under subsection 4
of this section in its report to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of
the House of Representatives.
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