President Muhammadu Buhari is currently on a 10-day medical vacation. This is the second time Buhari will be proceeding on vacation this year, having earlier embarked on a six-day vacation between February 5 and 10.
In the two instances, Buhari wrote to the National Assembly as required by law and asked that Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo should perform the duties of the President. Simply put, Osinbajo was named the Acting President.
The truth of the matter is that Osinbajo is not new to the roles of the President. He may not sit on the President’s seat or occupy his office but he is used to carrying out presidential roles as delegated to him by the President. Lately, tongues have been wagging on the manner in which Buhari had been sending Osinbajo to places where he had hitherto been scheduled to be. One of such cases was when he shelved his scheduled two-day official visit to Lagos State at the last minute and sent Osinbajo to represent him. The Presidency had attributed the development to what it called “scheduling difficulties.”
Penultimate Thursday, Buhari again shelved his trip to Rivers State during which he would have inaugurated the clean-up of Ogoniland and other oil-impacted communities. He again sent Osinbajo to represent him at the event with the Presidency saying there was no big deal in the Vice-President representing Buhari at functions since it is one Presidency.
Last weekend, Buhari put off his scheduled trip to Dakar, Senegal for the 49th Ordinary Session of the Economic Community of West African States, asking Osinbajo to again represent him. Despite fears about the President’s state of health, the Presidency had claimed that the President was “as fit as fiddle.”
But on Sunday, the Presidency came up with a statement that Buhari would be travelling to London to rest and would use the opportunity to see Ear, Nose and Throat specialists for a persistent ear infection. He was said to have been treated by his Personal Physician and an E.N.T Specialist in Abuja with both Nigerian doctors recommending further evaluation “purely as a precaution.”
This is of course an indication that all is not well with the President’s state of health. But the Presidency obviously is not comfortable with the use of “illness” or “sickness” when referring to this case.
But trust Buhari, he is never ready to deny the obvious. “Is there anybody that doesn’t fall sick?” was the question he posed to a journalist who asked him to react to the tension created by his state of health across the nation. That answer, to me, presupposed that the President is not under any illusion as far as his health is concerned.
Meanwhile, before he left the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport on Monday for London, the President left specific instructions for his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, as can be deduced from a photograph of the two of them that went viral on the Internet.
I wrote a piece last week in which I listed Kyari as one of the 10 powerful men in Buhari’s government. I noted that he always holds tenaciously to office files that may contain national secrets and he does not release his documents to anybody, including his security aides. When he was returning from a meeting on Wednesday, Kyari asked journalists, “where is THE PUNCH guy? He wrote that I always hold my files and I don’t give anybody.” As of that time, he was holding some files to his chest. Somebody replied him that the files he was holding confirmed the report and smiling, he replied, “Yes, because I don’t want any leakages from my side.”
Today is the sixth day of the President’s vacation. Going by the announcement by the Presidency, he should be back on his seat either on Wednesday or Thursday, all things being equal.
The last one week has however been an eventful one for the Acting President. A few minutes after Buhari left the country on Monday, Osinbajo hosted a delegation of the European Union led by the EU Ambassador in Nigeria, Mr. Michel Arrion. During that visit, he explained the rationale behind the Federal Government’s decision not to name those it recovered looted fund from.
On Tuesday, he had a meeting with the nation’s service chiefs and governors of oil-producing states on the renewed violence in the Niger Delta by militants which had crippled crude oil production and power supply.
On Wednesday, Osinbajo presided over a meeting of the Federal Executive Council that had about 22 of the 36 ministers in attendance. Three of them were said to be indisposed. Later in the day, he personally signed a condolence message he wrote in honour of a former coach of the national team, Stephen Keshi, who died earlier in the day.
On Thursday, he also inaugurated the Federal Government’s National Home Grown School Feeding programme which is a component of the Social Investment Plan promised by the All Progressives Congress government. The acting President clearly has a lot on his plate.
Re: A sumptuous lunch with Mr. President
I read your piece. In a country where everything has fallen apart, I found the lunch with the President a welcome one. But frankly speaking, we must do more than lunch. It must be followed with a forum -question and answer forum- where the President must face the press.
The forum should afford journalists the opportunity of looking the President in the eye and ask sensitive and burning questions that the President should proffer answers to, no matter how bitter they may be.
Some of my friends are of the view that the presidential lunch was used to win the journalists to the side of the President so that they will close their eyes to issues affecting the nation. I disagree with that belief. My strong conviction is that our pressmen will not and cannot be pushed into a corner with a few plates of jollof rice and fried meat or maybe chicken! I am of the opinion that when the time comes to ask the right questions, they will do so irrespective of the lunch.
I also note in your piece that the President asked journalists to always grill his guests during interview sessions. If that is the case, the same President must submit himself to be grilled also.
Questions must be asked for instance, on why the President refuses to talk about many killings perpetuated by herdsmen, mostly from the Northern part of this country. Why must the government assist a set of business men who by their choice of business is to sell cows? To make it more absurd, they want to go into other towns and villages and take over personal farmlands by government gazette and give to strangers to lord over the original owners of the lands.
Many times, I have watched with amazement when questions that are ought to be asked by journalists are not asked. Many journalists cannot look a government minister in the eye and ask him or her the burning questions about their actions.
My position is that if journalists must ask questions from the President’s visitors, our president must also be ready to answer questions from journalists.
Akin Ajanaku wrote via yuccatec@yahoo.com
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