Since President Muhammadu Buhari officially handed over to his Vice, Professor Yemi Osibanjo and embarked on a five-day Vacation, the allegation on social media has been that he is sick and has gone abroad for medical treatment.
These allegations were fueled by the statement from the Ekiti State Governor, Ayo Fayose who said the sudden vacation was suspicious.
“Nigerians deserve to know the truth about their President because the President is an open book that every Nigerian should be free to read,” Fayose had said in a statement.
Fayose had also accused the president of spending $1 million on each foreign trip.
Reacting to this, Buhari through his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina debunked Fayose’s claims stating that the President has worked for 8 months and needed some time to rest.
Adesina stated this during an interview on Channels TV, maintaining that the president was not on a sick bed.
“Any man can fall sick, old or young, but the president is not sick, the president is well.
“The president has worked for more than eight months non-stop, and he felt it was time to take a respite and he asked for six days leave and he did it the proper way.
“He communicated it to the national assembly, handed over power to his deputy and nothing is wrong with that.” Adesina stated.
He further added that: “Do you go on vacation because you are sick? You need respite from time to time and when you think it is time for respite, you take it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with his state of health.
“Nigerians have been lied to for so long that they are now finding it difficult to believe the truth and that is the problem. You have told the truth yet they did not believe it because they have a carry-over of those who have lied to them for many decades but this government will not lie; it will tell the truth.”
On the frequent foreign trips embarked upon by the President, Adesina argued that the travels abroad had yielded several results.
“He went to Chad; he went to Niger; he was to go to Cameroon but then the G7 invited him to Germany and what were those trips about? Security.
“They invited him to brief them on the security situation in Nigeria. Those trips were about Nigeria’s interest.
“When he assumed office in May last year, there were a minimum of 20 local governments in custody of Boko Haram, local governments where they had hoisted their flags, where they had declared their caliphate.
“Now, today, not a single local government is under their territory. The governor of Borno state still reiterated it today. He didn’t do that by sitting pretty on his seat. He needed to build a coalition to form a regional force, which has been done, to battle insurgency.
“Don’t also forget that our president is so much in demand. In September last year when he went for the UN General Assembly, the envoy of the UN said there were about 23 requests from foreign leaders to speak with our president; he could only oblige eight of them.”
Adesina also disproved the allegation of Fayose that the president spends about $1 million on each of his foreign trips.
“What is the source of that? You know it’s a laughable source. You know this is not true. If anyone has contrary evidence, let him bring it forward.
“The person alleging that the president spends $1 million should be able to prove it. It should be empirical. Anybody can get up and quote any figure, do we begin to lose sleep over that? The President himself has responded to that.”
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