President Buhari’s frequent trips to the United Kingdom for medical treatment is raising the country’s political risk and economic uncertainty as economic agents are now questioning his fitness to remain in office, his decision to stand for re-election in 2019, and the wider implication for effective governance in a challenging economy.
“No one is sure of what illness the president is suffering from. No one is sure how bad things really are. The cloud of uncertainty over the president’s health puts a cost on both political and business decisions. We are all in dark and that comes at a significant cost to the economy,” said a banker who did not want his name mentioned.
Since coming to power in 2015, President Buhari medical trips to the United Kingdom has become routine.
On June 6, 2016, Buhari took ten days leave to go treat an ear infection in London, the United Kingdom. In January 2017, he spent another 50 days in London undergoing what his handlers described as “routine medical check-ups,” but which the president, on his return, confessed to be full blown treatment and that he had never been so sick all his life.
He remained in the country for three months, during which time he hardly stepped out, postponed and missed several weekly Federal Executive Council meetings, and his handlers declared that following the doctor’s prescription, Buhari will work from home, triggering speculation about the severity of his condition.
He eventually returned to the UK on May 7 and spent another 104 days still tending to his health.
Although, he returned to the country last year August in much improved health, there has been speculation that he often punctuates his foreign travels with secret visits to see his doctors in the UK since then.
Last month, the President travelled a week earlier for the 25th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings. Also, on his way back from his trip to the United States where he held talks with President Donald Trump, Buhari, according his media handlers, made a technical stopover in London to “refuel and carry out routine checks.”
But the presidency later acknowledged, for the first time, that Buhari actually met his doctor who asked him to return to London for further treatment.
As Garba Shehu, the President’s spokesman, explained: “In the course of the technical stop-over for aircraft maintenance in London on his way back from Washington last week, the President had a meeting with his doctor [and] the doctor requested the President to return for a meeting which he agreed to do. The president has since embarked on the four-day medical trip to the United Kingdom.
“It really is a reproach on Nigeria that our president is perennially in and out of hospital in a foreign country, and none of us (Nigerians) know what illness or illnesses afflicts him,” Opeyemi Agbaje, political economist and CEO of RTC Advisory Services Ltd, said via phone.
“It questions our status as a democracy in which leaders are accountable to the people. And of course, it has political and economic costs as it increases uncertainty and perceptions of risks.”
Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, says the president “really needs to take a break and attend to his health. For a lot of people who are asking the question whether he is healthy enough to run for re-election, this trip further reinforces those concerns.”
President Buhari has come under intense criticism lately for his lethargic style of leadership and inability to revamp the economy and prevent or adequately respond to the several security crises in the country including the killings by alleged Fulani herdsmen and bandits over most parts of the north-central and north-western states of the country.
In January, former president Obasanjo, in a strongly-worded letter, urged Buhari to honourably “dismount the horse” and go tend to his failing health in peace. Ex-military president, Ibrahim Babangida agreed with Obasanjo, saying Nigeria needs a new breed of leaders that are quick and smart and can better handle the complex challenges facing the country.
Olusegun Sotola, Senior researcher at the Lagos-based Initiative for Public Policy, says: “The president’s health woes will ultimately affect his ability to campaign.”
Much more important however to Sotola is the public perception that “governance is suffering”.
Tolani Animasheun, a member of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) berated the president for his constant medical trips abroad even at a time when medical workers were on strike in the country.
“The president embarked on medical trip when medical workers are on strike [for more than a month] in the country. Is this how a president is supposed to leave the country when his people cannot access medical treatment?”
Also speaking, a social commentator and critic, Femi Aborishade, said it was obvious that the All Progressive Congress, (APC) Buhari-led administration has failed Nigerians, noting that the frequent medical trips abroad by the president did not make any sense in the prevailing circumstances.
“I think there is a general concern about the performance of the Buhari administration.”
He says the impression is being created that President is not in control of his government, considering his frequent trips to take care of his health.
Buhari is expected back in the country on May 12 and then proceed on an official two-day visit to Jigawa state.
Chris Akor and Iniobong Iwok
