The Presidency on Thursday again faulted the media reports President Muhammadu Buhari was sick.
There was fear and confusion in the country during the weekend when report cropped up in a section of the media that the president has passed on at the age of 74.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, in an interview with CNBC Africa, insisted that Buhari’s trip to London was not on medical ground.
He said, “The President is in London on vacation. He is not in any hospital and he is not ill.
“When he was travelling last week, the statement we put out was that he was going on vacation and during the vacation, he would do routine medical check-up and nothing has changed from what we pushed out last week.
“If anybody has fed something else into the rumour mill, that is just what it is — rumour.”
Asked if Buhari would be willing to talk to Nigerians from the UK, Adesina said such a decision could only be taken by the President himself.
“The fact that he is a President, he still has his rights. Compelling him to come out and talk will be infringing on his rights.
“The President will talk if he wishes to. If he doesn’t wish to, nobody will compel him to talk.
“The truth is that the President is on vacation and he has given a date on which he will return to work,’’ Adesina said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Thursday dismissed reports saying state governors were planning to send a delegation to confirm the health status of President Muhammadu Buhari in London.
The media was recently awashed with report Buhari’s death, but the Presidency had since denied.
Latest reports had it that state governors had a meeting in Abuja where they planned to send emissary to the United Kingdom in a bid to clarify the Presidency’s claim.
But Mohammed while speaking with members of the Presidential Committee on the Northeast Initiative’s Sub Committee on Economic Development, said there was no need for such emissary because the President is in good shape.
In a statement sent by his Special Adviser, Segun Adeyemi, the Minister, according to Daily Post said, “I think it is very much in order to use this opportunity to debunk the report in a section of the press today (Thursday) that Governors are meeting in Abuja and they will at the end of the meeting send an emissary to London to see President Buhari.
“I want to say categorically and emphatically that there is no iota of truth in this. Governors are not meeting here in Abuja because there is no need for it and there is no plan to send any emissary to London to see the President. Again I want to say that the President is hale and hearty in London where he is observing his 10-day vacation.”
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