Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari, has dashed to the United Kingdom (UK) for medical care.
His handlers say his latest trip to the UK is for a “routine medical check-up.”
Mr Buhari’s Personal Assistant on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, says in a tweet sighted by DGN Online that he left Nigeria on Tuesday afternoon, March 30, 2021.
“President @MBuhari has proceeded to London, the United Kingdom earlier this afternoon, for a routine medical check-up,” Mr Ahmad said.
President @MBuhari has proceeded to London, the United Kingdom earlier this afternoon, for a routine medical check-up. pic.twitter.com/Nkg1I7N8z0
— Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) March 30, 2021
The President arrives London, the UK. pic.twitter.com/S65dGaHdqE
— Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) March 30, 2021
Before Mr. Buhari departed Nigeria, his special adviser on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, indicated in a statement that the trip was strictly “routine”.
The Nigerian presidency says Mr. Buhari was “due back in the country during the second week of April, 2021.”
Past medical trip
Mr. Buhari has been confronted with ill health since assuming office in 2015. At a point, the 78-years-old Buharia was reported dead.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at a point had to act as President, while Buhari was on admission in London.
The Nigerian presidency has refused to disclose Mr. Buhari’s illness.
Mr. Buhari has had to deny in the past that he had died and been replaced by a lookalike.
There had been rumors that Mr. Buhari had been “cloned.” But in response, the former military ruler, says “it’s [the] real me, I assure you.”
Over the last few years of his presidency that has seen sharp rise in economic hardship across Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, rumors have been that he had been replaced with a body double called “Jubril” from Sudan.
The rumours spread like wildfire on social media. Mr Buhari spent at least three months in the UK in 2017 while on a “medical leave.”
Upon returning to Nigeria from the UK in 2017, the President says “I have never been so sick”.
He however failed to answer the critical question of what illness he was battling.
Promoters of his body double campaign picked a scene from the 1997 film “Face/Off” to show how a dead Buhari’s face could have been transplanted to the so-called Jubril from Sudan.
By Melvin Tarlue