Lai Mohammed, minister of information, has spoken on the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari at Wednesday’s federal executive council (FEC) meeting.
Since he returned to the country after a 49-day medical vacation in the UK, Buhari has missed the weekly gathering on three separate occasions.
He has also not been seen in key functions, and for the first time in a while, Buhari missed his regular Juma’at prayer at the mosque in the presidential villa, on Friday.
His absence has been fuelling speculations about his health.
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But speaking with state house correspondents after the meeting which was presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, Mohammed said there was nothing strange about the current development.
“He was in the office yesterday as you all reported, and if the doctor says ‘Oh take a rest’, I think you will recover faster when you know you ought to rest, rather than by forcing yourself to work when you are not fit to work,” he said.
“So, I think all he is doing is following his doctors’ advice, and I don’t think it’s about, ‘Oh, he won’t come next week’ … Those are just simple guess work. The president told the nation that he has never been this sick, and that he is going to take it easy. He said it from day one when he came back from the UK.
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“So, whatever is happening today is not any strange development. It’s exactly what he said, that he has been advised to take things easy, and that he would soon also go back for further treatment.
“So, I don’t think it is anything different from what he said. He has been quite transparent in the matter concerning his health.”
2 comments
Someone wrote this 7 years ago:
Nigeria: President Yar’Adua – Ali And the Angel
ANALYSIS
The politics behind the illness of President Yar’Adua reminds me of a fable chapter in one of the English Course series titled, Ali and the Angel which I read in primary School. In that book, there was a particular conman in a village called Ali. He told the villagers that he had an angel in his house that could only be seen by those who are not sinners. So anybody who went to Ali’s house without seeing the angel is regarded as a sinner. Ali only put a chair in a room with a pair of shoes which he claimed belonged to the angel.
He told the villagers that anybody who was clean and sin free would see the angel but anybody who was a sinner would not see the angel but would only see his shoes. Because human nature is so deceitful that nobody wants to be called a sinner, those who visited Ali’s house to see the angel pretended to have seen him though none saw any angel. Each of the villagers would come out and tell the next person that he saw the angel…..
I have read that fable even the one with Ali and the sugar… Great reminder.
PMB situation can be rightly simili compared.