‘You lead on the medals table’ — PDP taunts Buhari over medical tourism comment

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to stop seeking medical help outside Nigeria in order to lead by example. 

The opposition party said this in response to the president’s comment on the need for citizens to stop travelling abroad for medical treatment as a result of the state of the hospitals in the country.

The president, who was represented by Ogbonnaya Onu, minister of science and technology, spoke during the inauguration and handover of completed projects to the management of the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, on Friday.

Buhari has embarked on numerous trip to the UK to seek medical care since he assumed office. 

In a statement on Sunday, Kola Ologbondiyan, spokesman of the PDP, said Buhari “leads on the medals table, as self-indicting and raises public apprehensions on high-level deceits in governance.

“Our party describes as ridiculous, a situation where a President, who patronises foreign hospitals for treatment & even check-ups; whose administration has failed to provide adequate healthcare in his country could turn around to pontificate to other citizens against foreign treatment,” he said.

“While the PDP do not approve of proliferated foreign medical tourism, especially by leaders & public office holders, our party holds that a leader who has failed to lead by example and whose government has neglected and wrecked our healthcare systems, lacks all rectitude to issue directives against foreign treatment.”  

“Mr President can then discover that our health system has suffered untold neglect under his watch, leading to dilapidated infrastructure, empty drug shelves, decrepit and worn-out equipment, brain-drain and a demoralised workforce worse than his 1983 recollections.

“It is even more disheartening that all the investments and robust programmes of successive PDP administration, including the comprehensive National Strategic Health Development Plan, Saving One Million Lives Initiatives, National Health Insurance Scheme, among others, have been degraded and impaired by the dysfunctional APC administration.”

The PDP called on Buhari to take concrete steps to improve on the nation’s healthcare system so that Nigerians can have access to adequate and affordable healthcare at all levels.

The party also said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has reduced the office of the president to issuing condolences whenever there is an attack on Nigerians.

The party said this in reaction to the recent killing of 19 persons in Tawari community in Kogi local government area of Kogi state.

“The PDP notes that the invasion of the helpless Tawari community and the killing spree, which reportedly lasted unrepressed for several hours, despite earlier security apprehensions in the area, points to government’s direct negligence to its primary duty to protect the people,” it said in another statement. 

“The PDP also blamed the unabated killing and violence in various parts of the country on security lapses under the present administration as well as the manifest failure of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to decisively track down and prosecute killers and perpetrators of violence in our country. 

“Our party recalls that no decisive steps have been taken to prosecute the perpetrators of mass killings that shook our nation in Benue, Kaduna, Katsina, Bauchi, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara, Kano, Niger, Rivers, Ebonyi, Abia and of course Kogi state, under the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration. 

“It is indeed disheartening that the APC administration is now trying to reduce the functions of the office of the Commander-in Chief of our nation to issuing press releases and condolences message each time marauders invade communities and massacre defenceless compatriots, instead of tracking down and dealing with the perpetrators. 

“Such failures by government embolden killers, insurgents, marauders and kidnappers who have now virtually taken over our highways and holding citizens hostage in their homes, forests and caves.” 

The opposition party said it is standing shoulder to shoulder with Nigerians to demand an immediate step to end wanton killings and bloodletting in the country.