By Oludare Maywa
Our economy is sick, very sick, with huge outstanding debt that will take the country more than 40 years to offset, and yet the outgoing President Mohammadu Buhari has requested the Senate approval of additional debt of $800 million from the World Bank at the twilight of his government.
The president is also sick, very sick, and has to stay back in London after his visit to attend the coronation of King Charles III to treat a toothache, so his aides said.
But we all know that the president’s sickness is more than that of the toothache being bandied around by his aides. In the last eight years, no truth has ever come from the mouths or the pen of his minders concerning the state of his health; we were always being told one lie after the other by them to cover up for the president.
The president recently returned to Nigeria from his trip to Saudi Arabia for supposedly lesser Haji and time off, but we all know that the reason for the president’s stay in Saudi was more than what we were told.
To cap it all, the incoming president, Bola Tinubu, seems to be hanging his hopes of sustaining his health between Nigeria and France, though his own minders have started lying about the state of his health to Nigerians too.
The last time he traveled out, we were told that he traveled to rest after the rigorous campaign session for the election and recharge for the task ahead. That so-called vacation took him up to 25 days in France, without him being able to visit Saudi Arabia for lesser haji as promised by his spokesmen.
Yet, less than two weeks after he returned, thinking this was his final berth before the inauguration, he jetted out again on Wednesday, and this time, we are being told that he traveled to sell Nigeria to the world in Europe.
Prior to the announcement of his latest journey, speculations had been rife on social media that he had been smuggled out to France again to attend to his failing health.
Some political analysts said that the president-elect’s media aides were compelled to come out with the statement and footage of him jetting out to douse the speculation of his ill health. Despite the ambiguous statement by his spokesperson, many Nigerians are still in the dark as to what the true situation is.
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First, the press statement failed to mention a particular country the president was traveling to; for how long is he going to stay, and who are the people with whom he is supposed to hold bilateral and multilateral talks?
All these and many more are begging for answers, and yet again, Nigerians are being treated with disdain about the condition of their would-be president. For the eight years of President Buhari’s presidency, no Nigerian could categorically mention what his health condition was like or the kind of ailment that afflicted him. We are all living in the dark about the president’s health condition, despite the fact that his medicals are funded by public funds.
Nigerians have been particularly unlucky with the choice of president since the advent of democracy, especially from Musa Yar’dua to the present occupier of the seat of power. No one considered it so important for Nigerians to know their state of health.
While Yar’adu was in a coma in a faraway Saudi Arabia hospital, he was still ‘signing’ the Nigerian budget, ‘releasing funds’ for projects, and ruling the country from his sick bed. Even some clerics of Muslim and Christian religions told us that the man was in a good state of health when he was already brain dead.
He was smuggled back to the country in the middle of the night, under the darkness, when it was obvious they could no longer deceive Nigerians, and later announced his death to the public after some drama around him.
For how long will Nigerians be kept in the dark on the state of health of their president? Is Nigeria going to be ruled by a president who makes frequent trips to hospitals abroad? For how long would a sick country be governed by a sick president?
Would Tinubu eventually summon the courage to disclose to the public his state of health and be patriotic enough to resign from office based on his ill health? At least he would have been able to fulfill his lifelong ambition.
Until then, Nigeria remains in dire straits, gasping for breath and being buffeted from all sides by corruption, misgovernment, deception, and greed by politicians who care only about themselves rather than the country they are supposed to serve.
(omayowa@globalfinancialdigest.com; Newsroom: +234 8033 964 138)
