President Muhammadu Buhari has been receiving medical care abroad even before becoming the president in 2015, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, claims.
Mr Shehu stated this on Tuesday while reacting the barrage of criticism that trailed his principal’s resumed junketing for medical check-ups abroad, an action they claimed has further deteriorated the health sector.
Since he took office, most of his trips abroad have been on health grounds but the outbreak of COVID-19 disease in the country early last year confined him but he has resumed his medical tourism overseas today and is expected back on the second week of next month.
When he sought to be president, he presented himself as a poor politician who could not afford affluent lifestyles most former heads of state like him could, including embarking on medical tourism overseas. Infact, he borrowed about N25million to purchase his 2015 expression of interest and declaration forms.
But featuring on Channels Television’s Today’s Politics, Mr Shehu stated that his principal has been embarking on medical care abroad even before he won the historic 2015 election, the first time the opposition succeeded in dislodging the ruling party.
“It is a medical trip and there is absolutely no urgency, no emergency; the President is not in any sick condition,” the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity said. “It is a routine medical check-up; the President has undertaken this with a set of doctors that he has retained over many years.
“He has done this before he came into office in 2015 and he has continued to do that without any disruptions but for last year (2020), he could not make it because of the travel restrictions that the COVID-19 pandemic has imposed on the global community.
“We are hoping that the President will come back in good time and continue all the work that he is doing. The President has enjoyed an extraordinarily good round of health,” he added.
Mr Buhari who has sought to be president thrice and failed succeeded in his fourth attempt in 2015 but with the merging of some opposition political parties and some aggrieved governors of then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He defeated then incumbent Goodluck Jonathan who sought re-election at the time under the now opposing PDP and was re-elected in 2019.
