The presidency has
stated that President Muhammadu Buhari never made a promise to Nigerians in
2015 that he would not seek medical treatment abroad if elected.
His Special Adviser on
Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, yesterday disclosed this while appearing as
a guest on Focus Nigeria, a programme on Africa Independent Television (AIT).
The spokesman of the
All Progressives Congress (APC), Bolaji Abdullahi, who appeared alongside
Adesina, also said the much talked about promise the president allegedly made
was false.
Abdullahi said: “I was
the Deputy Director of the policy directorate of the campaign, I was there from
the beginning to the end.”
“So many people came to
join the group, some from even outside the country. Then one day, we were in a
meeting, then one gentleman who heads one of the international NGOs in the
country brought this list of 100 items that he was proposing that we should
push out as the promise of Mr President to Nigerians.
“We circulated and
asked everyone to study it and come back the following day so that we look at
which ones we can own and which ones we need to reject.
“I remember that Number
1 on that list was to make the President say that ‘When I become President, I
will not travel abroad for medical treatment’.
“And I remember we
rejected that immediately, because we said we didn’t know what this man was
dealing with; we didn’t know who his doctors had been, how could we say this
for him?
“But you know what
happened? One of us in the group just released the document.”
Adesina backed
Abdullahi’s claim, confirming that the president was never aware of any such
promise, let alone agree to it.
He said, “I can confirm
that even the President himself, who was a candidate then, was not aware. The
very week I resumed this assignment, I raised some things with the President. I
said, this and this and this were promised, and the President said ‘When did I
promise these things?’
“I said there is a
document titled ‘100 things Buhari will do in 100 days’. He never knew about
that document. He had to ask people to fetch that document for him, and it was
the first time he was seeing it.
“So there were promises
that people made during the campaign on his behalf.”
Adesina went further to
blame the past administrations of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the
poor state of healthcare in the country.
He said the situation
was a major reason for the president’s medical trips abroad.
He said, “There was a
time we could have afforded it, but the money was not properly spent. That’s
why the President keeps lamenting that for a certain number of years
consistently, oil prices stood at $100 per barrel, going as high as $120 per
barrel at a time, and we were producing about 2.1 million barrels daily.
“Then when he (Buhari)
came, oil prices plunged to $37 per barrel, so he called the Central Bank
Governor and said, ‘Do we have savings?’ and the Governor said ‘No savings.’
“The question is, ‘What
did they do with that money? Why didn’t they fix our hospitals in all those
years that we had boom?’
“And you know that since 2015, things have been down
and they are just looking up now. As things look up, if they ever ever get back
to where we were, if we ever get back to $100 per barrel for oil under the
Buhari administration, it’s doubtful.
“But if we ever get there, you can be sure that a
lot will get done, because this is a prudent administration and the money of
Nigerians will be used to serve Nigerians.”
DAILY POST recall that the president has made two
trips to London this year alone to seek treatment for an undisclosed illness.
His most notable trip gulped 103 days, a medical
vacation that caused public discontent resulting in many calling for his
resignation from office.
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