Dele Momodu Writes on Buhari's Death Rumour.

Fellow Nigerians, please allow me to say wherever two or
more Nigerians are gathered these days the topic of
discussion must, naturally, dovetail to our dear President’s
state of health and the consequential suggestion that our
country is ailing as a result. This controversy didn’t start
today. I remember how Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose, the
enfant terrible of Ekiti State, raised a horrific alarm, just
before the 2015 election that eventually catapulted Major
General Buhari back to power. He had screamed to the
whole world, indeed to high heavens, that the then APC
Presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, had
suffered brain damage and that he had to be flown abroad
in an air ambulance for treatment. I was in London at that
time and I remember making frantic calls to impeccable
sources who I believe would know the truth. I was able to
obtain pictures of visitors to the modest apartment General
Buhari was staying at the time, which was somewhere in the
high brow Mayfair. The visitors included Nasir El Rufai and
Kayode Fayemi and they were able to dispel the ugly rumour
even if some doubting Thomases still believed the worst had
happened as Fayose continued to spur them on.
It is about two years since that happened and it doesn’t
seem much has changed. The only difference is that Buhari
is now the President of Africa’s biggest nation and any
news about him would be of greater interest to Nigerians,
wherever they may be, and indeed the rest of the world.
Since assuming power as Executive President, whenever the
President has travelled abroad on vacation, the rumour mill
has gone into overdrive with all manner of people espousing
their own theories as to what is wrong with the President
and the sort of treatment he has gone to receive. This trip is
no different. It has been compounde by the fact that it was
announced oin this occasion that the President was going
on a medical vacation as he would take the opportunity of
his holiday to see his doctors. This is why I believe the
President’s information managers should try harder to
dispel the rumours. They left the door ajar with the small
piece of information they provided. Mischief makers would
make capital out of this once nothing more was said about
the matter. There is no big deal telling us how the President
is spending his holiday, where he is staying and so on. If
indeed he is seeing doctors for a routine check up or worse
still his health is failing like happens to all mortals, there is
nothing to be ashamed of. We should be provided with the
information and updated regularly with what is happening. If
the President had routinely gone into hospital Nigerians
should know the hospital as a matter of right what hospital
he has gone to and if possible the doctors attending to him.
The doctors should be allowed to inform the public as much
as possible without jeopardising his right to the little privacy
that he has left. The citizens of Nigeria and the rest of the
world are anxious to know every little information about the
President of the most populous black nation and they
should be obliged.
What seems clear to me is that those in charge of
disseminating information about the President do not seem
to realise that once you become President of Nigeria,
especially now in the era of social media, you become a
gold fish with no hiding place. The President of Nigerian is
no longer a private person upon assumption of office. His
life belongs to Nigeria and Nigerians. That is the simple
truth that the President and his publicists must realise and
accept. It was in the dark ages when people think that they
are protecting the President and Nigerians by not telling us
about things happening to the President and around him.
If the President’s PR people are not obliging Nigerians then,
the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo should take charge
properly by addressing the public and allaying the fears of
the people. He is a very cerebral person who must
appreciate the debilitating effect that the kind of stories
being peddled about is having on the polity and the
economy. The has led to people even carrying some
salacious tales that some infernal cabal have asked
Professor Yemi Osinbajo to resign in order that a Northerner
can act as President and to prevent a Yoruba man from
becoming President in the event that the worst happens to
the President. The reason that such fiction is able to thrive
is because people feel that the Vice President has not come
out powerfully enough to demonstrate that he is truly the
Acting President. For many, his body language leaves too
many questions unanswered. They claim that he either
appears like someone in the dark about events around him
or that he is just being too careful not to send wrong
signals. The way we disseminate news still leaves much to
be desired. We seem to treat power with too much
trepidation and thus allow touts to take over and rule the
airwaves and cause confusion all over the place. I know that
is not the case because the Vice President is not that kind
of person. He is a careful but deliberate man who brings his
intelligence and experience to bear on all that he is doing.
However, it is clear to me that he has not been faced with
this kind of dilemma before. I am sure that the Vice
President knows that neither the President nor himself have
any real private life again. It is clear that President’s
handlers do nt know this. I was surprised to hear what my
brother, the Special Adviser to the President, Femi Adesina,
had to say about this matter suggesting that it was left to
the President to tell us what he wished about himself, his
vacation and his health.
Silence is not always golden. It can be somewhat
destructive if care is not taken. I’m reasonably certain that
President Buhari is on a short vacation as announced when
he was travelling. Even if I do not know exactly where he is,
I believe he is resting and possibly seeing his doctors for an
annual check up. Why make a sog and dance or fetish of
this? President Buhari is human after-all. It is sad that we
often make mountains out of molehills by our actions,
inactions and ill-actions. Nigeria ought to have learnt useful
lessons from the days prior to the death of former President
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. This was how Nigeria was thrown
into total confusion in 2010 because of the inordinate
ambitions of a few people. I believe we have come a long
way since then. I thought we had established that our public
officers, especially our leaders, are in the spotlight and the
full glare of the citizenry. That is the price you pay for
leadership. You cannot expect to be in that role and then
want to be a private citizen. If you want that, then you stay
in the confines of your sitting room or the “other room”! You
certainly do not aspire to public office, if that is your desire.
There are very good reasons why we need to know what is
happening to our leaders, especially the President and the
Vice President. Our Leaders forget that they are Public
servants. Emphasis being on the word “Public”. They are
being maintained by our hard earned money, tax payers
money, whether they are on holiday, or on a routine medical
check or a major medical operation. We therefore have a
right to the information that is presently being hidden from
us. If the President does not care as some of his aides are
suggesting, we care! It is our country and we asked him to
lead us.
The state of health of the President, Vice President, and
other major leaders in the executive, the legislature and the
judiciary are of paramount concern to us. If they are ill and
unable to govern, legiste or dispense justice, we, the people,
must know. They cannot be patched up. It is them, the
elected leaders, and not their cohorts, associates and
acolytes that we elected to govern and legislate for us.
Those associates, kitchen cabinet members or other
surrogates cannot overreach the Constitution and govern on
behalf of the President or Governors. That is what almost
happened during President Yar’Adua’s last days. We
vigorously resisted those that sought to hijack the
government at that time and succeeded in driving them out
of Aso Rock. Nobody can take us back to those dark days.
We are not prepared for anybody to set us back.
The Nigerian Constitution is clear on what would happen in
case of any eventuality to the President. No Jupiter can
change that unilaterally, not even the Vice President.
Fortunately, Prof Osinbajo is an esteemed and erudite
lawyer. I am positive that he will not allow the Constitution
to be suborned. He is a God-fearing and courageous man
and will defend the laws of our land as he has pledged to do.
I expect that President Buhari will do the same. That is why
he has consistently transmitted a message to the Senate
that the Vice-President is to act for him when he is away on
vacation.
What happened in The Gambia just last week should have
shown clearly that the days of reckless rascality in
government and governance in Africa are gone forever.
Fortunately, Nigeria and its leaders have taken the lead in
enthroning democracy in other countries, cue Charles Taylor
and Liberia, Gbagbo and Ivory Coast and now Jammeh and
The Gambia, and so cannot now turn around to do the
opposite in our own country.
On a more serious note, someone needs to talk some sense
to the ruling party, APC. In case, the party apparatchik are
still living in denial, it should be told in very clear terms that
APC is flailing and floundering aimlessly and dangerously.
The party is not living up to expectations. Nigerians are
suffering and crying. No excuse can change the fact that
most of the promises we made have not been kept.
Volunteers and non-party members like us are being
harassed and confronted on the streets by those who feel
let down by a government we helped to midwife. It is
shocking that a party which coasted to power on the wave
of a significant majority of popular votes has virtually
wasted and frittered away its goodwill so fast. Something
drastic and urgent has to be done to arrest the slide into
oblivion. The best and most charitable friends of APC would
admit privately, if not publicly, that this government has
failed to sparkle, in fact, that it has been too lacklustre and
sluggish. It is as if it feels it has all the time in the world.
Why is APC unable to fly?
There are just too many questions begging for answers and
APC has stubbornly refused to own up to its many
shortcomings and seek help from within and outside. If you
not know the way forward, one should be able to retrace his
steps before it is too late. Those who invested in APC did so
in the hope that it was coming to demolish the behemoth
called PDP and make life better for most Nigerians. Never
did we campaign that the journey was going to be an
Israelite one that would take a total of 40 years instead of
four. I believe Nigerians are very patient and understanding
people but they often justifiably get impatient whenever they
feel someone has taken them for a ride. This is why it may
seem they are kicking fitfully and restlessly against the APC
and unable to endure the hardships they currently face.
True change is needed and maybe the way to start being
accountable is to publish details of the President’s state of
health so we truly know where we are!


Source:Thisday