Editor’s note: President
Muhammadu Buhari returned to Nigeria on Friday, March 10 after spending
51 days in London on an extended medical vacation.
In
this opinion by Umar Sa’ad Hassan, he argues that President Buhari
would be better off resigning and allowing Professor Yemi Osinbajo
continue with the leadership of the county.
The return of President Buhari
President
Muhammadu Buhari announced soon after returning from a medical leave
lasting a month and 19 days that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo was
going to continue in that capacity as he still needed to ‘rest’. I
totally understand the need for that as a lot of us already knew he was
battling something serious for the Presidency to keep the nature of his
ailment under wraps. If it were a medical condition not worth losing any
sleep over, I trust Femi Adesina to have disclosed it to us in a bid to
allay fears, dispel mischief and assure us we weren’t sold damaged
goods. But what we kept getting instead were updates on test results and
who was visiting. Mr Lai Mohammed as the publicity secretary of the
Action Congress in 2009 demanded that the then Minister of Information
updated Nigerians daily on the state of President Yar’Adua’s health. It
is ironic that in consonance with the hypocrisy we have now grown
accustomed to, he didn’t do so when Buhari was away.
Soon
after the President arrived 10 hours late to an APC Presidential
campaign rally in Delta state, reports surfaced complete with a medical
report on how the President was been treated for acute prostrate gland
cancer at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria in Kaduna
state. Nobody took them serious and we all waved them off as one of the
PDP’s numerous antics at fighting off its most potent opposition ever.
It felt a desperate move at a most desperate time but in the present
circumstance, those reports deserve a lot more attention than they got
then. Governor Ayo Fayose and others that warned us to choose life over
death and not vote a man that could die in office now seem special
recipients of messages from above.
What we have to work with suggests we
have a 74-year-old President who suffers from an ailment grave enough
for his doctors to refuse to release him before his test results are out
and also grave enough to be kept secret from everyone.
Is Buhari still the same person we think he is?
If
Buhari is half the man almost everyone thought he was, he would have
tendered his resignation and gone on to cater full time to his health.
If not for anything but for his love for this great nation. The Buhari
sold to Nigerians was one who believed we deserved the best from our
leaders and one who was modest, contented and didn’t deem the Presidency
a do-or-die affair.
A lot of those
who clapped back at Governor Fayose back then actually vouched for his
integrity by claiming the Buhari they knew wouldn’t spend an extra day
in office if his age or health would constitute a hindrance to the
effective discharge of his duties. That doesn’t seem to be the case.
In
the end he is no different from the other politicians out there who
would cling onto power at all costs. He is no more honourable than your
average Nigerian politician who would rather die on the sick bed in his
office than relinquish power. I saw a recent photo of the ex-Taraba
state governor on a wheel chair and I wondered if Tarabans were actually
waiting for the man to get well and resume in office.
Buhari’s man of integrity toga only makes
it difficult to rationalize his reluctance to step down. He cannot
claim to worry about what would become the fate of Nigerians if he does
so as the acting President has proved more than equal to the task with
the yeoman’s job he has done so far. Virtually every poll I saw online
ended with the majority wanting Osinbajo to continue in a substantive
capacity. The Ag. President’s surprise visit to the Murtala Mohammed
International airport Lagos to inspect facilities gave a lot of us an
insight into what it felt like to have a vibrant leader on the good side
of age.
And talking about age, the
President himself has admitted it would limit his capabilities in
honouring his bond with the people. Add that to his health state and you
have a man who is guaranteed to serve us at a minimal capacity. This
ought to have been the clincher if indeed he has sat down to consider
towing the path of honour.
Osinbajo has shown he is capable
The
theory that the profligacy of the PDP is responsible for all of our
current problems has been disproved by none other than his
Vice-President who needed just the amount of time the President was away
to pay strategic visits to the Niger-Delta to meet the right people and
pull the right strings in a more diplomatic approach a lot of us feared
a ‘hard man’ like PMB wasn’t capable of adopting to ensure none of our
oil installations were bombed ever since. He pursued rigorous
enforcement of the CBN policy on foreign exchange and thanks to that its
A lot of us remember even without this new policy, he was able to help
the naira claw back 14 points during President Buhari’s first medical
leave.
The President’s performance
quite sincerely has been below par and it would be better to leave and
have Nigerians attribute it to whatever reason his honourable act
propels them towards, most likely illness than to give them less than
they deserve.
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