By Levinus Nwabughiogu
News of his departure was not hidden that Thursday, January, 19. He had announced it to Nigerians through a letter delivered to Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, that same day.
And before the end of that day, his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, issued a press statement, disclosing that he was proceeding on vacation in London.
By that day’s evening, pictures of his departure at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja were on national television. For President Muhammadu Buhari, only a few departing remarks which, however, came in the form of rhetoric questions would dispel any rumours about his health and trip. “What’s wrong with going on vacation? Didn’t I go last year at the same time?”, he asked journalists who had accosted him at the airport.
In quick succession, his spokesman, Adesina, who accompanied him to the airport alongside other officials, said Buhari was going to rest and do routine medical check-ups, dismissing any insinuations of serious ill health.
But by the morning of Saturday, January 21, 2017, speculations had become rife that the President had died in a London hospital. What? How? The questions came in torrents.
This set the cyberspace busy as people started working their phones and surfing the internet to confirm the news. By evening, no major news medium in Nigeria, London, US or elsewhere had reported the incident.
Much later in the night, the two media aides of the President, Adesina and Mallam Garba Shehu, on their Facebook account and twitter handle respectively, dismissed the rumored death of their boss.
One would have thought that the media aides statements, which were massively reported in the media, would have put paid to the rumors, but no, they rather gained acceleration. Adesina, on Sunday, January 22, appeared on a television programme to give more clarification. But the currency of the issue became so high that the picture of Buhari watching the programmes which later appeared on the internet never convinced many people that the President was fine.
The next day, Monday, the Office of the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, sent a statement that Osinbajo spoke with Buhari on matters of the economy and about the situation in the then volatile The Gambia. Yet, the fire kept raging.
This is not the first time speculations about the death of a sitting president of Nigeria would be reaching such crescendo. In June 1998, there were rumbles over the health status of General Sani Abacha, then Head of State.
In May 2010, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua gave up the ghost after being ill for months. Before the news of his death became public knowledge, high-wire politics played out. Now, it is Buhari.. But there are no similarities here. In the case of Yar’Adua, Nigerians were kept in the dark about his health situation. Hardly did Nigerians know when and how he left and returned to the country. But Buhari has chosen not to tread that path. In the first place, the President was not dead and he had never been shy to say he was sick anytime he took ill.
Smugs of the first week
Meanwhile, if there was a time Buhari’s media aides, Adesina and Shehu, had been bombarded by calls for explanation of their boss’ whereabouts or health status since their appointments early June, 2015, it was in the first week of Buhari’s departure. Ditto journalists covering the Presidential Villa.
In that first week, I was inundated with calls from my office, colleagues, friends, classmates, even relations who called, trying to get updates on the health status of the President. Perhaps, I was mistaken for a member of the presidential media team whereas I was just a reporter. Apart from the calls I placed to the media aides who were usually the first port of call for confirmation of high profile Villa stories, I also went the extra mile, surfing the internet for information on Buhari. I couldn’t also stop checking the facebook accounts, twitter handles of the presidential media aides for updates. All I could gathered was that Mr. President was hale and hearty. Hale and hearty?
It got to a point that I had to call Mallam Shehu on phone one night to, in confidence, keep me abreast of developments. But he kept repeating what the presidential media team had been saying publicly that Buhari was alive and active.
On one occasion, I pressed Adesina to send a formal statement, telling him that the pressure I had on my shoulders were too heavy. He simply replied that it was baseless writing a press release to counter the rumours. To him, that would mean giving wings to speculations.
Beyond that, I did try placing calls to my contacts abroad for underground checks, at least to satisfy my journalistic thirst. But nothing concrete came out. But the curious public wouldn’t budge, especially when speculations became rife that state governors met in Abuja over the health of the President.
That is not all. The political atmosphere in Abuja became charged at a time with rumours that the state governors were pressuring Acting President Osinbajo to resign with the aim of elevating the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, a northerner, to Buhari’s place to serve out the tenure for the North.
Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters in the Office of the Vice President, Senator Femi Ojudu, dismissed the claim. Similarly, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, at the end of the meeting of Federal Executive Council, FEC, that week, described the death rumoured as “silly”.
Perhaps, one development that appeared very convincing was when, on a Thursday, Adesina, in a live interview on SNBC, told the world that Buhari was not ill and not on admission in any London hospital.
The media aide emphasized that the President was on vacation in London even though he could see his doctors. He stated that his boss would be back in Nigeria on February 6, a date he had announced since January 19.
But just when I was thinking of advising that the President could do a televised phone call to Nigerians to convince them he was alive and well, Adesina already had a response.
“The fact that he is a President, he still has his rights. Compelling him to come out and talk will be infringing on his rights,”the media aide stated.
“The President will talk if he wishes to; if he doesn’t wish to, nobody will compel him to talk. “The truth is that the President is on vacation and he has given a date on which he will return to work.”
February 6 night
No journalist covering the Presidential Villa had a rest of mind between February 4 and 5. Know why? We were in high spirit, expecting to go to the airport for Buhari’s return the following day. After all, he had promised to make it back to the country to resume work on February 6.
Meanwhile, the phone numbers of Adesina and Shehu almost permanently remained the last dialed on my phones. I bothered them so much so that they began to pre-empt me whenever they saw my calls. “Levinus, what have I done again o”, Adesina would say jocularly any time he picked my calls. Sometimes, I would go tactical, telling him I was just calling to say “Hello”. But before he acknowledged the greeting, I would ask my question and he would say, “Levinus, I thought you called to greet me?” We would both burst into laughter.
Similarly, Shehu was always ready to give answers to your questions to the best of his knowledge. And the two men will always return your calls when they miss them and their offices are always accessible to journalists.
Other weeks
Then the trips to London. No one knew when they left Nigeria but almost everyone saw their pictures on the internet. It was Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Pa Bisi Akande, two top leaders of the ruling APC, who first visited Buhari in London. Later, the picture of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar with Buhari in London surfaced on the net.
The wife of the President, Aisha, also visited London and the photos of the visit splashed on the net. For one week, the rumours died down. Buhari was alive. But it wasn’t long when doubts about Buhari’s health status mounted again. This seemed to prompt the Senate President, Saraki, and the Speaker of the House, Dogara, to head to London to see the President. Though they returned with positive statements on the situation of Buhari, that, too, didn’t dissuade many rumour peddlers.
“The pictures were photoshopped,” one telephone caller told me. “I have it on good authority that the man is no more. We can bet it if you care”.
The last picture that we saw just before the President returned on Friday showed him with the Bishop of Cantebury, Justin Welby, in London. And I bet you that if Buhari had stayed a day after the pictures were released, it would have resurrected the doubts.
Season of calls Just before the last picture came, a new twist was added to the Buhari episode. It was what poets would call a season of calls. The President spoke on telephone with the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, a former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, and former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
But before speaking to Gowon and Obasanjo, Buhari, on Saturday, February 25, called his media team members, notably Adesina, Shehu and Lai Mohammed, thanking Adesina for “holding out against mischief makers”.
Expectation of Buhari’s return high every passing weekend
Since the February 6 return date failed, State House correspondents hadn’t slept well on weekends. Every passing weekend had its challenge as we continued to think the President would return. Such was the case on Saturday, February 11. Everyone had anxiously waited for a call to proceed to the airport for Buhari. But that didn’t happen. What happened instead was the arrival of Buhari’s wife from Saudi Arabia.
A surprise return
To say that Buhari’s return on Friday was very well anticipated unlike other weekends was to tell a huge lie. But as earlier announced in a press statement by Adesina late Thursday night that the president was being “expected” Friday, he made it back on Friday in flesh and blood, putting to rest every doubt.
Lessons from Buhari’s trip
Within me, I have tried to conjecture why there was a plethora of interests in the President’s whereabouts even after he had said he was going on vacation. I deduced that, yes, every Nigerian has the right to ask about the welfare of the President, after all, he still feeds on tax payers’ money.
But what I am yet to understand is why most people would wish their fellow human beings (it doesn’t have to be a president) dead to prompt Adesina to pray for their repentance as was the case. While this is morally wrong, the president and his men shouldn’t take this to heart now that Buhari is back to the country. After all, there were millions of Nigeria who prayed and are still praying for him.
But however, a huge lesson has to be learnt from this episode that the state of the economy, the exchange rate that is sky-rocking affecting the prices of virtually every item in the market to mention but a few constitute a major concern to Nigerians.
For almost one year since the economy went into recession, there has been no concerted effort to reflate it. If there had been, it was only on paper and it appeared failed because it’s been all grammar. Of course, where there are no positive thoughts and concrete actions, the end result can only be a tent of vicious circle. That’s situation of the country at the moment even as hunger is still beating people below the belt. And no one is happy about it.
Lastline
Let me say here that for these past 7 weeks the president was away, it was a recourse to journalistic ethos and ethnics that kept me from being swayed by the junks we heard and read from high places. Besides, it could, indeed, be a different game when you are covering a sensitive beat like the presidential Villa. Meanwhile, seeing the president back on Friday gave me a feeling of joy and gladness. Though, he told a pathetic story of his medical experiences in London, his remarks that he was feeling much better now and would rededicate himself for public service tell us of a more determined President. Yes, I take him by his words. But in all, I wish him a profound good health as he formally resumes work tomorrow.
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