Posted on: 07:38 Fri, 27 Jan 2017

As rumours spread around Nigeria that the president, Muhammadu Buhari is sick in a London hospital, the presidency has reacted.



The Presidency on Thursday declared that President Muhammadu Buhari is not receiving treatment in any London hospital, The Nation reports.

It also insisted that the President is not ill and only in London on vacation.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, made the clarification in a live interview programme on CNBC Africa.

Speculations on the President being critically ill with an undisclosed sickness that may lead to death have heightened following his trip to the United Kingdom last Thursday.

According to Adesina, the rumoured hospitalization of the President was a figment of people’s imaginations.

He said: “The President is in London on vacation. He is not in any hospital and he is not ill.

“When he was travelling last week the statement we put out was that he was going on vacation and during the vacation he would do routine medical check-up and nothing has changed from what we pushed out last week.

“If anybody has fed something else into the rumour mill that is just what it is rumour.”
He also said the President can use his discretion on whether to talk to Nigerians from the UK or not.

Adesina added: “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 President will talk if he wishes to and 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 he will return to work.”