By Dotun Akintomide
Following sundry questions begging for answers over the secretive handling of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ailment by the presidency and on whether he would be able to seek for a second term in office, the Presidential Spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina has told Nigerians he must justify his current mandate, before plans for re-election can suffice.
Adesina, while fielding questions on a popular Radio program on Monday in Lagos said the President has been quite on the matter and that he has only been bothered about justifying his first mandate to Nigerians.
His words: “I have been with the President in about three times when groups came to visit him and they raised issues about him doing a second term, the President didn’t say a word and from his body language, you could guess what was going through his mind.”
He said he needs to first justify the first mandate he has before making a decision to seek for re-election in 2019.
“But if the President is healthy and he thinks, he can run for presidency in 2019, then why not?” He said.
When asked whether the President will continue to work from home as a result of the President’s failure to appear in public circles after missing three Federal Executive Council (FEC) meetings consecutively, two Juma’at prayers and his grandson’s wedding in Kaduna last weekend, Adesina said, “Nigerians have been falling for the distortions a certain portion of the media did concerning the President’s health.
“Alhaji Lai Mohammed had said he was going to work from home for that day, but some persons distorted it saying he would now be working from home. But the President is recovering and he needs time to do that,” says Adesina.
He said the President is the only one that can disclose the nature of his ailment, “the doctor can’t even say it and under the law there is an hypocritic oath which prescribed doctors can’t even speak about the condition of their patients, it’s only the patients that can disclose it.
“No doubt, these are difficult times for the President as a result of his health challenges, but we are believing God for him. The fact that he came back from the medical vacation and said he has never been that sick in his life showed that it was really a disturbing thing to him.
“Now he needs to recover and get his health back. I just hope we continue to wish him well and those who are praying should continue to pray,” Adesina added.
On the delay in the passage of the 2017 budget, Adesina was optimistic that the budget will be passed before May 5. He equally said it was part of the FG’s plan for 2016 budget to run up until May 5, after which the 2017 budget implementation will commence, provided the National Assembly can quickly pass the budget.
