Speaking in an exclusive interview on the Daily Sunrise programme of Channels Television on Wednesday morning, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s health status is not as terrible as speculated.
According to DailyTrust who monitored the chat, when asked to explain Buhari’s current health status, Adesina responded: “The current health status of the president is that it is not as terrible as people make it to seem. In his own communication, he (the president) says no cause for worry.”
Asked on when exactly Buhari would return to Nigeria, the presidential spokesman said: “He communicated the National Assembly and that letter of communication is in the public domain. He said I will be away till my doctors rule out certain things.”
Adesina maintained that the Tuesday’s statement that Buhari needed more rest was misinterpreted by the media, adding that the statement was in past tense, talking about Buhari’s health condition as of the time he was leaving Nigeria on January 19.
When asked again to disclose when the president would come back, he responded: “Well, we do not know when he will be back, but when he is coming, he will communicate.”
Adesina said he did not need to talk directly to Buhari on the telephone before he could authenticate the transmissions from the president, adding that Buhari is an honest man
“who does not want anything to be coloured on his behalf.”
“It is a matter of my personal decision and style (that I don’t talk directly to the president). All those I spoke with, his personal physician, his CD (chief detail), his domestic aide, I can tell them to take the phone to Mr President that I want to speak to him. I know Mr President, he will speak with me. But I’ve decided not to talk to him because I do not need that telephone conversation to authenticate the health of Mr President.
“There is enough authentication, there is one from the acting president, there is one from the Senate president and there is from the speaker of the House of Representatives and many others. So, I do not need to authenticate the status of the health of Mr President by speaking to him.”
