By
Ikeogu Oke
This piece was
triggered by a tweet I stumbled on recently. Emanating from the tweeter handle
of one George Okusanya, it read, ‘Femi
Adesina: “The president is not sick”.
Lai Mohammed: “The president is hale and hearty”.
GMB: “I
couldn’t recall ever being so sick”.’
 |
| *Buhari |
Clearly, the tweet juxtaposes the words of Femi
Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu
Buhari, and Lai Mohammed, the President’s Minister of Information and Culture,
on the one hand, and those of the President on the other hand. By this
contrasting placement, the tweet seems to provide proof of the allegation that
the President’s handlers had misinformed Nigerians about the state of his
health while he was in the UK
I, for one, had been taken aback by the morbid
interest shown by some Nigerians in knowing the exact state of the President’s
health while he was receiving medical treatment abroad. And this is why: I had
thought such people would be more concerned about the resultant indignity for
our country that, 56 years after Independence, our President, the President of
the country that prides itself as the “Giant of Africa” and “the most populous
black nation in the world”, still travels to a foreign country, the country of
our colonial masters, to receive medical treatment for a protracted period,
during which he might be splayed repeatedly on an operating table,
anesthetized, and carved open by foreign scalpels.
