Buhari cancels Bauchi trip over bad weather

The Presidency yesterday said the ‘prevailing weather conditions in the country’ forced President Muhammadu Buhari to cancel his scheduled visit to Bauchi.

“We make our plans, God makes His own plans,” Buhari said in a statement made available to State House correspondents in Abuja yesterday.

According to the president, “uncooperative weather, which has been the bane of air travel in the current harmattan season, leading to the delay and cancellation of flights, reared its head in Abuja Airport this morning, preventing the take-off of the President’s plane for Bauchi.”

His Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu said the technical information received from the weather station showed that visibility as at this yesterday morning (Thursday) was 600 meters, 200 metres short of the 800 metres minimally required for a safe aircraft take-off.

“According to the information available, the visibility was expected to drop to 300 metres before improving to permissible limit later in the day.