Friday, 19th April 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Buhari returns, says he is okay

By Mohammed Abubakar
20 June 2016   |   4:30 am
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday returned to the country after 13 days of medical vacation in the United Kingdom.

‘Come wrestle with me if you want’

President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday returned to the country after 13 days of medical vacation in the United Kingdom.

The president, who was expected back in the country on Wednesday last week, extended his stay by three days.

The president arrived in the country at exactly 5:33 p.m. on a Presidential Aircraft NAF 001 with a registration number 5N FGT and was received at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja by ministers and other state functionaries.

Buhari, who was clad in a light brown kaftan with a cap to match, inspected a guard of honour mounted for him by the Guards Brigade of the Nigerian Army.

He was accompanied by his security aides as well as members of his immediate family led by his uncle, Malam Mamman Daura, and his two children.

Speaking to State House correspondents after, the president said he was now well.

“You have seen me, you saw me when I was going, you can do the assessment by yourself.

“You can see me inspecting the guard of honour, if you want to wrestle me, you can do so, but you know I’m taller than you.”

Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the President on Media, Femi Adesina confirmed that the president would fully resume duty today. He restated his position that the president did not go on medical vacation but merely followed the counsel of his medical specialists to seek further advice.

He, however, thanked Nigerians who have shown concern for the well- being of the president and appealed to them to have a positive mind, as they didn’t need a worst-case- scenario about anybody’s misfortune, not least the president of the country.

The governors present included those of Kogi and Zamfara states, Yahaya Bello and Abdulaziz Yari Abubakar who were at the airport to receive the president.

Also at the airport to welcome the president were the chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, (APC) , Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, Ministers, Chief of Staff (CoS) to the President, Abba Kyari, the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes commission, (EFCC) Ibrahim Magu and National Security Adviser (NSA), Gen. Mohammed Babagana Monguno.

The Service Chiefs present were Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonishakin, Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ekwe Ibas, Chief of Air Staff, Marshal Saddique Abubakar and the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase.

10 Comments

  • Author’s gravatar

    How much did the trip costs the country?

  • Author’s gravatar

    Welcome Mr. President, Where next? See how childishly those welcoming him were laughing as if everything was well with Nigerians! And PMB should challenge death, not a human being, to contest his “fitness” and well being. Yar’Adua challenged any person who doubed his health to play a game of squash with him.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Sycophants smiling.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Ranka de-de Alhaji M. Buhari; yo waa mon’gwode Allah ka sowka de lafia agalin mu Nigeria!

    Here is an important comment/ observation awaits – to be read with utmost concerns! I have done this to prod your integrity and forthrightness in the claim of being democrats and visionary leaders! I mean if what I have claimed or stated in my contributions are true how/ what else do I need to prove or show that my desires are justified by natural or by legal justice? By the deliberate silence and derision of my complaints I am wondering what it is that is encapsulated in the words righteousness and piety when over 1,000 people including PhD holders are employed to apply or work on my contributions handed in as solutions requested by both your administration and those before you – persons like Prof. A. Jega and the Present INEC Chairmen together with the Commissioners and the ordinary Nigerians working for the Agency, not privy to my solution – the concept the Commission is using presently for elections in Nigeria! I am saying is this fair – consider even the recently orchestrated Dangote’s concrete road euphoria – the need of such construction for Nigeria, it is contained in my presentations to the Ministry of Works and Housing as far back as 1982 and I copied the Presidency for the urgent need! Now, see who is earning the accolade today in Nigeria – well it may not be by me particularly, but then since 1982 and it is there in the Ministry’s files Archives some of the ideas in my correspondence to the Ministry not paid for yet, even though I was directed by the Ministry to go and inspect and report back to it! The experience with the School of INTER. POLICY AND STRATEGIC STUDIES KURU – 5 copies of my book from where the solution ‘Option A-4’ was lifted are not paid for yet and the Commission is using the solutions including the finger/name-reader machine need of it you’ll find on page 161 of my book with Nigerian government delivered in December 2012!

    You’ll be surprised even the need for the Bank re-capitalization is contained in my solutions to both the Finance and the CBN in around 2012 – all that nobody appears to be that concerned and we are talking about corruption in Nigeria! i have been correctly advised to take out a suit against the government but then where do I get the fund and the muscle to face a formidable government such as Nigerian? My hope therefore, is in you and your Vice, predicated on that disposition of being democrats, forthright and piety!

    To drive my remonstrate home be informed that there is an official letter from the High Commission London confirming all that I have said here and it is lodged already with the SGF to the government! Like I said have chosen to do this appeal in the most somber manner not wishing for any contest with the Administration even though I have all the proves and you publicly urged Nigerians to submit the solutions if they have any and in my case, my solutions are being used by the administrations giving employment, under my custody!

    THEY MUST READ THIS CAREFULLY ALL YEAR ROUND PLEASE – and if they do not get the ‘germ’ in this comment nobody should blame me! This will be featured in my International publication – i. e. my book to show that at least I raised the issues involved and early too as usual!

    I have to come back on this issue sorry for the typo mistakes in my first comment – the problem you encounter when you write long and nobody to edit your work! I have read some of the comments so far for this article to say or urge that it is not much about threading abuses and or insults but much about discussing important issues about the Polity Nigeria because by and large, in the next 50 years it is very likely that the population of Nigeria within the States or the six-geopolitical zones will grow to over 200 Million and so will the neighboring countries be so effected also by that phenomenon – population explosion, so my bone/ point of contention is to find ways to make the haste whilst the hay is still with us! Hence in my new solutions to help us in Nigeria overcome an impending crisis if we do not get it right this time! There is no doubt that the Constitution of Nigeria was drawn under undue influence – under ‘duress and chicanery’ if you like for want of the right phrase, because the minds of the people did not actually meet as was the case for America in their Philadelphia Conference in 1787 – a total contrast and it makes the mind of those who understand what it is – the germ, about Constitutions bugle, that group in the North appears not to see the danger in their obduracy in obstructing efforts to do something about the obvious anomalies in the Book!

    In my varied comments and definitions I tried to tell what country Nigeria is like, therefore reasons why you need the now avowed restructuring! I don’t want to discuss areas where due to the failings in the outcomes of the applications of the provisions in the Book relations and economic activities of Nigerian fell under expectations or threw up unpalatable results and or consequences – it is a commonplace! Thus, because the Constitution and the State creation in Nigeria is crafted to favour one side of the country and it has not helped the smooth political and economic growth anticipated for the country, the last administration agreed to have the Confab Conference, which met and had recommendations as its communique! It is the recommendations that I heard Alhaji Atiku, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari and Alhaji Maitama Sule have urged Buhari’s administration to look into and see what can be done for Nigerians! We have just been told that Alhaji Atiku is appointed Ambassador for Brazil probably to influence his thinking about the restructuring campaign he has just joined to proclaim, observers feel!

    Now, to know what is happening or happened about present scenario in Nigeria read this very important illustration: – A common Cuckoo chick ejects eggs of Reed Warbler out of the nest by .David Peterborough. If you can log on this you will be amazed about what you see, folks! Exactly what is happening in Nigeria’s politics! Whoever is advising you people is not doing the right thing, thus: –

    • You probably saw the documentary showing the bird that went (trespassed) to lay its egg into its neighbor nest in the hope that when it hatches its task to feed the chick will be passed (shared) on to the owners of the nest thereby will solve the grave problem for it! I discovered, watching the documentary closely/ carefully, that the intruder’s chick is much larger than the chicks (in fact the two put together) it met in the nest; not surprising that the parent birds knew what they were doing because their chick will need a lot of feeding to grow hence they tricked their neighbor to take up the assignment on their behalf, as it turned out in reality indeed! The sad thing about the episode is that the strange (alien) bigger chick hatched and soon quickly nudged the much tinny (smaller) chicks – i. e. the two entitled to remain in the nest out of the nest – you could see them (eggs) sadly fell out of the nest – was a pathetic scene from whatever standards, in fact, and it thereafter occupied the entire next for itself as an albatross, thus ensuring that the three parents now have to feed it! Nature being what it is the unfortunate parents soon realized that the chick occupying their nest is not theirs – they could not see their chicks anymore in the nest and what is left in their nest looked too large for them therefore, they decided to abandon the strange chick and the nest by which time the ‘alien chick’ had obtained the right nutritious food (feeding) to rely on so as to develop! We are not shown what happened afterwards but it is likely that by that treachery, the trespassers succeeded in raising their chick!

    So, if you can draw a paradox from this documentary for what happened in Nigeria in that 2015 election – they conspire for defectors and cross car-peters without by-elections and worn the election and they nudged Dr. Jonathan and his group out of the system and we are now left in situation of confusion as the youths and other electorates now realize what happened to their votes – it was not properly obtained from them – they were mystified and cajoled unduly into giving out their mandates only for things to turn out the way we are witnessing it presently in the country contrary to their great expectations about ‘change’ mantra!

    We have seen Asewaju Bola Tinubu he was in London just yesterday as the over-all APC leaders, to visit and discuss with the President Buhari whatever was his concern about what is happening back in Nigeria, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, Danjuma Goje, Sen. Nkume and Maza all Muslims opposed need to study the recommendations of the Confab and they talk of us being One Nigeria – Asewaju himself was leader of PRONACO and NADECO but failed to participate in the Confab Conference even though he and his group vehemently urged for such Meeting for Nigeria’s re-structure! You can then begin to see the ironies, chicanery and the mischief about Nigeria’s politics – when it favours their interests they act and when it does not they stay away all at the peril of the other composite groups/ formation in Nigeria – they forget that they are dealing with entire the people in Nigeria for from being cohesive yet in their thinking because of too many encumbrances cultural, tribal and religious!

    Look if you people can only study my new solution and see what can be done for Nigerians before the next crisis, which from my estimation, could be bigger and more complex than what you had in the first civil war! The new solution is meant to make possible for you in Nigeria to bring back into your political arrangements those retired but not tired yet to help you develop the country! What you have now is like the illustration above – where you edge out those meant to help you through conspiracies and treacheries and replaced them with those who do not have your well being in their psychology!

  • Author’s gravatar

    It’s unfortunate that in Nigeria, those who are supposed to be in jail are calling the shots. The president shamelessly went abroad to seek medical help while taxpayers suffer disease and other forms of deprivation, and yet obsequious idiots waste more taxpayers’ money to go and receive and dance for him at the airport. Why have we not asked ourselves when the prime minister of Britain will come to Nigeria for medical treatment? If medicare in the country is not good enough for the custodian-in-chief, then who is it good for. Unless we criminalize foreign medicare and education for public office holders, government contractors and their family members, innocent Nigerians will continue to suffer deprivation fueled by corruption. Even where a public office holder or government contractor can foot the bill, it is morally wrong to patronize private institutions in the country, not to talk of going abroad for medicare or the children’s education. The president’s trip is a crime against humanity and if he cannot stop the rubbish of the past, he should stop talking about change.

  • Author’s gravatar

    Mr. President, Welcome back to the reality of Nigeria

  • Author’s gravatar

    Oga Buhari, hope you can hear very well now?

  • Author’s gravatar

    Look at those backward people welcoming the President as if they never met him before, so silly and childish like a slave men.