President Muhammadu Buhari has departed Abuja for his medical check-up to London.
According to the presidency, Buhari is expected to be in London for two weeks.
A statement by Aso Rock says the president departed Abuja for London on Sunday.
“President Buhari departs for medical check up in UK March 6th, 2022,” Buhari’s media aide, Femi Adesina, said while announcing the president’s departure.
He also shared pictures of the President’s departure on his Facebook page.
The Presidency had on Friday in Abuja said Buharireturn to Abuja from Nairobi does not abort his earlier scheduled trip to London for a routine medical checkup.
This is as it said the President’s earlier scheduled trip to London for routine medical checkup still stands.
Buhari had arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, around 1 pm, on Friday against an earlier plan for him to proceed to London from Kenya.
Buhari attended the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Environmental Programme in Nairobi, which was held from March 3 – 4, 2022, where he called for broader collaboration amongst UN member states to combat climate change.
In an earlier statement on Monday, Adesina said: “He (Buhari) will thereafter proceed to London for routine medical checks that will last for a maximum of two weeks.”
According to Punch, the announcement attracted heavy criticism from Nigerians who noted that the President was leaving the country at the time of dire petrol scarcity and industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, amongst others.
The main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party, in a statement signed on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, advised Nigerians to fend for each other as “Buhari has abandoned” them.
The PDP argued that Buhari’s decision to jet out to the United Kingdom (where leaders are committed) for yet another ‘routine medical checkup’ underscores the “insensitivity of the APC which by nature and outlook has never been ready for governance since inception.”
It said while other world leaders are solving problems in their countries, the President, who promised to fix the country’s refineries, abandoned Nigerians to the excruciating fuel crisis caused by APC leaders at the helm of affairs in the petroleum sector.
Some perceived the President’s abrupt return to be a cancellation of his two-week medical checkup. But Presidency revealed otherwise.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, was quoted by Punch saying that Buhari London trip still stands.
He had said, “Nothing changed about his planned trip to London. The earlier plan remains. He will leave for London on Sunday.”
Shehu added that the President returned to Abuja on Friday because he rounded up his engagements in Nairobi earlier,
saying that he returned to pick a few things.
