Before now, the Presidency had insisted that the President was not sick, saying he would only use the opportunity of his short vacation to undergo check-ups.
But the government official admitted on Sunday that Buhari was sick. He, however, insisted that the President was not ill.
“The President is sick. But it will not be correct to say he is terminally ill. Illness has more to do with terminal disease. The President is only under the weather; he is not terminally ill,” he explained.
Before the announcement, however, arrangements were on to receive Buhari in Abuja, on Sunday, in preparation for his resumption on Monday.
Officials were put on the alert pending the confirmation from the Protocol Unit on the time the President would arrive.
The National Youth Council of Nigeria had also said it had mobilised 15,000 youths across the country to join in receiving Buhari at the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
As of the time the statement on the extension was released, State House correspondents were on standby to join the delegation that would receive the President.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, had, penultimate week, in an interview with CNBC Africa, monitored in Abuja insisted that Buhari was not ill.
Adesina had insisted that Buhari was only in London for vacation and was not in any hospital.
He had said, “The President is in London on vacation. He is not in any hospital and he is not ill.
“When he was travelling last week, the statement we put out was that he was going on vacation and during the vacation, he would do routine medical check-up and nothing has changed from what we pushed out last week.”
PDP, APC clash over President’s health status
Meanwhile, the National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party called on Buhari to tell Nigerians the true state of his health.
The main opposition party was reacting to the inability of the President to return to Nigeria from the UK, where he had been on holiday for more than 10 days.
The PDP said it was wrong for the President to also send letter to the National Assembly, extending his leave, without telling Nigerians when he would resume.
Spokesperson for the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee, Mr. Dayo Adeyeye, stated this in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents.
But the ruling All Progressives Congress berated the PDP, saying the opposition party should pray for the President instead of spreading rumours.
The PDP spokesman, who was a former Minister of State for Works, however, said it was wrong for the President and his handlers to be trivialising the health of the President.
He said the President had chosen a wrong approach to address the issue of his health since he assumed office.
He said, “The President should know he is not a private citizen.
“He should know that Nigerians are the ones paying his health bills and therefore, he should tell them the true state of his health.
“He should not treat Nigerians with levity and he should also know what is obtainable in civilised countries. Nigeria is not a jungle.
“Imagine the President talking about a leave extension but not saying when he would resume?”
Adeyeye stated that there was no way the President could claim to be awaiting the outcome of medical tests without definite dates.
“Medical tests have dates of collection of results. It can’t be open-ended without dates,” he said.
But the APC urged the PDP to join other well-meaning Nigerians to pray for the President instead of sensing an opportunity to get even.
The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said this in a telephone interview with one of Punch’s correspondents on Sunday.
Abdullahi stated, “This is the President of the country. The elections are over; he is our President, he is the President of Nigeria not that of the APC or the PDP. If the President has told us that he needs to stay back to do some other medical things, it behoves us, as responsible citizens, to pray for him and stop sensing an opportunity to retaliate.
“Does the PDP know more than what we have been told? What we know is what we have been told.
“We believe that the President has demonstrated an acute sense of responsibility. We are all living witnesses to our recent history where a President travelled and did not even communicate to the National Assembly the appropriate document to make the then Vice-President act in his stead.
“But this is a President that, on every occasion that he has to travel, he not only communicate to the National Assembly, but creates the enabling environment and the space for the Vice-President to act as President in his absence.
“I don’t know why people will start going green in the eyes as if we are actually hoping that tragedy befalls this country.
“The PDP should not behave in a way that will make Nigerians begin to think that it is actually spreading the rumour that the President is dead.”
