Again, President Buhari Goes To London For Medical Checkup

By Ayodele Oni

For the second time this year, Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari is travelling to the United Kingdom on medical grounds.

This news which has been received with mixed reactions by Nigerians was broken on Thursday by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina in a Press  Release.

According to Adesina, Buhari is expected to depart the country on Friday, June 25, 2021, for London, the United Kingdom (UK), for a scheduled medical follow-up.

He also disclosed that the President is expected back in the country in the second week of next month.

This will be the second medical trip to be embarked upon by President Buhari this year.

Said the statement:

“President Muhammadu Buhari will proceed to London, the United Kingdom on Friday, June 25, 2021, for a scheduled medical follow-up.

“He is due back in the country during the second week of July, 2021.”

The President had left the country for a medical check-up in London earlier in the year, between March 30 and April 16, 2021.

During the trip, a number of Nigerians, led by Reno Omokri, had descended on London, to protest his presence. For days, they were on the streets demanding for his departure  from London to Nigeria. They asked him to go and get treated in Nigeria, saying it was a shame that he had not built and equipped any hospital in Nigeria to take care of his health.

A Presidential Aide had said that Buhari had retained the same Doctors long before he became Nigeria’s President, and was not about to ditch him just because he became President.

But many Nigerians worry about the cost to Nigerian tax payers, and insist Buhari had strongly condemned medical trips abroad and had campaigned using it as one of the things he would put a full stop to.

It is not known if the Omokri group would descend on London again over this visit.