On Buhari’s medical bills

PENULTIMATE week, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, rationalised the non-disclosure of the medical bills incurred by President Muhammadu Buhari while on a vacation in the United Kingdom. Mohammed said that this was to avert a rupture in the national security. Briefing newsmen after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, he said: “We believe that asking for how much has been spent on the health of the president is an issue that we should weigh very well, both for national security and also for moral issues. I don’t know why we must disclose such a very sensitive information.” In the same vein, the National Security Adviser, Major-General Babagana Monguno, declared categorically that disclosing the cost of the president’s medical treatment would jeopardise national security.

The statements by Mohammed and Monguno came on the heels of agitations by Nigerians to have credible, regular and detailed information about their president. Indeed, no matter their political leanings, Nigerians were happy that President Muhammadu Buhari returned home safe and sound from his 49-day medical vacation in the United Kingdom. In his absence, as was the case during the health issues of late President Umaru Yar’Adua, the discourse became a topical subject, over and above the serious existential issues that the nation battled. During the Yar’Adua era, the point had been lucidly articulated that having vied for and been vested with the presidency of Nigeria, Yar’Adua had become the property of the Nigerian people who reserved the right to ask about, and be updated on, his health issues.

So, when the same furore greeted the medical vacation of President Buhari, many a patriot wondered why the matter should still be debated at a time when mature democracies had long settled such issues. It was obvious that the long years of secretive governance during successive military dictatorships had emasculated Nigerians’ democratic expectations. This explains the president’s media managers’ obfuscation of the true nature of his 49-day sojourn in the UK and other ancillary matters. Thus, it was not surprising that a number of social media ripostes to the claim by the Information Minister recalled that he had embarked on similar queries of President Yar’Adua’s health and had also harangued Yar’Adua’s handlers at the time for their non-disclosure of his health issues.

The army of angry commentators insinuated that the minister was playing the politics of convenience which hallmarks the conduct of Nigerian public officials. Of a truth, the attempts by the presidency to shroud the cost of the president’s treatment and indeed the nature of his ailment in secrecy is unfortunate. It has led to several unhealthy conjectures by Nigerians. This is apparently unhealthy for democratic discourse and can hamper the growth of the nation.

We believe firmly that the disclosure of the president’s medical bills is not capable of hampering national security. On the contrary, it can only strengthen it. Because democracy is synonymous with an open society, public disclosure of relevant information bolsters the legitimacy of the political leadership and strengthens the belief of the people in democracy. Military dictatorship had, for decades, railroaded the people into believing that national security was equal to the security of the president. This is an absolute lie. National security is the security of the people themselves and the nation as a whole. It is different from the personal security of the president. Indeed, food security, a healthy economy and sovereignty are more vital aspects of national security than the personal safety of the president which is only a tiny speck of the corpus of national security. Military dictatorships which sought to turn governance into myths had only obfuscated issues for sinister purposes.

Till today, Nigerians still refer to how, during his administration, General Ibrahim Babangida abandoned the route of non-disclosure that hallmarked dictatorships by making a public disclosure of his ailment more than 30 years ago. While undergoing surgery in Germany at the time, his handlers had revealed to the world that he was suffering from radiculopathy, a knotty medical term. Nigerians, even if they did not understand the import of the term, were nevertheless grateful that the president found them worthy of information on his health status. If a dictatorial, military government could do this over three decades ago, what then is the sense of a reversal of that gain now?

Democracy demands accountability. As such, the amount of the people’s money spent on the health of a man who is supposed to be their property should of a necessity be disclosed to them. Hiding under a nebulous concept of national security that cannot stand the scrutiny of the democratic ingredients of accountability and full disclosure will not help the image of the presidency, nor even its handlers who, it will appear, readily embrace cant in defence of their portfolios.