Being candid on Buhari’s absence

IT is quite disturbing that since President Muhammadu Buhari took time off ostensibly on a vacation to the United Kingdom on January 19, 2017, the polity has been heated up unnecessarily by needless and wild guesses concerning his health status. Between the Presidency and the Minister of Information, it has been quite hectic trying to sift the grain from the chaff in the deluge of information seeping through the information machine. The social media has also been naturally agog with all sorts of absurd rumours and offensive hypotheses, very much to the detriment of the country’s essence and image.

For instance, while both the Senate and the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, have confirmed that President Buhari wrote to say he would be staying back in the United Kingdom for a series of tests, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, would not yield any ground on what he tagged the president’s clean bill of health, saying the president had neither taken ill nor been hospitalised. It is a familiar but unpleasant road to travel and it is quite regrettable that the gruelling and emotion-sapping experience is still being repeated.  It is obvious that there is an attempt to shy away from telling the truth about the president and this actually beats any logical imagination and understanding because, as a human being, the president is susceptible to all human failings, including taking ill and being hospitalised, and even the Nigerian constitution recognises that and makes provisions for it.

Sadly, until the president got to the United Kingdom, Nigerians were led to believe that he was only taking a vacation from a busy, hectic desk. In any case, as required by the constitution, he  had transmitted a letter to the Senate requesting that his deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, should act as president during his absence. If his stay in the UK had to be prolonged for whatever cause, this should have been clearly explained to Nigerians. Nothing justifies the spreading of rumour better than the absence of a consistent and credible official position or narrative on the president’s state of health.

Taking advantage of the hushed tones and conflicting reports from official quarters, mischief-makers have filled the gaps with vicious lies and dangerous hypotheses. We are persuaded that a honest and credible statement from the Presidency would have averted this ugly trend.  In any event, we are at sea as to why the president’s state of health should be treated as an official secret. The conflicting statements from those who are expected to know detracts from the administration’s much-touted penchant for transparency and zero tolerance to corruption.

That attitude  is part of the general tendency of the establishment to treat the citizenry with  less respect than they deserve, even though its mandate was  derived from them in the first place. To the extent that the relationship between the leadership and the citizenry in a democracy is expected to be based on mutual trust, a modicum of credibility is required in the exchange. When this is absent, an unhealthy relationship characterised by mistrust and cynicism invariably ensues, ultimately to the harm of the whole process.

This is why we think the issue of the president’s trip to the UK has not been well handled. Feeding the people with conflicting statements was not the best and professional way to go. It would have been better if the president’s handlers had talked candidly to the people about their president.