Buhari after sick leave last year
Buhari begins fresh 10-day holidays to London on Friday
Nigeria’s President, Muhammadu Buhari will begin another 10-day holidays to the United Kingdom starting from Friday, August 3rd, the Presidency has said.
The Presidency in a statement on Wednesday also added that in compliance with Section 145 (1) of the 1999 Constitution, a letter has been transmitted to the President of the Senate, and the Speaker, House of Representatives to that effect.
There is no further revelation as to the reason for the sudden decision to take a break. But there are speculations that Buhari may be keeping a date with his doctors in London over his health status.
The last time Buhari went to see his doctor was in May 8th, 2018.
“I will be traveling to the United Kingdom tomorrow, to see my doctor, at his request. Will be away for four days; back in Abuja on Saturday, May 12,” he said on his official Twitter feed.
On his way from the United States last week, Buhari stopped over at the UK for some days. But his media handlers said it was a “technical stopover” to repair the jet. There are speculations that Buhari had stopped over at the UK to for medical examination.
Buhari, 75, spent much of 2017 in London receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment.
According to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, said that there is a limit to the distance the President’s smaller plane can cover.
He explained that the Presidents big jet has gone for repairs.
He said “The big jet is under repair. It has been taken for major repairs. So the President is using a small plane and there is a limit to the distance the small plane can cover.
“So the technical stopover I talked about is that the journey from US to Abuja is broken into two.
“Technical stopover is that the plane stops at a point, refuel, do some checks and then proceed on the journey.
“This is very normal. There is nothing unusual about it. In any case, they are already on their way back home.
“It is a routine thing. The plane can do Abuja-Washington, that’s about 12 hours and the maximum the plane can fly is 12 hours, 40 minutes. But you don’t need to push it to the edge.” he said
This afternoon, on his return from Daura, Buhari met with the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara at the State House. Buhari said he briefed them on his recent trip to the US to meet with President Trump, and that they discussed the 2018 budget.