Buhari's health taking toll on Nigeria: Party chief

By Rafiu Ajakaye

LAGOS, Nigeria (AA) - President Muhammadu Buhari’s poor health is proving costly for Nigeria as hawks within the administration are cashing in on the situation to drag the country into “avoidable doom,” a top chieftain of Buhari’s ruling party warned Monday.

Bisi Akande, founding chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress, said in a statement that he fears that the president's health crisis may precipitate a constitutional gridlock as certain persons close to Buhari are certain to frustrate respect for the rule of law.

The 74-year-old Buhari has seldom been seen outside the presidential villa since he returned to the country in March following a 49-day medical vacation in London. He has repeatedly missed the weekly cabinet meeting, fuelling rumors of worsening health.

“The health of the leader is intricately intertwined with the health of the nation. It is more so in a delicately fragile union of nations called Nigeria. I did not see President Buhari at the wedding of his grandson in Kaduna last Saturday. I was sad, and I wept,” Akande said.

“We must appreciate that his poor health is already taking a toll on the health of Nigeria as a polity,” he added.

Akande, a statesman and former governor, did not name the officials he accused of corruption and using money to manipulate security agencies in bid to intimidate other ethnic nationalities.

“When last we met at the wedding of his daughter in Abuja last December, I complained to (Buhari) that I was not happy about his stressful looks.

"His reply connoted some allusions to circumstances where an honest man fighting corruption is surrounded mostly by an unpatriotic, greedy ruling class,” Akande said, perhaps echoing claims about a powerful cabal shielding Buhari's health status from the public.

“Let me warn today that those who wish to harvest political gains out of the health of the president are mistaken… We are in a new national and global era of constitutionalism and order.

"We hope Nigerians have enough patience to learn from history. My greatest fear, however, is that the country should not be allowed to slide into anarchy and disorder of a monumental proportion,” he cautioned.