Former presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, has stated that late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari might not have survived his health challenges if he had chosen to be treated within Nigeria’s healthcare system.
Buhari passed away on Sunday, July 13, at around 4:30 pm in a London hospital after a brief illness.
Speaking on Tuesday during an interview with Channels Television, Adesina defended the late president’s decision to consistently seek medical treatment abroad, pointing out that Buhari had been receiving medical care in the United Kingdom even before his election in 2015.
“He always had his medicals in London even when he was not in office, so it was not about his presidency alone,” Adesina explained.
He argued that Buhari’s priority was to stay alive in order to serve the country and pursue reforms that could improve Nigeria’s healthcare system.
“You have to be alive first to get certain things changed or corrected in your country,” Adesina said.
“If he had said, ‘I’ll do my medicals in Nigeria just as a showoff,’ he could have long been dead because there may not be the expertise needed in the country. But he needed to be alive to lead the country to a point where we would eventually have that expertise.”
Adesina dismissed critics who faulted Buhari for dying abroad, stressing that surviving serious health issues sometimes requires accessing medical expertise not yet available locally.
“Those who talk of going abroad don’t know that a man needs to be alive first before he can effect change,” he added.
Buhari led Nigeria as a democratically elected president from 2015 to 2023, after previously ruling as military head of state between 1983 and 1985.
His remains departed London on Tuesday morning for his hometown of Daura, Katsina State, where a state burial and official ceremonies are scheduled to take place.
