Contrary to what Abuja may want Nigerians to think, it could well be President Muhammadu Buhari’s ‘failing’ health that stopped him from visiting Lagos State.
Commencing May 23, Buhari was expected to inaugurate a number of projects done by the Lagos State government.
But the president ‘changed his plans’ at the last moment sending Vice President Yemi Osinbajo instead.
Presidential aides said Buhari’s tight schedule – as if the Lagos trip wasn’t planned ahead of time – wouldn’t allow him visit the lagoon state.
An Aso Rock source has, however, told Newsroom the president aborted his Lagos trip because of ‘ill health’.
‘That was why he refused to come to Lagos,’ the reliable Aso Rock source told our correspondent on Thursday afternoon.
‘We noticed that when he’s talking these days he coughs a lot. I don’t think it’s something serious anyways maybe he just needs medical check up.
‘But right from Day One he’s not been feeling too well. He’s just managing himself. And he’s been paying a lot of attention to his health.
‘There is this cough that keeps coming. When he treats it, the cough goes and then comes back. When he talks he starts to cough. So he just excuses himself and tells others to continue.
‘But nothing will happen to him. He just needs to check up on his health.
‘He’s old. He’s no longer a young person,’ our source said.
Buhari’s media aide Tolu Ogunlesi, however, insists the president is hale and hearty.
‘Not true at all,’ Ogunlesi told us via email on Thursday.
To prove that nothing is wrong with Buhari, who has now spent a year in office, Ogunlesi drew our attention to the president’s meeting with former Vice President Alex Ekwuemeon Thursday.
Segun Adeyemi, media aide to information and culture minister Lai Mohammed, also insists the president is as fit as fiddle.
‘It’s a rumour,’ Adeyemi told Newsroom.