…As Controversies, Mixed Reactions Trail Tinubu’s Recent Visit To The UK .
It is no longer News that a former Lagos State Governor, and Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, has jetted out of Nigeria to seek medical attention abroad few weeks after declaring his interest to contest the 2023 presidential election.
This is coming barely three weeks after he informed President Muhammadu Buhari of his ambition to contest for the presidential election in 2023.
Tinubu on 10th January, 2022 told State House Correspondents that he had informed President Buhari of his intention to run for presidency by 2023.
A member of the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Movement’s Working Committee last Friday 28th January, 2022 said that the former Lagos State governor travelled overseas “to rest and strategise” even as it is becoming very clear to even his own political party and the presidency too that his health is very fragile and that even the President physically looks more healthier than him.
While resources has never being the problem of the Tinubu camp and that the former Governor has the capacity to buy the APC presidential ticket the major nightmare and trouble of Mr. Tinubu’s political dynasty is his conspicuous deteriorating health condition that may technically render him incapacitated to run especially if the current challenges persist. Even though Tinubu and his loyalists are always quick to tell Nigerians that he is very stable and healthy, his physical appearance and the opinion of medical experts that were interviewed contradicts such questionable claims regarding his health status.
Political pundits opined that if APC risks or gamble to give its presidential ticket to Mr. Tinubu with credible but unproven claims of terminal illness, the opposition PDP may likely produce the next president as Nigerians are not prepared anymore to gamble as they have done in the case of the incumbent president who spent most of his days as the president travelling to the United Kingdom to seek for medical solution to an illness that initially rendered him incapacitated which allows the then cabal according to insiders to be ruling by proxy.
The explanation that Mr. Tinubu has went to the UK to “rest or restrategise” after less than two months of coming back from the same country for medical reasons has not been satisfactory to Nigerians and many see such explanations as the height of insincerity and deception from somebody that wants to rule the country.
The source, who craved anonymity, said, “He (Tinubu) travelled abroad to rest after going around the country for consultations. He travelled to rest and strategise.”
But a political analyst, Malam Nuhu Kabiru says that if the explanation given by the Tinubu camp that he went overseas to rest after stressful period of consultation to some parts of the country is anything to go by, it goes to show clearly that he is not medically fit to run for the Presidency not to talk of being the President of over 200 million people. “Their claims is indicting of the person of Tinubu. If the man cannot withstand travelling to less than 4 states with a comfortable private jet (and note that this is not even a campaign rally across the country), how do you expect such a person to be mentally and physically fit to embark on presidential campaigns across the country or endure the stress of the office of the Commander-in-Chief? Who ever sees Tinubu will tell you that he is a sick man, anybody will tell you that he is living and surviving on medications. We all saw how he recently fell at a function in Arewa House.
The man is only being selfish and ambitious if not how can you under this glaring condition even attempt to run a state not to talk of a very complex country like Nigeria? I’m not against Tinubu in any way but I can tell you that if Nigerians dare to make that gamble we will produce worse than Buhari as President in 2023. But if God help Nigerians, his possible emergence as APC presidential candidate will be an opportunity for the PDP to produce the next President that is if they give the ticket to a better and more qualified person”.
Infirmation reveals that Mr. Tinubu indeed travelled for medical reasons and that he is now presently in the UK.
He had recently returned from the United Kingdom after a three-month medical trip where he claimed he went to meet his physicians for physiotherapy, a claim that was dismissed as untrue by credible insiders that are closed to the Tinubu camp. One of our credible source confided in this reporter that the presidency and indeed President Buhari is very much aware about the condition and nature of Tinubu’s illness and that perhaps was the reason why according to our source the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo intensified efforts to challenge his former boss (Bola Tinubu) for the APC presidential ticket. “They have their intelligence on Tinubu’s health. They are very much convinced that anything can happen to Mr. Tinubu at any time”, he revealed.
Before Tinubu travelled out of the country, he also paid visits to some Northern states including Niger and Katsina to sell his ambition.
He recently met with the ailing former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida (retd), over his plans to become Nigeria’s President by 2023.
On Thursday, 27th January, 2022 Tinubu was conspicuously absent at the all important inauguration of the working committees of a new movement in support of his ambition, in GRA, Ikeja, Lagos fuelling speculations that his fragile health has deteriorated such prompted last week’s unscheduled trip to the UK.
The movement was conceived and set up by members of Governor’s Advisory Council in Lagos for the actualisation of the presidential ambition of the politician, and launched by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
His absence had also raised concerns about his whereabouts.
Tinubu, who celebrated his 69th birthday in March 2021, had tripped over his foot and stumbled, crashing between two chairs on arrival at the 11th Arewa House Lecture in Kaduna State recently.
For over three months in 2021, Tinubu was away in the United Kingdom where he underwent undisclosed surgery and therapy for a knee injury.
The health condition of Tinubu was greeted with controversies and mixed reactions with many Nigerians rejecting another President like Buhari who has spent over 230 days in the United Kingdom on health grounds since he came into office in May 2015.
Apart from his health, Tinubu’s educational qualifications have raised a lot of concerns.
With the connection, enormous influence, power and so much resources at his disposal, the only visible threat to the life time ambition of Mr. Tinubu to become Nigeria’s next president is undoubtedly his deteriorating health condition, a health crisis that has become a major cause for concern for the billionaire politician and his political camp. The event of the next few weeks as Tinubu becomes desperate in search for solution to his health crisis even as the doctors may have little or nothing to do for a health condition that is controlled and will be determined by the creator will be interesting for Nigerians that are searching for a credible alternative for the misrule of nearly two decades under a contraption called democracy that has left thousands dead, hunger escalating and unprecedented insecurity and poverty
