- * Directs VP, Osinbajo, To Charge Of Govt Affairs
By Janet Bassey (Governance Reporter)
President Muhammadu Buhari has left Abuja to London, United Kingdom, for a routine health check.
The president departed on Sunday morning at about 11am, leaving the reigns of government in the hands of his Vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, during the duration of his two-weeks medical vacation.
It is however not clear if Mr President had appropriately communicated to the National Assembly as required by the extant 1999 Constitution as amended, about his absence and his decision to allow the Vice President to take over from him in the interim. The president was quoted to have said the “Vice-president is in charge".
Buhari however informed the State House Journalists shortly before leaving for the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, that there would be no vacuum as a result of his absence, saying he had capable hands to run the government.
The President said: “Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo will be in charge while I’m away. Well, I cannot claim to be doing the work alone. The government is fully represented.
“The Vice-president is there; constitutionally when I’m away, he is in charge and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and the Chief of Staff are also there to work with him. So I have no problem", the President said, smiling.
On the whether his party, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will be able to conduct a successful national convention in his absence on Saturday, March 26th, President Buhari was optimistic, however, that the leadership of the APC had the capacity to organize the party's convention as scheduled.
“Well, they should wait and see. How did we come as a party to take power from the then ruling party (PDP) who had been there before us for so many years? So we have the capacity. Everything will be alright,’’ the assured, in response to questions to that effect from the State House journalists.
Twice, the APC had shifted its national convention last year and now the last one on February 26, 2022. This development has caused great anxiety to most APC members who have expressed apprehension and doubts that the convention exercise would be successful due to spate of controversies surrounding the conduct of party congresses across the country, particularly in states like Sokoto, Ogun, Zamfara, Oyo, Osun and Kwara. This is in addition to challenge of who finally becomes the new APC National Chairman after the Convention, a situation the president and the state governors have been trying to manage for some time.
President Buhari, according to an earlier statement, last week, by the Aso Rock Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, hinted that Buhari was billed to go for the medical health check in the UK from his earlier official trip to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, after attending the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) at 50 in that East African country.
But president Buhari, instead, ,returned to Abuja last Friday at about 1.p m Nigerian time, ostensibly to attend to some urgent state matters before departing Abuja this Sunday for the scheduled medical trip. NNL.
