The President's Health: More Ominous Signs & The National Urgency To #VideoChatWithBuhari

by Dr. Perry Brimah

Third-party testimonies of the health of Nigeria's president Muhammadu Buhari are very ominous signs. Buhari has not been seen in public since Friday April 21st; the day I wrote an article warning that all was not well with him.

In spite of the grave worry and concern shown by Nigerians and foreigners, Buhari has been unable to talk to the nation. Rather third-party status updates and testimonies are becoming the order of the day. This is alarming. I'll go through some of the worrying signs:

Firstly, SaharaReporters reported that care-giver status was swapped in Aso Villa with Aisha finally allowed to take care of her husband. This is a serious and rather scary sign.

Next, Aisha unusually reported on her husband's health, saying that it was not as bad as thought. She provided no picture or video evidence as she promoted the official narrative. This new development was a second unusual sign.

Thirdly, an alleged 3-hour meeting was reported to have been held between the president and oil chief, Ibe Kachikwu as well as Attorney general Abubakar Malami. This appeared to be a deliberately strong rather desperate propaganda statement especially with the length of drawn-out hours stated and no iota of evidence shown. SaharaReporters said that several sources told them it was a ruse and that the president never left his residence that Tuesday.

Fourthly, a suspicious audio has been widely propagated via the social media. The audio starts with an unknown man clearing his throat before he dials another unknown man who it is claimed is a security official attached to the president. The audio aggressively attacked the public speculation on the president's health with the so-called security official repeatedly mentioning this issue. The audio alleged that all was well with a Buhari who was absent at last Friday's "compulsory" prayers. A media highlighted that would Buhari rather sit with mosquitoes than attend the Mosque, as the audio suggested?

These are one too many signs that all is not well with Buhari who has not spoken to Nigerians since March 10th, when he returned from his almost two-month sick leave in the UK.

It would be so easy for president Buhari to appear and speak to Nigerians and douse the anxiety over his health status as well as inform on his diagnosis and the medical recommended rest conditions and duration. It has been four months of "rest" so far. How much longer did the doctors recommend?

Knocking the "US Presidents Have Been Sick In Secret and Killed" Tale

Attributed to a certain Chris Ezeh is a piece citing various US presidents who have fallen sick secretively or been killed in office. There's no need investing precious time to debate whether this is another strategical promoted publicity piece; the low reasoning of the article defeats its purpose, regardless. Does "Chris Ezeh" truly believe that Nigeria should copy the negative from America when we have not finished imbibing the positives?

Should we drop a nuclear bomb or other big bomb on an entire populace because the US did the same? Or should we support our presidents when they falsely label persons or groups "terrorists" or "threats to national security" to justify massacres of ethnic, religious and class minorities, because the US falsely smeared Saddam Hussein as having WMDs to justify the genocide of millions and ruining of the poor oil rich country?

Again, should we kill and justify the killing of our presidents because as Chris Ezeh cited and used to make his case, US presidents have been assassinated in office?

Indeed Chris Ezeh's thinking can be seen in Nigerian governments' operation manual from 1960 to 2017. It is a variation of "Genocidal thinking" – doing bad things 'cuz others did bad – some of us were put on earth to combat.

We Demand a Video-Chat With the President of All, Beholden To None

I urge all Nigerians and friends of Nigeria to pray for Buhari and the country. The presidency is also urged to come plain and transparent in national security interest.

If indeed Buhari is meeting with our oil minister and attorney general for three hours, discussing matters of national interest and making serious decisions on these, as Lai Mohammed said, can Lai or anyone else please take a video-enabled cellphone to president Buhari and have him talk to Nigerians and take questions from us on camera? Please show us a little respect. We campaigned and we voted for you (the new administration) to serve us.

Buhari should not be kept for only talking to the cabal and political office holders. He belongs to us all and to no one. 

We the people need to know how he is doing, talk to him, share wishes, advice and make relevant prayers for him. We do not trust his handlers. 180 million Nigerians only need 1 hour of his time for our interaction with our president.

Join me demand to #VideoChatWithBuhari

Dr. Perry Brimah

@EveryNigerian