Nigerians should pray for the good health of their president. Buhari's trip to the United Kingdom at this time of the year, with everything going on in Nigeria and the world, can only be health related. It cannot be vacation. If it is vacation, then everyone involved in the decision to send Buhari on vacation at this time, with everything going on in Nigeria and the world, should be summarily dismissed.
How can the president proceed on vacation days after dozens were killed and scores wounded when Nigerian warplanes mistakenly dropped bombs on a refugee camp in Rann Village of Kala-Balge, Bornu State? What leader does that?
How can the president proceed on vacation in the United Kingdom days after dispatching Nigerian warship NNS Unity to Gambia ahead of ECOWAS military intervention to flush out Yahya Jammeh? What kind of leadership is that?
Responsible leaders cut short their vacations and trips abroad to return home whenever emergency situations break at home. It is not the other way around. Responsible leaders do not pack their luggage and proceed on international vacation even as scores are bombed to death and maimed for life, on their botched order. That is not just dereliction of duty, that is mind boggling insensitivity.
So, I hope that Buhari is in London for medical reasons, and medical reasons only. With everything going on today, earthquake in Italy, the reversion of American progress as a moron is inaugurated, and all, today may not be a good day to ask why a Nigerian president still goes overseas, to a country that colonized his nation, for medical treatment. Let's set another day to interrogate Mr. President on the obvious failure of the Nigerian state in providing decent health service infrastructure for the citizens.
But if it turns out that I'm wrong, and that Buhari truly packed his bags and baggage to go chill out in London, even as families of scores of refugees killed on his botched orders, are burying their loved ones, then a psychiatrist is urgently needed on the president's medical team. If I'm wrong, and Buhari actually scorched up scarce foreign exchange to go chillax in London, even as a Nigerian warship sails into international waters for The Gambia, then, let the result of the psychiatric evaluations be made public.
If I'm wrong, and Buhari is in London for reasons other than health, then, let's stop calling it what it is not. Let's stop calling it vacation. Let's start calling it vacating. If a president chooses to abandon his post even as his nation mourns local deaths in the hands of his warplane pilots, and his nation readies for an international war campaign in Gambia, that president may have vacated his office. Vacation as an English word lends itself to double entendres. Is it vacation as in "I'm done", "I'm out"? Or is it vacation as in laying back and watching ladies on bikini in South Beach Miami; rolling down the street, smoking indo, and sipping on gin and juice?
What does the Nigerian Constitution say about replacement in the event of a president vacating his office? Where are the constitutional lawyers? Can a president effectively vacate his office - to vacation in London - and still remain president? I guess we have to figure out what constitutes vacating office first. But if jetting out to London even as the above emergencies are breaking in your country does not rise to vacation by abdication, nothing else does.
