President Buhari’s unabashed medical excursions are, to his shame, not ours

NEW YORK – Since Olusegun Obasanjo, no other Nigerian president has visited a local hospital for a medical checkup, let alone confined in one. President Muhammadu Buhari has so far set a record of his own for overseas medical travels.

Months before his first medical trip to the UK in 2016, Mr. Buhari had condemned the use of Nigerian resources on overseas medical expenses. “While this administration will not deny anyone of his or her fundamental human rights, we will certainly not encourage expending Nigerian hard-earned resources on any government official seeking medical care abroad, when such can be handled in Nigeria,” stated Buhari; through his health Ministry in 2015.

Barely two years later, he airlifted his son, Yusuf, abroad to treat injuries sustained following a motorcycle accident. The hard-earned resources of Nigeria were used to cover the cost. Talk about a classic case of a priggish bluenosed leader.

Recently returned from another London medical vacation for undisclosed health reasons, Buhari will be approaching a dozen times since he has been taking such trips since he was first sworn in on May 29, 2015. If you think we have seen the last of his impudent and profligate travels, do not hold your breath. We’ll continue to witness this for the next two years before we’ll bid final “au revoir” to his presidency banished to ignominy.

But, what justifies his constant brazen visits, one might ask?

Are the UK doctors better trained and equipped than those in Nigeria? If so, shouldn’t the president bear responsibility for his nation’s structural disparity in healthcare contrasted to that of the UK?

Instead, he tells Nigerians to seek local health services, while at the same time, he jets off on a champagne-style trip, paid with Nigerians’ hard-earned resources, to receive a Cadillac treatment in the comforting arms of his country’s formal colonial master. Very ironic.

Indeed, the president has been preaching water but gulping wine on matters of healthcare.

His medical travel does not come on the cheap either, as was just hinted. A routine checkup or evaluation involves a private jet, weeks’ or months visits, escorts, security, food, and accommodations for his aide, advisers, private plane, retinues, etc.

All for a whopping N3.5 Billion ($9.2 Million) according to the 2020 budget. While he unashamedly abandons the medical facility located in the Presidential Villa, which continues to be in a decrepit state despite the budgetary provision of N13.59 Billion earmarked to restore the clinic. Mr. President, what happened to all that money?

The stench of Mr. Buhari’s pietism has reached the senate chambers, that even the Senate is beginning to smell the foul, albeit their political debauchery.

Senator Danjuma La’ah, of the budget committee, stated last year, “he must be attended to in our hospitals here in Nigeria. We must ensure our hospitals are fully equipped to world-class standards so that no matter the issue of emergency, our hospitals should be endowed with that capacity to attend to them before flying out of the need arises.”

What a hollow statement typical of a “local blowhard politician.”

Consider this; in June 2016, the president flew to the UK to be treated for an ear infection. A bacterial in the ears or whatever it is could have been easily cured with an analgesic/antibiotic prescription from any resident intern. Instead, he chooses to jump in a boutique plane and flew 4000 miles at the taxpayer’s expense. Let us assume that an ear emergency exists. Does it mean that the leading African nation in the exports of medical doctors to the West is incapable of treating ear infections? If it’s a question of an ill-equipped hospital or Aso Rock clinic, even a 5th grader will recognize that a hospital needs medical supplies and equipment to function well. The president diminishes the doctors when he fails to put the requisite tools in their hands.

Did he not know that the cost of one of his medical trips to Britain can fully equip one hospital with leftovers to pay the doctors a 1-year decent salary? Even if this one hospital only attends to his sublime, magnificent self, at least, the country will be rid of this national embarrassment.

For instance, a well-equipped ENT clinic capable of addressing an ear emergency will cost no more than $150,000 (N57 Million).

It usually will have a surgical table, ($200 to $4000), exam table ($800 to $2000), surgical microscope (up to $30,000), patient monitor ($700 to $8000), electro-surgical units (up to $30,000), surgical instruments ($65 to $2500), ENT treatment cabinet (up to $9000), video endoscope ($1500), lights (up to $6000), autoclave ($30,000), and portable suction ($900). And a medical chair for the otolaryngology to sit on ($250).

Cardinally, these costs are intentionally inflated to make room for padding prices since waste, fraud, and abuse are our new normal. With prudence, it can cost much less to equip a typical ENT station.

So, $150,000 to equip a clinic in Abuja compared to the $9.5 Million squandered on one London medical checkup.

Let’s allow that to digest.

The above juxtaposition is commonsensical and rudimentary without the need for help from an accountant or a financial adviser. This is what a typical family does when making a household financial decision. So why has this president failed to do the basics of leadership?

It is therefore evident that it is not about financial discipline or judicious use of the nations “hard-earned” resources, or even sheer incompetence,

There is patently something else to it.

Many Nigerians believe the president makes his transatlantic medical travels because he doesn’t trust the nation’s healthcare system. Mr. Buhari has been the president now for six years and has had plenty of opportunities to repair the system. Instead, he has thumbed his nose at the plight and sufferings of his citizens, who continued to endure a shambled and ricketed healthcare blend with overworked and exhausted doctors and health practitioners. And just as they were about to commence a nationwide strike to protest their deplorable work condition, he took off again to the UK with indifference. The doctors have since called off their strike.

The president’s attitude to the nation’s cry for health relief has been gravely offhand, unemotional, ungracious, and offensively airy to the Nigerian people. He sits atop a country whose healthcare is in shambles while he continues his ceremonious but piteous trip to another man’s land. His actions betray the trust bestowed on him by the people through the office he occupies. He is now unworthy for its keep. And this is why his overseas medical vacations are his shame, not ours.

Soon enough, Nigerians will head back to the polls to elect a new president. It is unlikely that most apathetic citizens will remember his treachery and make a sensible choice when selecting a new head of state. We can only hope they’ll pick wisely. Two years is a lifetime in our current social-political milieu saturated with public amnesia.