Former presidential spokesperson Femi Adesina has defended ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s frequent medical trips abroad, stating that relying on Nigeria’s healthcare system could have cost him his life.
Speaking during a Channels Television special broadcast honoring the late president, Adesina addressed long-standing criticisms about Buhari’s overseas treatment.
“Buhari always had his medicals in London, even when he was not in the office. So it was not about the time he was president alone. He had always had it there,” Adesina explained.
He emphasized that Buhari’s UK-based medical team had managed his health since before his presidency, making continuity of care essential. Adesina argued that survival, not politics, drove the decision.
“If Buhari had said he would do his medicals here as a show of patriotism or something, he could have long been dead because there may not be the expertise needed in the country,” he stated bluntly.
The former aide linked Buhari’s ability to govern directly to the quality of foreign healthcare: “He needed to be alive to be able to lead the country to a point where we would have that expertise.”
These remarks reopen debates about Nigeria’s healthcare disparities. Buhari’s 12+ documented foreign medical trips as president contrasted sharply with citizens’ limited access to basic care in understaffed, poorly equipped public hospitals.
Critics had condemned the trips as elite privilege that undermined confidence in local healthcare. Adesina’s defense frames them instead as medical necessity for presidential survival – a stark commentary on Nigeria’s enduring healthcare crisis.
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