Femi Adesina, former spokesman to late President Muhammadu Buhari, has said the ex-Nigerian leader may have died if he had relied on the country’s healthcare system for treatment during his health crises.
Speaking on Channels Television on Tuesday, ahead of Buhari’s state funeral, Adesina defended the former president’s frequent medical trips to the United Kingdom, describing them as a matter of life and death rather than luxury or political insensitivity.
“Even before becoming president, Buhari had always received medical care in London,” Adesina noted, adding that the UK doctors were already familiar with his medical history and had been managing his condition long before 2015.
He explained that continuing treatment abroad was essential, given the limited medical expertise available in Nigeria at the time.
“One must first be alive to change things. If Buhari had insisted on staying back to prove a point, he could have died because the needed expertise might not have been available locally,” he said.
Adesina stressed that Buhari’s survival and ability to serve as president were due to the advanced care he received overseas.
He urged critics to view the decision within the context of necessity, not as a slight against Nigerian hospitals.
“He needed to live to be able to make the kind of changes people wanted. You don’t demand reform from a dead man,” he concluded.