As is usual with them, the Nigerian media are bombarding the news consumers with the unverified and unconfirmed news that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has visited ailing President Muhammadu Buhari in London and held a one-hour conversation with Buhari.
Osinbajo has also claimed that Buhari is recuperating fast and will in fact be back in the country “very soon”.
However, we are of the well-considered view that all we have as prove of this purported journey and meeting are the words of the Vice President, which, as our professor of law skilled in the rules of evidence knows, we are not duty bound to accept.
With the current level of anxiety in the country occasioned by President Buhari’s health and absence from the country for over 60 days, we think the Presidency ought to have gone out of its way to provide photographic or video evidence of the purported meeting, beyond the words of Osinbajo.
What the Presidency claims to be photos of Osinbajo meeting Buhari we find insufficient, even as it has been discredited beyond reasonable doubt in the public domain.
Why did Osinbajo not travel with a select group of Nigerian journalists for this trip? Why is there no video evidence to prove the trip indeed took place at all? Did Osinbajo make this 12-hour round trip at all? If he did, did he actually meet with a Buhari recuperating fast enough to come home “very soon”?
In the light of parlous evidence, we are compelled to doubt that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo took that trip at all!
Assuming, but not conceding, that Osinbajo went on the trip, we doubt also that he met with President Buhari at all, talk less of a recovering President.
Indeed speculations are rife that the infamous cabal around Buhari simply summoned Osinbajo to London for their ulterior motives.
We are of the view that the secrecy built around President Buhari is self-serving to “the Cabal” and to the detriment of Nigeria and the Nigerian People.
We also of the view that “the Cabal” is robbing President Buhari of his dignity by the way they are treating him, especially by keeping him cut off from millions of Nigerians who voted him into office in 2015.
We hope that Acting President Osinbajo has not been co-opted to the secrecy, ruse and Shenanigans put up by “the Cabal” around President Buhari.
We demand that the Presidency furnishes the Nigerian People with compelling proofs that indeed Osinbajo visited Buhari in London and that indeed the President and Commander in Chief is recuperating fast and will soon be home.
We also demand that the Presidency publish comprehensive report on President Buhari’s health and treatment thus far.
In the absence of the above, we are compelled to ally ourselves with sceptics who doubt Osinbajo’s visit to Buhari and everything related to it as claimed by the acting President and released by the Presidency.
Indeed, in order not to mislead our readers, The Dream Daily has refrained from publishing any news in relation to Osinbajo’s purported visit and his comments to the media thereafter. These remains fake news to us, until proven otherwise beyond reasonable doubt.
We reiterate our position in a June 2017 editorial that if President Buhari is unable to continue in office, the most honourable and patriotic duty he can render to Nigeria and his own integrity cum place in history now is to resign from office.
We also want to repeat that if Buhari resigns, Nigerians should have it in their hearts to accept the nomination of Her Excellency, the Wife of the President, Hajiya Aisha Buhari, as the nation’s first female Vice-President to serve with the elevated President Yemi Osinbajo.
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