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| Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo |
The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Tuesday left Nigeria
for London, United Kingdom, where he is scheduled to meet ailing President
Muhammadu Buhari.
Buhari left the country on May 7 for the British capital
where he is currently receiving medical treatment.
He had, in a communication to the two chambers of the
National Assembly indicated that only his doctors would decide the duration of
his medical trip which is the second one this year.
PUNCH reported that Osinbajo travelled to London to see the
President shortly after he presided over the Quarterly Presidential Business
Forum held at the Presidential Villa.
It was further learnt that the Acting President’s trip was
at the instance of Buhari.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Acting President on
Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, confirmed Osinbajo’s trip to London in a
message on his Twitter handle.
Akande said Osinbajo would meet Buhari in London and return
to the country immediately after the meeting.
He wrote, “AgP Osinbajo meeting with President Buhari in
London today, and returning to Abuja immediately afterwards.”
Since Buhari left the country for his medical trip, there
have been some pending matters that Osinbajo has not attended to despite
that the President formally handed over
power to him.
For instance, Osinbajo has so far failed to inaugurate the
two ministers who were on May 3 confirmed by the Senate, Stephen Ocheni (Kogi)
and Suleiman Hassan (Gombe).
The slots of Kogi and Gombe states in the federal cabinet
had been vacant following the death of the Minister of State for Labour, Mr.
James Ocholi (SAN), in an accident on March 6, 2016; and the appointment of
former Minister of the Environment, Amina Mohammed, as the Deputy
Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Osinbajo had also failed to take a decision on the fate of
the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal;
and the suspended Director General of the National Intelligence Agency,
Ambassador Ayo Oke, despite heading the three-man panel that probed the two
government officials.
Buhari had on April 19 suspended the two government
officials and constituted a three-man committee led by Osinbajo to investigate
them.
The panel investigated allegations of violations of law and
due process made against Lawal in the award of contracts under the Presidential
Initiative on the North-East while it probed Oke on the discovery of large
amount of foreign and local currencies by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission in a residential apartment at Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos, for
which NIA is laying claim.
There have been reports that despite formally handing over
power to Osinbajo, some individuals being described as cabal members had been
ruling the country by proxy.
Since he left, there have been no photographs of the
President and visitors as was witnessed during his first medical trip this
year.
This fuelled speculations that the President had been in bad
shape.
His wife, Aisha, who joined him in London last Tuesday had
however on Monday gave an indication
that God had answered the prayers of Nigerians that had been praying for
the recovery of the ailing President.
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