Buhari leaves for London for routine checks - Presidency

President Muhammadu Buhari will leave for London, the United Kingdom, Tuesday March 30, 2021, for a routine medical check-up, the Presidency has said.

In a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, Buhari will meet with the nation’s Security Chiefs first in the morning, after which he will embark on the journey.

“He is due back in the country during the second week of April 2021”, Adesina said.

The last time the president travelled to London for a medical check-up was May 8, 2018.        

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, yesterday claimed masterminds of banditry and kidnapping were bankrolling the activities of Boko Haram insurgents in the North East.

He said there is a “direct correlation” between the persistent insurgency and heightened insecurity in parts of the country.

The Ekiti governor told journalists after meeting with President Buhari at the presidential villa that both issues must be tackled collectively.

Fayemi also disclosed that President Buhari will approach the national assembly for more funding for the equipment of the armed forces.

But he said winning the war against insecurity would require more than just military operations, noting that besides making a sincere effort to reach the roots of the various forms of security crises facing the nation, there was a need for political will and political action by leaders to address the issues that led to insecurity in the first place.

According to him, some of the issues to be addressed include poverty, inequality, social disconnection between leadership and the youth, which had rendered the youth available to derailing tendencies.

While commending President Buhari for effective changes in the nation’s security architecture, he stressed that the step would not automatically bring answers to the security questions, until other required factors are combined to the military solution.