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Monday 20 February 2017

Things presidents do By Ogochukwu Ikeje

 THE world’s cruelest tricks may be the ones presidents play with their health. A late 19th century United States president Grover Cleveland had a reputation for good breeding and integrity though these attributes could not help much when the country he led was in depression and workers were frequently on strike. There was more trouble. While brushing his teeth one morning, Mr Cleveland felt a lump on the roof of his mouth. He summoned his physician and together they assembled a full medical team, complete with a dentist and
a head-and-neck surgeon.
In the dead of night Mr Cleveland and company stole away on a private yacht on which a cancerous growth was removed from his mouth. The American public knew nothing of the condition that afflicted their leader, nor of the operation that he underwent to cure it. All they were told was that President Cleveland was out fishing. The truth of what happened on that boat did not surface until at least one and a half decades later, according to one account.
A few decades later, as 1919 was drawing to a close, another US president Woodrow Wilson suffered a very bad stroke. His poor health was not a secret. What the American people did not know, or were not told, was how bad Mr Wilson’s health was. This was deliberate. Only the president’s wife Edith, his chief of staff, and personal doctor had access to him. Those privileged three brought the issues of state to the ailing commander-inchief.
In fact, Mrs Wilson was reported to have claimed credit for running the country as her husband battled for his life. “I don’t know what you men make such a fuss about,” she was quoted saying, indignantly. “I had no trouble running the country when Woody was ill.” France’s president Francois Mitterrand broke his transparency promise as soon as he made it. Coming to power in 1981 promising an open presidency, he told his physician on the first day in office that his prostate cancer had spread to his bones. He followed with a caution: “We must reveal nothing.
These are state secrets.” The Yar’Adua episode is too fresh and unfortunate to bear repeating here, but no one has forgotten how sad the manipulations were. There was a mortal man, though president he was, battling with his life, and all his minders could come up with was a web of lies spun by a selfserving cabal who had no interest of the nation whatsoever. One day, they said, the president’s health had so improved that he recognised his mother. On another occasion, the president was seen leaping up the stairs leading to the presidential library.
On yet another occasion, the president could run the country wherever he was, thanks to the magic of modern technology. It was so sad, so cheap, so unnecessary. President Muhammadu Buhari did not put us through that sort of agony as he flew to London on January 19 on a 10-day holiday to treat himself. Unlike President Cleveland, President Buhari did not disappear under the cover of night without a clue as to where he was headed or what he would be doing there. He did not flout any law either. Before his departure, the president wrote to the National Assembly, as required by law, notifying the lawmakers of his trip.
He also informed the parliamentarians that his deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo would act in his stead. That is commendable. The president is in fact quite consistently transparent with information on his health. Early last June he put out the word that his ear was aching badly and needed attention overseas. The federal lawmakers were duly informed and Prof Osinbajo seamlessly stepped into the number one office. Leaders in older and advanced democracies have kept the fact and details of their indispositions to their chests or, at best, shared them only with a handful of inner caucus persons. So why did President Buhari’s health generate so much interest, especially of the negative sort? Two things are to blame. One, the things his critics, political rivals and sworn enemies did with what they heard or did not hear.
Some said he had died, a piece of rumour that would be sweet music to the ears of longstanding attackers of the president, a few who misguidedly ventured to say he would die in office, if elected. Where the death information came from is hard to see; why they did not verify it is even harder to fathom. Even when such public figures as Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun, Senate President Bukola Saraki and House Speaker Yakubu Dogara visited President Buhari in London, with photographs to show, some cooed: they are all old pictures.
There is a second group, beyond the one to whom President Buhari can do nothing right, who also complicated the health information of the number one citizen: his media team. We have heard from them, and some others, what amounted to no information, if not outright misinformation. At some point it was said there was nothing to worry about the president’s health and that he was fit as a fiddle.
At some other point, under pressure from reporters, it was said only the president could say whether he was fit or not. When is he returning to the country? Soon, they said. Such evasiveness means no information, and no information breeds rumours, all of which is unhealthy for a nation battling a raft of other challenges. Besides, frailty is part of mortality, irrespective of the height of office. If the health status of leaders of the developed world is such state secret, as Mitterrand put it, Nigeria should point the way forward by cutting out such unnecessary tricks.

Credit: http://thenationonlineng.net

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