Nigerians worry as Buhari won't just return home

"What's wrong with going on vacation?" Buhari shot back at journalists rhetorically; his aides striding dutifully around him.

"Didn't I go last year the same time?"

As it turns out, even President Buhari would be first to admit that this has been no ordinary vacation.

It was different from last year's vacation where the Presidency announced that the nation's number one citizen would be flying to the UK to treat an infected ear.

This time, no one has been told what the President is tending to.

The nation has been told that the President is "hale and hearty", even though a "hale and hearty" President has postponed his home coming indefinitely.

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He sought for an extension, a day before the 10-day vacation was due to elapse.

“President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the National Assembly, today, February 5, 2017, informing it of his desire to extend his leave in order to complete and receive the results of a series of tests recommended by his Doctors", announced Special Adviser to the President on media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina.

“The President had planned to return to Abuja this (Sunday) evening, but was advised to complete the test cycle before returning. The notice has since been dispatched to the Senate President, and Speaker, House of Representatives.

“Mr. President expresses his sincere gratitude to Nigerians for their concern, prayers and kind wishes.”

The nation has been apprehensive since the President extended his vacation.

And that's putting it mildly.

Speculation has been rife that Buhari is suffering from a chronic ailment and that the official government line that he is only staying back in the UK to receive test results from Doctors, is a fabrication aimed at concealing deeper health concerns.

Rumours that President Buhari is dead have since been debunked with pictures after pictures of the nation's Commander-in-Chief meeting with APC chieftains Bisi Akande and Bola Tinubu,Senate President Bukola Saraki, House Speaker Yakubu Dogara and Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State.

The President has also placed phone calls across to Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and his media aides--Garba Shehu, Lai Mohammed and Adesina.

There was also the 'small matter' of a with U.S President Donald Trump.

However, news reports suggesting that Buhari won't be physically fit to cope with the rigours of his office should he return, have persisted.

Three weeks ago, Pulse reported that a cabal within the Nigerian Presidency has been mounting pressure on Buhari to return home, even though the President's Doctors hold a contrary opinion.

The cabal has been uncomfortable with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo's sterling performance in an acting capacity, and fear that the longer Buhari remains holed up in a London apartment, the likelihood that the North will lose the power game to the South in Nigeria's peculiar high stakes equation, Pulse had exclusively detailed

Hours after, other news outlets picked up the story and layered same with different versions.

Quoting unnamed sources, online news platform, Sahara Reporters, disclosed that "apart from a lingering prostrate flare-up and other chronic conditions, the Nigerian leader has also recently been battling with a persistent “internal organ” problem.

"The source attributed President Buhari’s inability to eat as well as his progressive loss of weight to a medical condition that has affected his digestive system".

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Sahara Reporters added that: "Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract, leading to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition.

"Inflammation caused by the disease can affect different areas of the digestive tract in different patients, but doctors interviewed for this report disclosed that it usually occurs in the intestines, where the inflammation caused by Crohn's disease often spreads deep into the layers of affected bowel tissue.

"SaharaReporters had reported that Mr. Buhari also has prostate cancer that was first treated by UK doctors shortly after the Nigerian leader lost the 2011 presidential election to former .

The Presidency is yet to deny details of this report, days after.

Back home, acting President Osinbajo has been doing the business.

And he's been at it so well that Nigerians have confessed that they aren't missing their President.

Fears that Osinbajo is taking the shine off his boss, forced the Presidency to remind Nigerians that the number two man has been acting in accordance with instructions handed down from a London apartment.

“There is nothing that has been done since the Vice-President started acting that is not something that started far back in the past. A good example is the Niger Delta initiative", Special Adviser to President Buhari on Political Matters, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, barked at journalists as the comparisons between Osinbajo and Buhari's governance styles, reached fever pitch.

Ojudu added that; "The same people who said we never had an economic team, no policy, nothing...are the ones saying this.

“It is now that the policies we are implementing are maturing and they are seeing the result. It is not a question of one person being better than the other person.

“There is nothing that has been done since the Vice-President started acting that is not something that started far back in the past. A good example is the Niger Delta initiative.

“The President called the Vice-President and said ‘I am giving you the mandate, go into the Niger Delta and meet with everyone who is a stakeholder, all the communities, talk to the militants and make sure you solve this problem for the benefits of Nigerians.’".

And Osinbajo's charm offensive across the Niger Delta is beginning to yield fruit.

Nigeria's crude oil output has hit the 2.1million bpd (barrel per day) mark, up from previous poor levels of 1.7million bpd before Buhari embarked on his vacation, following some semblance of peace in the creeks--one of the many gains from the acting President's tour of the restive region.

On Osinbajo's watch, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reviewed its foreign exchange policy by ensuring liquidity to the interbank.

The move has seen the Naira in recent days.

In Buhari's absence, protesters railing against economic hardship (made to bite even more by a slump in the global price of oil), have hit the streets.

It took Osinbajo's diplomatic toolkit to calm frayed nerves.

Osinbajo has also held security meetings with police boss Ibrahim Idris (aimed at restoring peace to Southern Kaduna where religious extremists have been slaughtering Christians) and service chiefs.

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After his last security outing, Osinbajo made it clear that details from the meeting would be communicated to an ailing Buhari.

"Almost every month, these briefings are held, it is routine and it is the President who put in place this whole idea of regular briefings.

"Besides, the President is a process person and certainly, I am going to speak with him on developments here", Osinbajo assured.

The Vice President has also ensured the confirmation of Justice Walter Onnoghen as the Chief Justice of Nigeria; after Buhari's famed foot-dragging led to yet more apprehension on the subject in certain quarters.

Policy analysts say Osinbajo's professorial, wonky, engaging style has stood in stark contrast to Buhari's sullen, aloof governance approach.

There are indications that 42 days may well morph into four months or less in this game of hide and seek between the Presidency and the Nigerian people, leading to suggestions that a constitutional crisis occasioned by the President's absence, may well be in the offing.

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Human Rights Lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has posited that Buhari should be impeached if he stays away from office beyond 60-days.

Adegboruwa premised his submission on the constitutional provision that the President is only entitled to 60-days of annual leave.

“Once it is impossible to determine definitively, the period of days to be spent by the President, whether on annual vacation or medical vacation, what that translates to in law is that the President has given indication of his inability to perform the functions of his office, leaving Nigerians with no other choice than to replace him immediately, with the acting President as the substantive president", Adegboruwa told The Guardian.

He added that: “It is indeed very unfortunate that the President is ill and we cannot begrudge him the right to have his treatment, as no one can play God in the area of illness.

“But if the illness of the President is of such a nature as to make it impossible for him to perform the functions of his office, then there cannot be a vacuum in that office. The fact that there is an Acting president will not suffice.

“A President of a sovereign state as Nigeria cannot be allowed to abscond his duty post under the guise of medical vacation.

"In this case, the President has turned himself into some form of tourist attraction, whereby, he has turned his abode into an alternative government house, where who-is-who in Nigeria now troop to, giving room for speculations and vacuum in governance.

“If by the end of February 2017, the President is unable, for reason of ill health, to resume his normal duties as President, then the Senate should proceed to invoke the provisions of section 144 of the constitution to declare his seat vacant, so that the Vice President will officially step into the position of President".

However, the Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly matters, Sen Ita Enang, says the President has acted in accordance with the laws of the land.

Enang said; "What is important is that there is communication with the Senate.

“Once the communication is received by the Senate and the House of Representatives, through their respective presiding officers, that settles it,” he added.