The politics behind Tinubu's latest London pictures [Pulse Editor's Opinion]

It's the worst kept secret in the land at the moment: ex-Governor of Lagos, Bola Tinubu, will throw his Fila cap into the 2023 presidential ring.

His campaign posters and banners across Nigeria's major cities have become daily reminders of his intentions.

If he doesn't run, he would back a dog for the race who could go on to win.

He really is that influential and powerful in the current scheme of things.

In any case, with President Muhammadu Buhari increasingly drifting out of the political frame ahead of the 2023 vote, the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) would have Tinubu and other heavyweight politicians in the southwest geopolitical zone to contend with.

Which is why every now and again, when Tinubu disappears from Nigeria amid rumours of a failing health, his minders, strategists and publicists would drop a 'proof of life' image or video just to prove to 'rumour mongers' that the Jagaban is alive, in fine fettle and kicking.

They do this to keep the man in the public consciousness, in the conversation. To remind us all mere mortals that the Bourdillon landlord won't be bypassed by anyone and would be at the head of the table wherever and whenever discussions bordering on Buhari's successor are being had.

APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Bisi Akande and other APC leaders pay condolence visit to president Muhammadu Buhari over the death of Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru and ten other military officers. [Presidency] Pulse Nigeria

There is a déjà vu ring to all of this. Buhari's first trip beyond Nigeria's shores after he won the 2015 presidential election, was to London. He hasn't looked back ever since.

And every now and again, we get a couple 'proof of life' images of the president convalescing in London, to whet the appetite.

By the time he returns from his latest London medical sojourn, President Buhari would have spent more than 200 days--that's close to an entire year--tending to his health in a foreign land, since 2015. And at taxpayers' expense, no less.

It's almost as though the man was elected president just so we could foot his medical bills.

Tinubu will be 71 in 2023. The other day, he was stumbling and almost falling flat on his belly at a political event. There are also videos of him stuttering and shaking like a lily lately.

No one is saying Tinubu is battling an undisclosed ailment like Buhari, in France or in the UK. Far be it from us to even suggest something that troubling.

But after all this nation has been through with Buhari at the helm and in the hands of the cabal at the presidency who have to continuously manage information concerning the president's health, you've got to agree that the last thing Nigeria needs circa 2023 is another infirmed president who would pounce on any excuse to run to London to keep a date with his doctors.

This nation needs a focused, fit, domestic president to bail her out of her current morass and mess. Nigeria needs a hands-on president at the Villa.

Buhari has been everything but hands-on and focused, with recurring conversations and concerns about his health now a major distraction we could have done without.

You'd think that the political elite would put the interests of the people and the health of the nation before theirs, when they converge to choose candidates for the ballot before the 2023 vote.

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*Pulse Editor's Opinion is the viewpoint of an Editor at Pulse. It does not represent the opinion of the Organisation Pulse.