Garba Shehu, former media aide to late President Muhammadu Buhari, has defended Buhari’s medical trips abroad, saying they weren’t a rejection of Nigeria’s healthcare system.
Responding to Femi Adesina’s claim that Buhari might not have survived without foreign care, Shehu said on Channels TV that Nigerian doctors still managed his health throughout his presidency.
“I think it is wrong to assume that he fenced himself off from the Nigerian medical system,” Shehu said. “He had a Nigerian doctor — a chief personal physician and a state house clinic, also led by a medical consultant, a distinguished doctor of many years of practice.”
Shehu explained that Buhari’s medical team was always present to attend to his needs. “In terms of the immediacy of his own medical needs, they were always present to administer to his own needs,” he added.
“As for his attachment to his past practice abroad for his medicals, he had an attachment to that. It was not that he was disrespectful of Nigeria’s medical practice or that he didn’t believe,” he said.
“For most people who also travel abroad and they need to see doctors, I have experienced this in America, you go into the office of the doctor and you find that it’s a Nigerian surgeon, it’s a Nigerian doctor,” he said.
Buhari died on July 13 in a clinic in London following a prolonged illness. He was buried at his residence in Daura, Katsina State, on July 15.
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