President Muhammadu Buhari’s worsening dementia and other undisclosed health challenges are taking their toll on his ability to effectively coordinate meetings.
Top sources in the Presidency told SaharaReporters that Buhari was not only incoherent but spoke for only a short time.
It was learnt that he spoke in the same manner when he recently had a meeting with the Head of the European Union delegation to Nigeria and to the Economic Community of West African States, Mr Ketil Karlsen, along with his team.
“The President’s health condition is worsening by the day and affecting his handling of national matters, especially on insecurity. At the EU delegation virtual meeting, he was responding off-key.
“At the meeting with the security chiefs, he was also off-key and spoke little. He was supposed to be at the graduation ceremony at the Nigeria Police College in Kano but the event had to be postponed because the President was not ready,” the source revealed.
SaharaReporters in December 2020 had reported how the inability of President Buhari to make critical decisions on insecurity and the depressed economy had become worrisome to many Nigerians – a situation which his dementia and other undisclosed illnesses he is treating could have contributed to.
It had been reported that his medical conditions had forced him to jet out of the country at least six documented times for treatment, spending about 180 days since 2015 when he assumed office in his first term, SaharaReporters.
The fallout is that apart from being unable to attend to urgent national issues and take significant decisions for the country, the President is perceived also not to be in charge of his government.
This has been evident with several conflicting actions and rancour within his same government.
Also in the same December, contrary to claims by his spokesman, Garba Shehu, Buhari’s dementia prevented him from visiting the scene of the abduction of over 300 schoolboys from Kankara town in Katsina State, his home state.
A source had stated that the President’s dementia affected him once again, and made him to visit his livestock farm on Saturday morning instead of visiting the school.
Dementia is a general term for loss of memory, language and thinking abilities – a condition which may be caused by the President’s old age or an undisclosed medical condition.
“The moment it happened on Friday night, President Buhari was told. But due to dementia, he had forgotten,” the source had said about why Buhari did not visit the school.
When the video of the President visiting his farm surfaced the following Monday, the President’s spokesperson, Shehu, had argued vehemently that the President was not aware as of Saturday morning when he went to his farm.
