Almost two years after his last private trip to the United Kingdom (UK), President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, jetted out of the country on a medical trip to London for the sixth time since he was sworn into office in 2015.
The president and some aides departed the Presidential Wing of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, for the London ‘routine’ medical check-up around 2:30 p.m. Those at the airport to bid the president farewell included the Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Gambari; Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Muhammed Bello; Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Adamu and other presidential aides.
Before departing the Presidential Villa, Buhari had met behind closed doors with security chiefs, where he directed them “to fish out and crush heads of bandits, kidnappers and their local collaborators to restore confidence in the society.”
The president’s trip has expectedly elicited reactions from Nigerians over the deplorable state of healthcare system with experts saying the country could be losing more than N576 billion ($1.2 billion) yearly to medical tourism.
Nigerians have for decades suffered from an inadequately funded healthcare system, squalid clinics and hospitals, and poorly paid and overworked healthcare workers who frequently move abroad for employment. There are at least 8,178 medical doctors of Nigerian origin working in the U.K., according to data on the U.K. General Medical Council website. The exodus has worsened healthcare in a country that has one doctor for every 5,000 people, according to the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA).
It would be recalled that President Buhari had in 2015 promised to stop medical tourism and save the nation scarce foreign exchange if elected president. In fact, he promised to ban elected government officials from foreign medical trips after he rued the millions of dollars expended on medical tourism.
Before the dawn of COVID-19 last year, reports suggested that almost 5,000 people leave the country monthly for various forms of treatment abroad. However, The Guardian investigation revealed that the rate of medical tourism reduced drastically since January 2020 due to the outbreak of the pandemic and the travel restrictions that followed.
Defending the trip, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, said President Buhari began his yearly medical trip to London even before he came into office as Nigeria’s president in 2015. Shehu said this yesterday while addressing newsmen at the departure wing of the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, just after his principal departed the country for medical check-up.

LIES.

How many Nigerians are going over seas for treatment and how much are they spending?