Former presidential spokesman Femi Adesina has revealed that late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari’s survival hinged on his decision to avoid Nigerian hospitals and continue seeking treatment abroad throughout his presidency.
Speaking during an interview on Channels TV on Tuesday morning, Adesina openly admitted that Buhari’s long-standing reliance on London hospitals was not just personal preference but a matter of life and death.
“He always had his medical in London even when he was not in office. So it was not about the time he was President alone. He has always had it in London,” Adesina said.
He argued that Buhari’s decision to shun the Nigerian healthcare system was necessary, claiming the country lacked the medical specialists capable of treating him.
“And then you have to be alive first, to get certain things corrected in your country. If he had said I would do my medicals in Nigeria just as a show-off or something, he could have long been dead. Because there may not be the experts needed in the country,” he declared.
Adesina went further to defend the former president’s controversial choice to continue seeking medical attention abroad even while leading a nation plagued by a weak healthcare system.
“But he needed to be alive to be able to lead the country to a point where we would have that expertise. So those who gullibly talk about going abroad don’t know that a man needs to be alive,” he added.
Buhari died on Sunday, July 13, 2025, around 4:30 pm at a hospital in London after a prolonged illness. Details of the illness have not been officially disclosed.
On Tuesday morning, his body was flown back to Nigeria aboard a Nigerian Air Force (NAF) aircraft, accompanied by Vice President Kashim Shettima, Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, and other top government officials.
Bashir Ahmad, a former aide to Buhari, confirmed the arrival plan on his X (formerly Twitter) handle.
According to him, the body would arrive in Katsina by noon, with burial scheduled for 2:00 pm in Daura, the former president’s hometown.
“The body of the late President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to arrive in Katsina at 12:00 noon tomorrow (Tuesday), with funeral according to Islamic rites scheduled to take place in his hometown of Daura by 2:00 PM on the same day,” Ahmad wrote.
The Federal Government declared Tuesday, July 15, 2025, a public holiday in honour of the late leader.
Born in Daura, Katsina State, Buhari previously ruled Nigeria as a military head of state from January 1984 to August 1985 before returning as a civilian president in 2015.
