Buhari, 74, stayed more than seven weeks in the U.K. this
year to receive treatment for an undisclosed ailment, sparking concern about
government paralysis and triggering speculation about the severity of his
condition.
He returned to Nigeria on March 10, but is expected to fly
back to London for further care, his spokesman said last week, without
specifying when he would depart.
“Because of the feeling that the President may not run for a
second term, people are already gearing up,” Nasir el-Rufai, a senior official
of the ruling All Progressives Congress and governor of the central state of
Kaduna, said in an interview Monday in Johannesburg.
“All of us are getting distracted by the coterie of
ambitious presidential aspirants that are trying to kick-start the political
process ahead of the normal timeline,” Bloomberg reports.
A former military leader, Buhari in 2015 became the first
politician to unseat an incumbent Nigerian leader in an election. Nearly
halfway through his four-year term, he’s struggling to revive growth in an
economy that has been hit by a plunge in crude oil revenue and a severe
shortage of foreign exchange. Nigeria’s elections commission announced last
month that the next presidential vote will be held on Feb. 16, 2019.
El-Rufai said that most ruling party members would like him
to seek a second term.
President’s Intentions
“The President is saying nothing about his intentions and
many of us that campaigned vigorously for him in 2015 are hoping that his
health will improve and stabilise and that he will run again in 2019,” he said.
“We need the policy continuity and the stability in the political environment
for the country to make progress.”
El-Rufai, a 57-year-old Harvard graduate seen as close to
Buhari, argued against a devaluation of the naira, saying it would not benefit
Nigeria because it exports almost nothing apart from oil.
This story was first published on PUNCH
