Lawyer urges Senate to swear in Osinbajo as acting president

A Lagos-based lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has urged the Nigerian Senate to declare the office of the president vacant and constitute a medical panel of experts to examine the health status of Muhammadu Buhari in order to determine if he can still continue to function in office.

In a statement on Tuesday, Mr. Adegboruwa said the Constitution anticipates a fit and proper chief executive, to run the affairs of Nigeria.

“Since I personally got to know of the ill health of General Buhari, I’ve changed a lot of my views concerning his government,” said Mr. Adegboruwa.

“We are all human after all, and no one can play God or rejoice over another man on account of his ill health. I then decided to pray for the President and also to lie low, in respect of my usual assessment of his policies, in order to give him enough time to fully recover.

“But hard as I tried, I couldn’t just convince Uncle Lai Mohammed or any other member of General Buhari’s cabinet, to publicly admit to the people of Nigeria that the President is truly and seriously sick, as sick could be, even though I personally know the true position.

“On account purely of his ill health, the President has not been performing his official duties, he has not been able to preside over the Federal Executive Council and he has not been seen in public for about two weeks now,” he said.

Mr. Buhari’s health condition has continued to be a subject of speculation among Nigerians, especially following the president’s absence from last week’s weekly Federal Executive Council meeting for the third time in a row.

Explaining Mr. Buhari’s continued absence, Nigeria’s Information minister, Lai Mohammed, said the president was “resting.”