The 2027 presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) Omoyele Sowore says he would never travel outside the country for treatment if he is elected president in 2027.
He made the claim in an interview with the Channels Television’s Politics Today. Sowore also touched on other issues he would like to correct as president, one of them being that he would scrape the Office of the First Lady.
“Any sickness that I can’t treat in Nigeria when I become president should better kill me,” Sowore began. I can tell you that for free. I’m not bringing family liabilities back to Nigeria.
“There is no office of First Lady in the Nigerian Constitution. Becoming president will not abolish my marriage, but I will not have the office of First Lady. Women will be heard, but I don’t believe that you need a First Lady who is holding an unconstitutional position and just wasting money that is meant for progress and projects,” he AAC standard-bearer said.
Sowore’s commitment is coming at the period when it’s become mere routine for Nigeria’s political leaders to go abroad at will for medical treatments.
There’s no record to show how many times President Bola Tinubu has travelled for medics. But he frequents UK and France, with all these travels always tied to “diplomatic” or “private” or “working” visits.
Former President Muhammadu Buhari spent 225 days abroad for healthcare, starting from the 6-day medical vacation to the United Kingdom on February 2016. Only four months later, on June 2016, he flew out of the country to treat ear infection and spent 13 days.
Then he started again on January 2017, spending 50 days in London on a medical treatment and returning on March. By that time Buhari’s frequent and prolonged medical travels have become the hottest subject for the media. No one knew that more was coming.
Few weeks later – in May 2017 – Buhari embarked on the longest medical leave for a president in Nigeria’s history, spending 104 days at a stretch to return on August. He had continued travelling for healthcare throughout 2018 to about the time he handed over power in 2023.