‘Reliable Sources Have Said Tinubu Is Undergoing Treatment In France’ – Sowore

African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has alleged that President Bola Tinubu is hospitalised and undergoing treatment in France.

Naija News reports that Sowore’s remark stemmed from Tinubu’s prolonged absence from Nigeria after spending the official three-week vacation abroad.

Speaking during an interview on Arise Television’s Prime Time, Sowore said some of President Tinubu’s public appearances were staged to conceal a serious medical condition.

Sowore further drew parallels with the administrations of late former Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Umaru Yar’Adua.

He said, “Reliable sources have said Tinubu is undergoing treatment in France. Those once-in-a-while appearances are designed to fool the public.

“They used the same language when Yar’Adua and Buhari were sick and in the hospital for a long time, saying the president can govern from anywhere.

“I’ve been in the US for the last two weeks, and I was also monitoring what was happening at the United Nations General Assembly.

“Tinubu is hospitalised in France. I don’t know what ailment it is because we don’t have those details, and that is why they have not discharged him from the hospital.”

Meanwhile, senior lawyers have faulted the description of President Tinubu’s extended foreign trip as a “working vacation”, arguing that the expression has no specific recognition under the 1999 Constitution.

The lawyers spoke as the National Assembly is expected to resume today, September 30, the same day the President is expected to return to Nigeria after spending about a month abroad.

Tinubu left Abuja on August 30 for what the Presidency described as a three-week working vacation in Europe. On September 21, the Presidency announced that he had extended his stay by a few days and was expected to return on Tuesday, September 30.

The prolonged absence has generated renewed debate over Section 145 of the Constitution, which deals with the President’s vacation or inability to perform the functions of his office.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ahamba, said the Constitution did not recognise the expression “working vacation”.

Ahamba, a constitutional lawyer and former presidential candidate, told Leadership that the President could be either working or on vacation.