By Festus Adedayo
When President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua departed the shores of Nigeria for medical treatment in Saudi Arabia on November 23, 2009, I served as Chairman of the Editorial Board of the National Lifenewspaper. The publication was owned by then Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, national leader of the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria, (ACN) and today the President of Nigeria.
Official releases claimed Yar’Adua suffered from acute pericarditis, compounded by a chronic renal condition. What was framed as a brief consultation stretched into an agonizing, month-long absence. In February 2010, Yar’Adua was clandestinely smuggled back at nocturne, shielded from the citizens he was elected to govern. Barely three months later, on May 5, 2010, his passage came like a rude awakening. He was said to have caved in to the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma disease.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo later vehemently denied deliberately imposing a terminally ill candidate. Yet, he conceded a critical truth: he was fully aware of Yar’Adua’s severe health challenges prior to handpicking him. Yar’Adua’s declining health was never a state secret. During the presidential campaign in early March 2007, his health failed dramatically, necessitating an emergency evacuation to Germany.
I recall seeing him in person during that turbulent period, sitting just a few seats away from him. It was on his visit to then governor of Enugu State. Yar’Adua bore the unmistakable visage of a deeply frail man, his left hand bearing cicatrix of an engrafted flesh. He was accompanied by a stockily built aide carrying a shoulder pouch of essential medications. As the man who wore a single lapel of dual attributions as Katsina State governor and PDP presidential candidate spoke, that aide decanted drugs into his palm, handed him water and Yar’Adua swallowed them. Whoever drafted a man in such a fragile state into the grueling marathon of governing a nation of over 200 million people could not possibly have had his best interests – or those of the nation – at heart.
As public anxiety deepened, Obasanjo orchestrated a live, televised telephone conversation, making that famous rhetorical question, “Umoru, are you dead or alive?” From his hospital bed, Yar’Adua offered a feeble response of, “I am not dead, I am alive.” Yet, weeks before his inauguration, he was again flown to Germany for urgent treatment. Aso Rock consistently denied the severity of his condition, while political opportunists and religious charlatans issued passionate calls for national fasting and intercession.
It was amid this cacophony of deceit that I wrote a piece in my National Life column with the title, “Why We Must Neither Fast Nor Pray for Yar’Adua.” In it, I invoked that foundational Yoruba proverb: “A kìí jí apiroro – No one wakes the cunning actor who merely simulates sleep; it is only the person who is genuinely asleep that can be awakened. How could a nation genuinely offer prayers for a leader whose inner circle perpetually lied about his physical condition?
Around that same period, the owner of National Life, Bola Tinubu, joined me in what lawyers call consesus ad idem on the Yar’Adua ailment roulette. He launched a scathing verbal assault on the ailing president. In a press release, he declared that “the country is now drifting and groping in the dark, like a ship without a captain, in a stormy ocean.” Tinubu then demanded that Yar’Adua honour Section 145 of the 1999 Constitution by transmitting a written declaration to the National Assembly, empowering Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan to act as President.
Fast-forward sixteen years later, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu finds himself embroiled in exact same constitutional transgression he once fiercely condemned. He recently went AWOL from his official duties for 30 consecutive days on an undisclosed European sojourn, grossly violating same Section 145, without transmitting power to his Vice President.
This tragic irony brings to mind the classical Yoruba proverb on historical reciprocity: “Tí o bá máa sin ègbón rẹ ní ìhòhò, rántí mú àwọn àbúrà rẹ l’ówó – If you intend to strip your elder brother naked at his burial, remember to bring your younger siblings along to witness the horrifying spectacle. Its moral imperative is timeless: the standard of fairness, empathy, or constitutional integrity you extend to those ahead of you today sets the exact template for how you will be judged when your turn arrives. Today, Nigerians are roiling in unprecedented hunger; petrol sells at a perilous price and hundreds of Nigerians are in kidnappers’ den, yet Tinubu said he enjoyed himself on his Europe vacation and was kicking.
The precedent of national anxiety over the failing health of Nigerian presidents is deeply rooted in our modern political history. Beyond the Yar’Adua era, similar dark clouds hovered during the military dictatorships of Generals Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Sani Abacha. Babangida was eventually forced to admit he was suffering from radiculopathy – a painful nerve root compression in the spine caused by an old shrapnel wound – requiring extended medical treatment in Germany.
Similarly, in the final days preceding General Abacha’s sudden demise in June 1998, the dictator appeared in public looking exceptionally gaunt and hollowed out. Investigative publications, most notably TELL magazine, meticulously documented Abacha’s physical decline, noting his strained posture, ashen complexion, drawn features, and hesitant gait. On June 8, 1998, Abacha passed on inside the Presidential Villa.
Nearly two decades after Abacha’s death, Nigeria entered yet another debilitating cycle of presidential health secrecy under President Muhammadu Buhari. Between 2015 and 2021, Buhari spent hundreds of days in London hospitals undergoing treatments for undisclosed ailments, while his media aides churned out euphemistic press statements that insulted the intelligence of the electorate.
In African political culture, the physical health of a sitting president is almost universally treated with the paranoid secrecy of an Ilédì – the sacred, highly restricted conclave of the traditional Ogboni fraternity. In mature constitutional democracies, however, executive health is recognized as a foundational pillar of political and economic stability. When a leader is incapacitated, executive decision-making stalls, creating dangerous power vacuums, administrative paralysis and governance by unelected cliques.
Modern financial markets thrive on predictability. When a president is incapacitated or shrouded in health rumours, national economies face immediate headwinds: currency volatility, capital flight and stock market declines. Furthermore, in a constitutional democracy, fitness for office is a public trust, not a private matter. When an elected leader lacks the stamina required for daily governance, the presidency devolves into a hollow symbol and the president, a figurine.
Scholars have noted that the instinct of presidential minders to conceal illness stems from traditional African concepts of royalty. In Yoruba traditional political philosophy, it is a deeply rooted taboo to publicly associate a reigning king (Ọba) with human frailty, bodily infirmity or physical decay. The very cognomen of imperial power – Kábíyèsí (K’á bi ó ò sí) -“He who cannot be questioned” – derives from the premise that the king, as Aláṣẹ Èkejì Òrìṣà, embodies the collective vitality of the realm. To publicly admit that an Ọba is sick is to suggest spiritual vulnerability, implying that the kingdom itself is exposed to harm.
Because direct reference to a king’s illness is prohibited, Yoruba culture developed sophisticated euphemisms. To describe a king’s ill health, they say, “Ara Ọba ò dájú” – ” The King’s body is not completely firm”. To announce his passing, one never says he died; rather, Ọba wàjà – “The King has ascended into the vault, the arctic” or, Erin wó, Àjànàkú sùn bí òkè! – “The mighty Elephant has fallen, sprawling endlessly like a huge mountain!”
In two previous essays I did: “The President is a Sick Man: Buhari’s Secret Therapy Inside the ‘Oneida’” (April 4, 2021) and “The President is a Sick Man” (October 20, 2024) I drew a direct historical arc from 19th century American presidential health cover-ups, to modern Africa. I argued that stealth medical trips disguised as “working vacations” mirror the Yoruba idiomatic phrase of “Ó jọ gáté, kò jọ gàté, ó fi ẹsè méjì tiro gáte-gàte.” This descriptive phrase captures an awkward attempt to conceal an obvious impairment, where the effort to hide a physical limp only makes the uncoordinated gait more conspicuous to onlookers.
Nigeria’s Fourth Republic has suffered from a long lineage of presidential medical secrecy, mirroring global precedents of leaders attempting to govern behind a veil of deception: Grover Cleveland (United States, 1893) underwent secret surgery aboard a private yacht to remove a cancerous tumor; Woodrow Wilson (United States, 1919) suffered a stroke hidden by his wife and physician, who functionally ran the executive branch for over a year; Franklin D. Roosevelt (United States, 1944–1945) concealed advanced congestive heart failure during World War II; Winston Churchill (United Kingdom, 1953) kept a severe stroke quiet during his second term; Georges Pompidou (France, 1974) hid terminal blood cancer until his death in office; and François Mitterrand (France, 1981–1995) falsified routine medical reports for a decade to hide prostate cancer.
Across the African continent, this imperial Kábíyèsí mentality was mirrored by figures such as Malawi’s Peter Mutharika, Gabon’s Ali Bongo, Angola’s José Eduardo dos Santos, and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. Save for rare exceptions like President Patrice Talon of the Republic of Benin, who chose absolute transparency by publicly issuing medical bulletins when undergoing surgeries in Paris, African leaders routinely cling to power while foreign medical teams manage their failing bodies.
Upon landing in Lagos from France, a period of absence his press office characterized as a “working vacation” – a phrase alien to the letter and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution, Tinubu declared to reporters that he was “ready to kick, ready to work; nothing wrong.” As he uttered those words, I imagine foreign medical specialists who might have spent (I have no evidence of this) the preceding month treating him, must have marveled at the mendacity of Third World political elites. As Yoruba elders wisely observe: A kìí mọ Òṣó ju ìyá Òṣó lọ – no one can claim to know the secrets of Ọṣọ better than Ọṣọ’s own mother. It remains entirely futile to try to awaken someone who is actively simulating sleep.
In situations characterized by such deliberate obfuscation, the Yoruba offer another sobering principle – three people cannot sit simultaneously in twos. Tinubu’s trip follows an established pattern of unannounced stopovers, unrecorded medical stays, and evasive PR spins. The dangerous precedent of imperial power arrogance has not been broken; it has been perfected, supported by a legislature that functions like a rubber stamp.
Unbeknownst to the powerful, the pendulum of human health swings to a rhythm that no sovereign decree can alter. Over the last century, international standards have shifted away from feudal secrecy, toward openness. In 1967, the US 25th Amendment established clear legal mechanisms for the temporary transfer of authority during medical procedures. This was used seamlessly by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Other world leaders, such as Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay and Hage Geingob of Namibia openly disclosed their diagnoses and treatments, treating their citizens with respect and honesty.
Why do leaders today, especially Third World leaders, go to such lengths to hide their health struggles? Historically, political minders have viewed illness as a sign of vulnerability, operating under the delusion that hiding an illness preserves an image of strength. The fundamental error in this reasoning is the belief that health is an earned privilege guaranteed by high office.
No, they are wrong! Good health is neither static nor subject to executive command. It is a divine trust, entirely independent of human power. When our bodies enjoy vigour, it is an unearned gift from the Creator, who classical philosophers call the Uncaused Causer. We operate under a temporary mercy that can be recalled at any moment. Humankind may construct vast medical institutions, yet we remain unable to command a single cell in our bodies or halt the gradual decay of our mortal frames.
Among the Yoruba, there is an understanding of diseases (Àrùn) from two perspectives. One is from the metaphysical point. Àrùn, they say, is a malevolent being and one of the eight prominent warlords (Ajogun) who war against human flesh. Second, they say that diseases can be provoked by an individual’s moral shortcomings. These include human refusal to adhere to instructions or declining to offer required sacrifices prescribed through divination.
They also hold the holistic view that good health (Ìlera) is the ultimate earthly treasure and, rather than being seen as an absence of disease, it encompasses a state of total equilibrium between the physical, communal and spiritual realms. To them, when someone maintains a fractured relationship with divine creators (Olódùmarè), the deities (Òrìṣà), the ancestors and their community, they are afflicted with illness (àìsàn). The people also hold that health or its reverse is destiny (àyànmó) and sudden ill health, a conflict with one’s destiny.
The general truth is however that, neither power nor wealth can purchase immunity from bodily frailty. Executive office offers no exemption from illness. In the divine ledger, the high and mighty share the exact same vulnerability as the weak and destitute. Performing artificial strength in the face of bodily weakness as Third World leaders do is an exercise in futility. When they do, they are not hiding their physical condition, they merely expose their arrogance.
To demonstrate that it is foolish for any mortal to mock another at their point of physical vulnerability, Sakara music legend, Yesufu Olatunji, once serenaded his close friend, patron, and prominent socialite, Raimi Ishola. In what came out as one of his classic compositions, Olatunji sang in defence of Ishola whose detractors were secretly praying for his demise. I want to substitute Ishola with President Tinubu’s native praise name, Àkànbí, so that that lyric can echo through time. Yusuff’s line runs thus:“Who is seeking your harm, Àkànbí?/Who wishes you ill?”
In another line, he sang, “No one kills the dog simply because it barks incessant warnings/Nor does anyone slaughter the ram merely because it head-butts/No one destroys the he-goat on account of its unruly nature.” Its raw rendition is: “Taa ló ń pe’rí ẹ o?/Èmi ò pe’rí ẹ, Àkànbí” and “A kìí t’oríi gbígbó, k’á pa ajá o…/A kìí t’oríí kíkàn k’á pa àgbò…/A kìí t’oríí wérewère pa òbúkọ…”
The Ishola serenade ended with another classic statement about how Nigerians may be battling masters of deception in their presidents’ health. He sang: “No one plays the Ikoto game with a crafty master – “A kìí b’ọlọgbọn ta ìkòto.” Okoto or ikoto is a traditional children’s game played with discarded battery head, plastic bottle caps, or a snail shell with a spiral, spinning-top shape.
If President Tinubu were to come clean with the Nigerian people regarding his health challenges, he would find a compassionate public ready to offer supplications to the Creator for redemption. Such candour would signify a mature admission that he is neither a deity nor a superhuman.
No human being is. Many of us have such human battles. Tinubu and Donald Trump shit like all of us and their poo-poo smells like all perishable humanity’s. Every single one of us carries the weight of human frailty and we will all eventually drop this decaying outer garment – this temporary àgó called mortality, just as flowers shed their petals as their season ends.
