Don't wish Buhari dead, Ikedife tells Nigerians

Former President-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Dr. Dozie Ikedife, has urged Nigerians to pray for President Mohammadu Buhari so that he would get well soon and return to the country instead of wishing him death.
Speaking to The AUTHORITY at his Nnewi residence on Wednesday, he said there would be no need for the embattled president to resign and hand over to his Vice, Prof. Yemi Osibajo, if he (President Buhari) returned to Nigeria hale and hearty.
"I have never heard it discussed or written in any constitution that the president of a country can never fall sick. So, I do not agree with those who are saying that he should resign when he comes back. I do not know why people are wishing Buhari death. President Buhari is not dead, to the best of my knowledge; and based on the information available to Nigerians," Ikedife noted.
He said he never believed that the presidency was not telling Nigerians the truth about the health status of President Buhari, "but I'm not happy how the presidency is handling the comments coming out. That leaves a lot of speculations. Generally, it is clear to me, from what is going on, that most Nigerians do not believe what being is dished out".
The former Ohaneze Ndigbo boss said that speculations had gone rife and became uncontrollable, creating the room for anybody to say anything. He noted that it was painful that some Nigerians tended to prefer to hear fiction rather than facts; adding that he never knew of any other country where false rumours were peddled about somebody's life or death like Nigeria.
He regretted that many decades after independence; some Nigerians who could afford it still went overseas for medication while government failed to make proper investment in the health sector.
Dr. Ikedife said: "This is the lamentation some of us in the medical field are making. I have been lamenting about this for a long time. When I was the president of International College of Surgeons, Nigeria Section, I lamented the poor investment in medical gadgets and medical technology in my valedictory speech. We met students from those countries; some wealthy Nigerians go to for treatment. We beat many of them at the medical school. And we now send patients to them just because they have the necessary medical gadgets and medical technology. It is very painful to me as a medical practitioner".
He explained that some of the things he learnt in Britain as an undergraduate in medicine sixty years ago were not yet practiced in Nigeria as a routine, saying that it was a shame that Nigeria had failed to invest adequately in the health sector to measure up with the standard in the developed countries.
On whether the reaction of some Nigerians and their wishes were based on ongoing economic hardship, Ikedife said that such must be a wrong thinking. He noted that there was a time Nigeria had economic policy called austerity measures, when Nigerians were subjected to sever economic strangulations and yet survived it. He recalled that nobody was wished dead at that time.
He traced the nation's economic woes to military era down to when the civilians took over in 1999. According to him, it would be wrong to apportion blames on President Buhari when his administration did not cause the current economic downturn.