Lai Mohammed speaks on Buhari's rumoured medical leave & his refusal to congratulate Dickson

The Presidency has denied rumours making the rounds on social media that President Muhammadu Buhari will soon embark on a 91-day medical leave.

The Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, denied these rumours in a Monday chat with journalists in Abuja.

He said it was an unfounded rumour being circulated by enemies of the present administration who would descend to any level in their campaign of calumny against the president and the APC-led government.

According to him, if the president would embark on any leave at all, it would not be done in secret.

In the same vein, the minister said anyone waiting for the president to congratulate Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State on his re-election would have to wait a long time as the president would not do it.

Mohammed stressed that President Buhari would not be congratulating Dickson because doing so would amount to interfering in the election in a state, something he would not subject himself to.

Some observers in the Nigerian polity had queried the rationale behind the president’s failure to congratulate Dickson, something they said immediate-past Dr. Goodluck Jonathan would have done before now.

"This president is not in the business of interfering and intervening in elections. What if he sent a congratulatory message and they go to court and the election is overturned, will he call back the congratulatory message? This president believes that the presidency should be insulated from the conduct of elections and their outcomes"he said