Nigeria: Ailing President Buhari returns after 3 months of medical leave

Buhari to address the nation, Monday

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has returned from 3 months of medical leave, where he received treatment for an unspecified ailment.

He (Buhari) will address the nation in a broadcast Monday morning, his office said, referring to the president’s issues merely as a “health challenge.”

The 74-year-old leader also spent 7 weeks away from office for treatment earlier this year, saying he had never been so sick in his life. He spoke of receiving blood transfusions.

Buhari’s long absences have led some in Africa’s most populous nation and largest economy to call for his replacement. In recent weeks, his office released photos of officials meeting with the rail-thin but smiling president in the hopes of reassuring people back home.
Attention to the president’s absence had grown in recent days as he marked 100 days away.

Nigeria’s ongoing challenges include a weak economy and the deadly Islamist Boko Haram insurgency in the north eastern part of the country.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has been acting president during Buhari’s time away.

This isn’t the first time Nigeria has faced a leader’s long absences. When former President Musa Yar’Adua was ill abroad for months before coming home to die in 2009, northerners blocked his southern Vice President Goodluck Jonathan from assuming power, creating a months-long political paralysis.

Jonathan was eventually confirmed, but his subsequent successful run for election angered many Muslims, breaking an unwritten agreement that power rotates between northerners and southerners.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press.