News

ANALYSIS: Despite spending ₦6.4 billion on Aso Villa clinic in six years, Buhari prefers London medical trips

Despite the huge annual budget allocations to his official hospital at the Aso Villa in Abuja, President Muhammadu Buhari prefers going to the United Kingdom (UK) on medical trips. 

Mr Buhari has since he got to power frequented the UK for medical check ups even after the federal government had allocated N6.4 billion for the Aso Villa Clinic in the last six years.

The only period Mr Buhari stayed back in Nigeria was during the peak of COVID-19 when there were travel restrictions.

He, however, resumed back to his routine medical travel early this week.

In 2016,  the federal government budgeted N2.83 billion for the state house clinic, the clinic got budget allocation of N332 million in 2017, it got N1 billion in 2018, N799 million in 2019, N703 million in 2020 and it has gotten N687 million for 2021. 

This shows that the federal government of Nigeria prioritises the health of the president, his family and staff.

In fact, data shows that what the Aso Villa clinic got in the last six years is higher than that of the other hospitals in the country. 

Despite this, Mr Buhari finds pleasure in flying to the United Kingdom,  a reason that is unclear this newspaper as of the time of this report.  

Although, in 2017, Aisha Buhari, wife of the president alleged that the hospital is not well equipped. 

“I called the Aso Clinic to find out if they have an X-Ray machine, they said it’s not working. In the end I had to go to a hospital owned and operated by foreigners 100 per cent. There is a budget for the Hospital and if you go there now, you will see a number of constructions going on but they don’t have a single syringe there. What is the purpose of the buildings if there are no equipment there to work with?”

Medical analysts and social commentators have on several occasions condemned the poor state of healthcare system in Nigeria but nothing significant has been done to tackle this menace.

Show More

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button