President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday in a telephone conversation thanked all Nigerians who offered prayers for his speedy recovery.
Buhari made the remarks in a telephone conversation with Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State during a special prayer session organised by the state government for his quick recovery and safe return to the country.
Ganduje’s telephone conversation with the President was aired live on Pyramid Radio FM during a special prayer congregation held at the Africa House, Kano Government House.
During the conversation, which was laid bare to the congregation for the people to discern its authenticity, Buhari thanked all Nigerians who had wished for his quick recovery and safe return to the country.
He said: “I want to use this opportunity to express my deep appreciation to you (Ganduje) and all other Nigerians who had taken the pain to pray for my quick recovery and I am highly grateful.’’
Speaking after the telephone conversation, Ganduje said the people should be very much grateful to God for giving the President the opportunity to speak with the people of Kano at the time they were holding a special prayer for him.
“By hearing his voice and the way he had spoken, was an incontrovertible evidence to clear any doubt about his health condition,” Ganduje said.
Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress on Wednesday broke its silence over Buhari’s vacation and the inability of the party to visit him.
Speaking through its National Publicity Secretary, Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party stated that it has never found a convincing reason to visit the President “who is on vacation”.
Abdullahi explained that those that visited the President in London did so for official or personal reasons.
He stated that the party was silent to speak on the President’s vacation and conditions of health because it believed that the explanations of Presidential Aides and Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, were enough.
He said: “We have, of course, expressed our solidarity with Mr President, especially after the disclosure that he would stay back to attend some medical issues. However, what we know as a party is that the President was going on vacation and will undergo some routine medical tests. After the initial routine medical test, we were told that he would need to stay back to get the outcome of some test he took and we were told that he would need time to rest.
“The point I am making is that as a party, there is nothing that we know that is different from what is in the public domain. So, that is probably the reason we have not felt the need to make any comment because the people who have the responsibility to speak for the President have spoken, based on what they know and we don’t have anything to add other than that”.