BUHARI AND HIS MEDIA HANDLERS

A lot of Nigerians have watched with keen interest how President Muhammadu Buhari’s handlers have been handling issues about the first citizen with the most recent being the back and forth about his vacation-turned-health- trip to the United Kingdom.

The drama surrounding the president’s medical vacation to London sure garnered all forms of reactions - the good, the bad and of course the ugly.

So many Nigerians who were trapped in serious confusion got even more confused with the reaction from his media team.

Ideally, the presidential media team should be the bridge between the president and the masses, hence are expected to be on top of their game to keep the whole process functional.

Recall that Nigerians across different social media platforms calling out on the president to break his long silence and address the citizens on the issue of his health amidst ensuing death rumours.

The presidency’s failure to give a definite date when Buhari will return has stirred more agitations with many Nigerians demanding a regular bulletin on the president’s health status.

Although we may not really know the extent the media team went to convince the president to speak to Nigerians, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that they could have done more.

In the middle of the controversies, Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina dropped a bombshell that the president only needs prayers from Nigerians, which in other words, insinuates that addressing them wasn’t part of his priority list.

He went further to explain that he could not disclose the nature of the health challenge Buhari is dealing with because he is not even aware himself.

He said: “I am sure it will get to a point when the President has to disclose the status of his health if it needs to be disclosed. If it’s something serious enough to disclose, I am sure he will disclose it.

“The President is the one who can release his own health status.

“The day he left, we still spoke. He didn’t tell me ‘this is my condition’. He told me he was going to rest and he would do medicals and that was included in the statement we released.”

In as much as we understand the Hippocratic Oath which gives the patient and exclusive right to speak about his/her health and even forbids a doctor from speaking about the condition of his patient except the patient authorises it, there could be more diplomatic ways to handle the whole issue in order to avoid making the citizens feel like the presidency is really taking them for a ride.

The drama infused in the whole scenario speaks volumes of the people that constitute the president’s media team which is expected to be a gathering of experts who know their onions in communication.

If a member of the President’s team is bold enough to express the fact that he knows nothing about his health, what then is expected of the rest of the citizens?

Could it be that there is a communication distortion among the presidency that makes it impossible for the team to have basic knowledge of the burning issues?

Perhaps the president’s team needs to do more in terms of communication to avoid leaving citizens in the dark who are always inquisitive to stay abreast with things that happen around the country.

The way Buhari's medical trip is being handled reeks of obvious missed opportunities and the team can still decide to make amends in their modus operandi in order to carry everybody along.

Culled from The Sheet