President Muhammadu Buhari will travel to London today (Tuesday) to keep his doctor’s appointment his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu said in a statement on Monday. He will be away for four days and he is expected to be in London until May 12.

According to the statement: “in the course of the technical stop-over for aircraft maintenance in London on his way back from Washington last week, the President had a meeting with his doctor, the doctor requested the President to return for a meeting which he agreed to do.”

The President would upon his return commence on a two-day visit to Jigawa state on Monday 14th and Tuesday 15th of May 2018.

It was exactly a year ago this day that the President traveled abroad for a long medical attention for undisclosed illness and he did not return until much later in August same year, giving rise to speculations.

Earlier that year, the President was in London between January 19 March 10, 2017, to “undergo routine medical check-ups” during a short holiday. On his return, he acknowledged that he was very ill, telling his cabinet members that “I couldn’t recall being so sick since I was a young man.” He also said he had “blood transfusions, going to the laboratories and so on and so forth.”

There appears some clumsiness in Garba Shehu’s recent statements. Last week, he said Buhari’s ‘technical’ stopover in London on his way back from the United States’ was not for medical reasons submitting instead that “the big jet is under repair. So, the President is using a small plane and there is a limit to the distance the small plane can cover,” he told AFP.

There was no official handing over to the Vice President Prof Yemi Osibajo by the President but the Vice President is constitutionally expected to act in the absence of the President. The President’s health has been a major cause of concern to many Nigerians.