A bid by a civil society group to compel President Muhammadu Buhari to reveal the cost of his treatment for an undisclosed illness that incapacitated him for several months has been blocked by a Nigerian court.
President Buhari spent a large part of last year in London prompting speculation about his fitness to govern – as well as whether Nigerian taxpayers footed his private medical bill. He has said only that it involved multiple blood transfusions and tests. The exact nature of his condition remains a mystery.
The Advocacy for Societal Rights Advancement and Development Initiative made a freedom of information request to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for details.
Their request was denied and that’s when they took the CBN and its governor Godwin Emefiele to court.
According to Judge John Tsoho, the Freedom of Information Act provided for an exemption where personal information is not publicly available and the individual has not consented.
“There is no evidence of the president having consented to disclosure of personal information relating to his health and the information is certainly not publicly available,” he said.
“I therefore hold that the information sought by the applicant… is exempt,” he told the Federal High Court in Abuja in a ruling.
“On the whole, the applicants’ suit is not sustained and it is struck out.”
The judge said the applicants should have sought the information from the office of the president’s chief of staff but he would likely have refused for the same reasons.
The representatives from the civil society group have not yet made any remark following the ruling.
The group previously sought an injunction to stop Buhari being sworn in as president after his election victory in 2015.
The 75-year-old president is seeking a second four-year term at polls in February next year.
