SAHARA REPORTERS
Former President Muhammadu Buhari has been spotted in a London hospital looking “pale” and “sickly”.
Sources said they spotted the former Nigerian leader at the Wellington Hospital in London, United Kingdom last Thursday.
“Buhari was spotted at Wellington Hospital in London; he looked pale and sickly. He was requested to take an MRI for an undisclosed ailment,” one of the sources said.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a type of scan that uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to produce clear and detailed images of the organs and structures inside of the body.
The Wellington Hospital is widely regarded as the largest private hospital in the United Kingdom. On its LinkedIn page, the hospital says it has four decades of experience providing private healthcare in some of the most complex areas of medicine and offers specialist support in neurosurgery, spinal surgery and orthopaedics.
SaharaReporters learnt that the hospital comprises a South Building, a North Building and a Diagnostics and Outpatients Centre along with the Platinum Medical Centre, which specialises in oncology.
The hospital is part of the HCA Healthcare group – an American company.
On June 20, SaharaReporters exclusively reported that former President Buhari, his “powerful” nephew, Mamman Daura and his private secretary, Sabiu “Tunde” Yusuf, had all left Nigeria for the UK.
SaharaReporters learnt that the three men, who once controlled cabals in the Presidential Villa, left the country in a private jet provided by billionaire businessman, Alhaji Aliko Dangote.
SaharaReporters further reported that they left the country following growing pressures from the Nigerian secret police, the Department of State Services to arrest Sabiu who had been named in sundry corrupt activities in the last eight years.
Already with the DSS are the suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele and the suspended chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa.
“Former president Buhari, his nephew, Mamman Daura and Private Secretary Tunde Sabiu have all skipped town and are now in London. Daura and Buhari are resting in a hospital in London,” a top source had revealed.
“This was following pressures by DSS to arrest Mr. Tunde Sabiu upon finding out that he was involved in every corrupt activity that bled the Nigerian economy in the last 8 years,” the source added.
BACKGROUND
On Tuesday, June 13, SaharaReporters exclusively reported that Daura had taken ill after news of the arrest of the suspended CBN governor, Emefiele, by the secret police, DSS got to him.
It was gathered that Daura’s sudden illness might be related to how he had protected Emefiele from prosecution for several years because of business dealings involving the sale of forex largely controlled by him (Daura) – one of the reasons he was labelled as Buhari’s powerful nephew.
However, Daura’s influence had waned over the years after he was forced out of the Presidential Villa, first due to a major fallout between him and the then First Lady, Aisha Buhari which led to his ouster from the “Defence House” where he held sway.
He later spent some time in the UK battling an undisclosed ailment that confined him to his Kaduna home for a long time.
Also, this newspaper on April 30 reported that ‘Tunde’ Yusuf, the personal secretary to Buhari who is in his 30s, was set to retire with huge retirement benefits from loot said to run into billions of dollars.
And to ensure he enjoys his loot, SaharaReporters learnt that Yusuf had secured a form of diplomatic immunity from prosecution through his appointment to the National Intelligence Agency, according to sources in the Presidency.
Regarded as one of the wealthiest young men in Nigeria today, Yusuf until his appointment by former President Buhari was said to be surviving on proceeds made from the sale of call cards in his native Daura, a sleepy community in Katsina State in the Northern part of the country, which is also Buhari’s hometown.
He is said to have got the name ‘Tunde’ after being likened to the late Tunde Idiagbon, Buhari’s second in command during his military regime in the early 1980s. Idiagbon was seen by many Nigerians as the de facto leader even though Buhari was the head of state. He was known to be powerful and strategic.
Yusuf is the son of Mamman Daura’s immediate younger sister, Hajia Halima, who died in 2018.
“To ensure he doesn’t get arrested by the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission), Tunde Idiagbon, as he’s popularly known has secured diplomatic immunity by his irregular appoint into Nigeria’s intelligence agency known as NIA and he’s already been transferred to the United Kingdom as his first foreign posting to manage his loot,” a source in the Presidency had told SaharaReporters.
Also, according to sources in the Presidency, Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf recently spent $100 million to help Kano-born oil billionaire Alhaji Auwalu Abdullahi Rano, the executive chairman and CEO of holding company A. A. Rano Group, start Rano Air.
Rano Air is a licensed airline, incorporated in 2021 with its operational base in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. When it started, it proposed to operate in Nigeria and beyond but start with eight local stations – Abuja, Kano, Lagos, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Kaduna, Yola and Asaba.
Yusuf ‘Tunde’ Sabiu is said to be the proud owner of several mansions in Abuja
“He recently shelled out $100 million to help start an airline known as Rano Air according to sources in the presidency and massively invested in fuel stations across Nigeria through the same outfit, Rano Oil,” a source had said.
Sources said Buhari’s nephew once had several accounts opened that house billions of naira in Nigeria.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele reportedly got him to reinvest the funds into three new banks,” one of the sources added.
During Buhari’s 77th birthday in December 2019, Yusuf reportedly wore a Patek Phillipe leather wristwatch valued at $99,995.00 – about N36 million at the time.
In June 2020, investigations by SaharaReporters indicated that a Senior Special Assistant to the President (Domestic), Abba Sarki and Yusuf, in collaboration with some Ministry of Power officials had pushed the government to commit to the purchase of a building for the Transmission Company of Nigeria at a grossly inflated price in Abuja.
Despite the Ministry of Works and Housing not giving approval for the purchase of the building, Sarki and Yusuf had pushed their cronies in the Ministry of Power further to actualise the purchase of the property for around N14bn to N17bn – a rate many times higher than the original cost of the building.
The plan, according to findings by SaharaReporters, was to in the end give the presidential aides access to the funds and thereafter give part of the funds to other partakers in the fraudulent scheme before pocketing the rest.
A top source in the Ministry of Power privy to the corrupt scheme had given more insights, saying, “This building is being pushed by Abba Sarki, Senior Special Assistant to the President (Domestic) and Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf for Transmission Company of Nigeria.
“Accordingly, the building will be paid (for) by the Federal Government, so the TCN was not directly involved. The Ministry of Works and Housing did not give approval to the request by the Ministry of Power.
“For TCN, they are comfortable where they are and the current building was built by PHCN/TCN superannuation fund. But the ministry is claiming the building was given to them by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government.
“The Minister of Power now wants to buy Gilmo building, which was a small building that cannot accommodate TCN’s staff at a highly inflated price of about N14bn to N17bn which would go to Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf and Abba Sarki.”
In a memo dated July 19, 2019, and signed by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing before it was split into two, Louis Edozien, the ministry responded to a request by the TCN for a dedicated and convenient office accommodation and thereafter established a joint committee to look it to all relevant issues on the subject.
Insiders had informed SaharaReporters that underground moves had been going on to achieve the target by the two aides of then President Buhari despite the administration’s claims to be waging a war against corruption and looting of public funds in the country especially by government officials.
Also on May 20, SaharaReporters reported that Isa Ali Pantami, former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy and Sabiu ‘Tunde’ Yusuf allegedly colluded to grant licences for broadcast frequencies in the 600MHz spectrum band by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in the twilight of the Buhari administration.
THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN SAHARA REPORTERS
