CUPP Demands Health Check of Presidential Candidates 

CUPP Demands Health Check of Presidential Candidates 

By Udora Orizu in Abuja

The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has demanded the mental health check of all presidential candidates for the 2019 elections and raised the alarm over the mental status of the President Muhammadu Buhari.

The coalition said its alarm over Buhari’s health followed the allegation made by the president’s wife that the presidency had been hijacked by two or three people and following the consistent practice of the president not to take questions from Nigerian journalists and only having to read from prepared speeches.

In a statement issued by CUPP’s national spokesperson, Ikenga Ugochinyere, the coalition said, “a country of about 200 million people cannot be living and thriving under the situation of being in doubt of the mental stability of the man who holds their mandate to lead and who is seeking an extension of that mandate. The international community is also expressing a similar doubt hence the reactions in the economy and the withdrawal of their businesses from the country. At no other particular time in the history of Nigeria has the number of businesses which closed down in the almost four years of the Buhari Presidency happened before in Nigeria.”

 Ugochinyere noted that it is on these premises that they demand for an independent team of experts in mental health issues to examine President Buhari and indeed all other presidential candidates to ascertain their mental stability before polling day so that any person who does not pass the examination should not be allowed to participate in the election.

He assured that the opposition coalition’s consensus candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, will subject himself to any such medical exercise for the general interest of Nigeria.

CUPP also calls on President Buhari to face the Nigerian media and stop holding them in disdain as they are professionals that are renowned world over for their expertise.

According to him, “How could a President not speak to any Nigerian media house or journalist for over three years? How could a President hold his entire country’s media and citizens in such disdain that he speaks to them only through a crowd of spokespersons many of who have questionable characters and mostly dish out fake news to citizens.”

“Is it not to hide the mental status of the President that the yet to be identified two or three people who have hijacked the Presidency according to the wife of the President that the President has been directed not to speak outside his written speeches? Was this directive not also part of the confessions of the wife of the President when she said named persons who were with her who were not going to be happy if she went outside the already prepared speech? Nigerians want to know the identities of the persons that write these speeches, their ideologies and their stake in the Nigerian project because many a time the President reads speeches that are not in tune with reality as he did during the presentation of budget 2019 and was rightly booed by lawmakers.”

He added that this medical examination is very necessary and all Nigerians of goodwill should join this call for the unveiling of the real facts behind this façade presented to Nigerians.

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