Investigative journalist Fisayo Soyombo has sparked widespread debate after declaring that former president Muhammadu Buhari’s reliance on foreign medical care, while failing to upgrade Nigeria’s collapsing healthcare system, is a grim reminder of how little value the elite place on the lives of ordinary citizens.
In a strongly worded post shared on X (formerly Twitter), Soyombo said the recent admission by Buhari’s former aide, Femi Adesina, that the ex-president “could have long been dead” if he had relied on Nigerian hospitals was a reflection of a brutal reality for most Nigerians.
“Underneath Femi Adesina’s admission that Buhari could have long been dead had he treated himself in Nigerian hospitals is a sobering fact: you and I have little hope of living as long as Buhari did,” Soyombo wrote.
He argued that only those who hold public office—and can have their medical trips abroad funded by the state—have a chance at surviving major health crises in Nigeria. “To the late former president and many of their appointees in public office, the president’s life is superior to every citizen’s. Which should never be. The sanctity of human life should be uniform, regardless of social or political standing,” he added.
Soyombo pointed out that despite leading Nigeria both as a military ruler and later as a democratically elected president, Buhari never built a world-class hospital that could benefit ordinary citizens. He accused the ex-president of presiding over a government that saw value only in the lives of the political elite. “The people being accused of lacking empathy simply resent the elitist trifling of other Nigerians’ lives,” he said, referring to those who have publicly criticized the glorification of Buhari’s legacy after his death in London.
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His comments have reignited outrage over Buhari’s legacy and the culture of medical tourism by Nigerian leaders, especially in the face of decaying hospitals, inadequate facilities, and inaccessible care for the vast majority.
One commenter, @the_drterry, said, “There’s no amount of whitewashing that anyone can do for Buhari that’ll make me change my mind about him. He was a horrible human being.” Another user, @ayokay13, questioned why the lives of ordinary Nigerians should be seen as less valuable: “Is a good life supposed to be for a few while others are onlookers?”
Many echoed Soyombo’s sentiment that public office in Nigeria has become the ultimate health insurance, while millions are left to die from preventable deaths. “The average Nigerian can’t get to 80 unless he clinches the presidency,” wrote @Laurenzk. “We learn every day.”
Others described Buhari’s legacy as one built on disregard for suffering, citing how he downplayed deadly attacks by herdsmen and infamously told victims to “accommodate your countrymen.”
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