‘Fit President Jonathan returns today’

The Presidency says President Goodluck Jonathan is fit and will return to Nigeria today.

Jonathan, on a trip to Britain, had, on Wednesday, taken ill thus unable to honour a meeting with British investors.

In a statement, yesterday, the Presidency said the president merely suffered abdominal pains that did not require surgery.

It dismissed the claim that the illness stemmed from Jonathan’s 56th birthday bash in London, saying there was no such bash as the president marked the birthday quietly.

The statement thanked all Nigerians for showing concern over Jonathan’s health.

“The Presidency also commends the generality of the mainstream media whose coverage of the President’s slight health challenge in London was mostly factual, objective, fair-minded and supportive”, the statement said.

COUNCIL CO-ORDINATOR, HONORARY INVESTORS COUNCIL (HIIC), BARONESS LYNDA CHALKER OF WALLASEY (R), WELCOMING PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN TO THE 15TH MEETING OF HIIC IN LONDON ON FRIDAY (22/11/13).

It continued: “We however condemn the utterly irresponsible, deplorable, highly unprofessional and unethical antics of certain fringe elements operating in the nebulous sphere of cyberspace who persist in seizing every opportunity to unjustifiably malign and impugn the character and integrity of the elected leader of their country.

”It is very regrettable indeed that after, in compliance with President Jonathan’s standing instruction that Nigerians must never be kept in the dark about the state of his health, the public was duly informed that the President had received precautionary medical attention for an unexpected indisposition in London, Sahara Reporters and some other reckless, lawless, impudent and unpatriotic internet-based media chose to assault the sensibilities of all decent Nigerians again with their entirely fictional, malicious, hate-driven and scurrilous distortion of the facts of the President’s indisposition.

”The suggestion by Sahara Reporters that President Jonathan took ill following a “heavy birthday party thrown to celebrate the President’s 56th birthday at his Presidential suite in the Intercontinental Hotel in London” is fictional nonsense as there was definitely no party in London to celebrate President Jonathan’s birthday on Wednesday night.

The truth is that President Jonathan observed his 56th birthday anniversary quietly. For the better part of the day, he was airborne, in transit between Abuja and London.

”On arrival in London, he spent the rest of the day in the privacy of his hotel room. It has never been his custom to celebrate birthday anniversaries and no exception was made this year. No birthday party was therefore held for the President in London and there was certainly no drinking spree as Sahara Reporters claimed”.

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