Activist Deji Adeyanju of Concerned Nigerians has said that medical tourists to the United Kingdom including the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), will be most affected by the travel restrictions slammed on Nigeria by Britain.

He stated this in a chat adding that the travel restriction by the Boris Johnson administration, as well as other nations, was baseless as there was no need for panic.

Britain had on Saturday banned Nigerian travellers after it said it discovered 21 cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant in people who recently visited Nigeria, saying the measure was a temporary measure aimed at protecting its public health.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, subsequently said the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 would respond to the travel restriction, describing the measure as discriminatory, even as Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the UK, Sharafa Ishola, described the restriction as apartheid.

Speaking with our correspondent, Adeyanju said, “The people who will be most affected are not just the bourgeoisie – the leaders – but real people; so many people travel to these destinations for Christmas.

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“I believe that Nigerians will be most hit by these policies. Some of the people who are travelling for medical tourism among the political elite like the President who is a perpetual visitor to the United Kingdom will be affected but Nigerians will be most hit by this action.”

In recent years, the UK has become a choice destination for the Nigerian elite including the President; and National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu; who frequent London for medical tourism while perpetual industrial actions, lack of modern equipment, failure of government to pay doctors’ salaries, amongst others, mar Nigeria’s health sector.

In 2021, Buhari had been to London for medical check-up a number of times and had spent a total of over 200 days on medical leave in the UK since his regime began on May 29, 2015.

Despite Buhari’s preference for foreign medical care, the Federal Ministry of Health has consumed a total of N2.3tn from 2016 to date, while the State House Medical Centre has received N6.2bn, according to the respective appropriation acts available on the website of the Budget Office of the Federation.

The presidential clinic caters for the President, Vice President, their families and members of staff of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.