Following President Bola Tinubu’s travel of the country to France, last week, on “private visit”, Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has demanded a comprehensive health fitness test for him.
  
CUPP’s National Secretary, Peter Ameh, in a statement, yesterday, wondered why Tinubu would embark on a private visit to Paris, when Nigerians were in dire need of a leader to address security and infrastructural challenges in the country.
  
“It is our hope and belief that these private trips do not involve something untoward that is hidden from Nigerians, who voted for him to salvage the country, which has been on a downward spiral.
  
“Tongues have begun to wag, and speculations abound on the real reasons for these private trips. We hope Nigeria is not about to witness a  Buhari 2.0 presidency, when, from time to time, without any form of announcement, the President would sneak out of the country to a foreign country for medical treatment in the name of private visit,” CUPP stated.
  
The group reminded Tinubu to realise that Nigeria is beset, on all sides, by insecurity, galloping inflation, starvation and unemployment that is running wild, and out of control.   It added: “The value of the naira is speeding southward with our currency exchanging at almost N1,500 to the United States dollar.
 
 “CUPP feels and recommends that the country needs a hands-on-deck president, and whatever the reason for these private visits can be conveniently handled in Nigeria or in the absence of such a facility being available, provision should be urgently made to have it brought to the country.
  
“Nigeria needs the physical presence of their President to have that assurance that the job of President has not been outsourced to those who have no business exercising it.”

SIMILARLY, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) also urged Tinubu to open up on his health status, and use his personal resources for private visits.
  
National Coordinator of HURIWA, Emmanuel Onwubiko, noted, yesterday, that the President is entitled, just like every other citizen, to his private times, adding, however, that there are norms and ethical codes he must observe.

Onwubiko said: “If he travels out of the country, whether on private or official tour, he needs to fulfil the constitutional obligations of transiting the political baton of the President to his deputy, since he would be spending over two weeks. 
  
“But if the President is embarking on a private visit, as claimed by his media minders, then he needs to catch the next available commercial flight or a chartered jet at his own expense and not use the official presidential jet for private affairs because that will amount to a contradiction.”
  
According to him, the President must not spend a dime belonging to the Nigerian public for his private holiday because that will violate his constitutional oath of office, which states that his private interest should not override public interest and that conflict of interest must always be avoided.