The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has dismissed reports that he suffered a heart attack while on a visit to London.
Speaking on Thursday during the flag-off of the Arterial Road N1 project, linking Wuye District to Ring Road II in Abuja, Wike said he only travelled abroad to rest.
Reports had circulated recently that Wike was admitted to a London hospital following a heart attack. The claims sparked anxiety within political circles, given his central role in ongoing developments in Rivers and the FCT.
Wike, however, used the occasion to assure residents of Abuja of his commitment to deliver on the administration’s infrastructure renewal agenda.
The former governor of Rivers State said, “Since I took this appointment as minister, I have never had time to travel out, so I said, let me go on holiday.
“Each time I travel, I travel with files and CofOs, so this time around, I said I won’t travel with any files.
“So if the world will crumble, let it crumble because one has to be alive before you satisfy all the people. You know, this job we are doing, they have been waiting for you.
“The day you drop, they will announce some other person the next day, so you must make sure, while you’re working, you also take time out and relax.
“So as I said, let me travel, and before I knew it, I heard that they said they were sick, and I heard they had a heart attack. God will continue to help them have a heart attack.
“It is my prayer that I will sign their condolences. It’s my prayer that very soon I will write a letter that we are sorry we loved him, but take heart because it’s God that gives and God that has taken.
“You see the level of this country where we are, we play politics with everything. How somebody can sit down and write all kinds of things, where the person saw me I don’t know, the hospital you saw me I do not know and yet we are all happy reading it on social media.
goeshis is a country where somebody go on social media and say Mr President is a criminal and nothing will happen. You are lucky to have a president who believes in the rule of law, you are lucky and continue to be lucky.”