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President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday has stirred up a fresh controversy over his real age.
When the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Muhammed Bello, led a delegation to pay him Christmas homage at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the president said he was 74 but was told he was 75.
The President, joined by state governors and other top government officials, celebrated his 75th birthday penultimate Sunday. He was said to have been born on December 17, 1942, in Daura, present day Katsina State.
While thanking his guests for the visit, Buhari recalled the health challenge that kept him away from the country for months earlier in the year and admitted that 2017 had been a tumultuous year for him.
He said: “I am very grateful (to you) for taking time out on a very important day to come out and spend it with us.
“It has been a tumultuous year. I am thinking I am 75. I thought I was 74 but I was told I was 75.
“I have never been so sick, not even during the 30-month civil war that I was stumbling under farm of yams or cassava.
“But this sickness…I don’t know, but I came out better. All those who saw me before said I look much better when I came back.
“But I have explained it to the public that as a General, I used to give orders. But now, I take orders. The doctors told me to feed my stomach and sleep for longer hours. That is why I am looking much better.”
But in a reaction, former Minister of Aviation and PDP chieftain, Femi Fani-Kayode, said President Buhari was neither 74 or 75.
He tweeted: “I thought I was 74 but was told I am 75”- @MBuhari.
“I know that u suffer from bouts of memory loss and dementia but please stop trying to fool us and stop indulging in specious and perfidious lies.
“U are neither 74, 75 or even 78 (as some claim).
“U are 80 years old!”