On Wednesday, November 10, President Muhammadu Buhari had a meeting with King Charles III in the Buckingham Palace in a bid to strengthen Nigeria’s bilateral relations with the United Kingdom.

This was after the president traveled to the king’s country for his two-week routine medical check-up on October 31. In an after-meeting interview with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Buhari stated that the 73-year-old monarch had asked him whether he ever owned a house in the UK.

“He (King Charles III) asked me whether I have a house here (in the UK). I said, ‘No. I live in Nigeria alone; the only house I have are those I had before I got into government and I am not very much interested in having houses all over the place. I feel much freer when I have nothing,'” Buhari said.

Why did it matter that Nigeria’s president had a house in the UK? Obviously, Buhari took King Charles’ question literally, as it would make a lot of sense if the point raised by the monarch was whether Buhari had any business or contract in the UK for him to have abandoned his duty of protecting lives and property as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

On October 21, ten days before Buhari’s departure to London for health reasons, King Charles sent a message of condolence to him, expressing how “deeply saddened” he was about Nigerians who had been “dreadfully affected” by “devastating floods”.

“I know that the United Kingdom stands in solidarity with Nigeria as you recover from these truly terrible events,” the king said. “I wanted you to know how deeply saddened both my wife and I are to hear of the many people who have lost their loved ones and whose lives have been so dreadfully affected as a consequence of the devastating floods across Nigeria.”

“We remember with the greatest affection our visits to Nigeria and the kindness of the people we met.

“However inadequate this may be under such tragic circumstances, our most heartfelt sympathy is with all those who have suffered so much, and our thoughts are with those working to support the recovery efforts.

“I know that the United Kingdom stands in solidarity with Nigeria as you recover from these truly terrible events.”

At the time the letter was written, over 1,302,589 persons had been displaced, 2,504,095 affected, 2,407 persons injured and 82,053 houses completely damaged. But was Buhari saddened like King Charles? If he was, what did he do before travelling to London to take care of himself?

The Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs warned that states like Anambra, Delta, Cross River, Rivers, and Bayelsa were still at risk of experiencing floods up till the end of November, while urging state and local governments to take responsibilities over their citizens.

Apart from the fact that millions of Nigerians have been displaced and devastated by floodwaters, Nigeria has become a lucrative business enterprise for kidnappers.

Not only has the president himself been threatened to be abducted by terrorists, but abduction has also spread like wildfire across the country.

“This is our message to the government of Nigeria: by God’s grace you will never see your leaders. Your senators and governors will come before us. These ones you are seeing here, we will keep as slaves and sell some of them off. By God’s grace El-Rufai, Buhari, we will bring you here,” the Abuja-Kaduna train attackers said in a video obtained by FIJ.

In the southwest, most especially along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, some Fulani bandits kidnapped five persons while injuring several others who tried to escape on Friday, October 28, at 5 pm.

An eyewitness FIJ spoke with on the phone said he saw a Mercedes Benz left open and a Sienna car with its passengers missing.

“I saw another commercial bus with passengers coming out of the bush. The gang of this kidnappers always strikes within Ogun State borders when operation OP-MESA security team would have left their spot,” the eyewitness said.

“It seems a coordinated attack because the OP-MESA security team is not ready to dislodge those deadly kidnappers from the bush.”

THE US EMBASSY TERROR ALERT

On October 27, the Us Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency US Embassy employees and their family members from Abuja “due to the heightened risk of terrorist attacks there”.

The Travel Advisory warned the entire country to “reconsider travel to Nigeria due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and maritime crime”.

On October 23, the US Embassy in Abuja gave emergency information to American citizens on the “elevated risk of terror attacks” in the Federal Capital Territory.

“There is an elevated risk of terror attacks in Nigeria, specifically in Abuja.  Targets may include, but are not limited to, government buildings, places of worship, schools, markets, shopping malls, hotels, bars, restaurants, athletic gatherings, transport terminals, law enforcement facilities, and international organizations,” the embassy said.

It was all this that Buhari left in Nigeria and jetted out to London again. So, if you were King Charles, would you not ask Buhari what he was always looking for in the UK?