Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Muhammadu Buhari, who arrived the country 10:30pm, Thursday night, after his visit to Washington DC on a bilateral meeting with President Donald Trump of the United States of America, has left Abuja for his country home in Daura, Katsina State.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) had a week ago, announced new dates for its 2018 Ward, Local Government Areas and State Congresses.
The dates are May 5 for ward congresses, Local Government Area (LGA) on May 12 and State congresses May 19.
APC’s spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, who announced the dates was however silent on date the National Convention will hold, he had promised that the party will make the announcement in June.
The Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu had said that President Buhari’s “technical stopover” in London was to break the long trip so as to refuel and do routine checks.
Shehu had explained that his arrival in Nigeria was delayed because the president did not fly in the larger presidential presidential jet, Eagle One, because it had gone for repairs.
He said the President used a smaller aircraft which he said could only cover 12 hours and 40 minutes.
He pointed out that the stopover was necessary to ensure that the aircraft was not overstretched with a direct flight, even though the distance from Washington DC to Abuja is 12 hours.
According to Shehu, “The big jet is under repairs. It has been taken for major repairs. So the President is using a small plane and there is a limit to the distance the small plane can cover.
“So the technical stopover I talked about is that the journey from US to Abuja is broken into two. Technical stopover is that the plane stops at a point, refuel, do some checks and then proceed on the journey.
“This is very normal. There is nothing unusual about it. In any case, they are already on their way back home.
“It is a routine thing. The plane can do Abuja-Washington, that’s about 12 hours and the maximum the plane can fly is 12 hours, 40minutes. But you don’t need to push it to the edge.”
