There are concerns
about a leadership vacuum as one of Africa's largest economies struggles to
pulls itself out of recession, correspondents say.
Information
Minister Lai Mohammed said Mr Buhari "needed to rest".
In March, Mr
Buhari returned from seven weeks of sick leave in the UK where he was treated
for an undisclosed illness.
When he returned home he
said he had never been so ill in his life.
To calm fears, the
president's wife Aisha Buhari tweeted
on Tuesday that her husband was not as sick as is being perceived.
But as he has not
been seen in public for more than a week, Nigerians are continuing to discuss
the issue.
Mr Buhari has rarely been seen
outside of his official residence in the eight weeks since he returned from the
UK.
But the real controversy began when
he stopped attending an important weekly cabinet meeting four weeks ago.
#WhereisBuhari started trending
online and the writer Wole Soyinka, as well as prominent civil society
activists, is calling on the president to release his medical records and to
take official medical leave once again.
This is a crucial year for Nigeria
and important decisions need to be made as the country struggles to get out of
recession.
The presidency is keen to assure the
public that Mr Buhari is still very much in charge because a power vacuum, or
even the perception of it, could have very damaging effects.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, who
was the acting president while Mr Buhari was away in the UK, chaired the
cabinet meeting in the capital, Abuja.
On Monday, a group of prominent
Nigerians has called on Mr Buhari to take medical leave as concerns about his
health grow.
They said in a statement that the
president's absence from the cabinet meetings, as well as the weekly Friday
Muslim prayers, "has fuelled further speculation and rumours" about
his medical condition.
The 13 said they felt
"compelled" to ask Mr Buhari "to heed the advice of his personal
physicians by taking a rest to attend to his health without any further
delay".
Mr Buhari's
personal assistant Bashir Ahmed said the president had met Justice Minister
Abubakar Malami and other officials at the presidential villa on Tuesday as
part of his official duties.
Last week,
presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said Mr Buhari was "taking things
slowly, as he fully recovers from the long period of treatment" in the UK.
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