| WITH AN EAGLE EYE: Presidents are human, too! | Send to a friend |
| Thursday, 26 August 2010 19:20 |
 When United States President George Herbert Walker Bush collapsed at a state dinner hosted for him in Tokyo in 1992, his spokesman, Mr Marlin Fitzwater, commented: "The President is human; he gets sick." On that fateful day, Bush Senior vomited on his shirt and suit jacket, rolled backwards in his chair, tilted towards Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, and slid to the floor with the help of two Secret Service agents. He instantly joked about it, saying: “I just wanted to get a little attention.” Earlier, he had told his physician, Dr Burton Lee, that he was feeling sick. Dr Lee diagnosed him with intestinal flu, gastroenteritis, but as is the case with many other presidents, he ignored medical advice that would have required him to miss the banquet. In 1994, the then Russian President, Mr Boris Yelstin, failed to get off a plane during an official visit to Ireland. Russian officials told their Irish counterparts that Mr Yeltsin was unwell but the media instead reported that the famous boozy man was drunk after sipping too much Vodka. During a visit to Washington in 1995, Mr Yelstin got so drunk that Secret Service agents found him at night outside Blair House, a few hundred feet from the White House, wearing only his pants and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza. Mr Yelstin, who had five heart attacks during his presidency, died in 2007. Another former US President, Mr Bill Clinton, fell asleep during a function honoring Dr Martin Luther King Jr in New York in 2008, after constantly campaigning for his wife, Hillary. Luckily, Mr Clinton didn’t faint but probably had a dream. Yet another former US leader, Mr Gerald Ford, who held office in the 1970s, fell down on the slippery steps of Air Force One while on a trip to Austria, leaving his shocked wife holding an umbrella. The giant president got up quickly with the help of his host and Secret Service agents. Later, Mr Ford had another dangerous stumble on the airplane steps in the US. The Cuban leader until 2008, Mr Fidel Castro, after winding up his marathon speech in Havana, left the stage energetically only to step wrongly on the edge of the platform, falling down with a thud. Security agents couldn’t reach the towering Mr Castro in time. President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s strong man, in 2000 collapsed three times within two weeks, first in his hotel room in Maputo, Mozambique, and twice in Tripoli, Libya. Against medical advice, Mr Mugabe had travelled to the United Nations in New York, but while en route he quickly checked in at a doctor’s office in Paris. Last month, the Zimbabwean traditional and online media published unconfirmed reports that while attending the African Union summit in Kampala, Mr Mugabe, 86, collapsed again. The first account held that he fell on the stairs while the second account alleged that he fainted and fell off a chair. The world is full of such accounts but one thing all these leaders share is what Mr Fitzwater said in 1992: "The President is human; he gets sick." Our own President, Mr Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, is no exception. He, too, is human. The saddening event last Saturday at Jangwani grounds in Dar es Salaam, in which President Kikwete collapsed in the middle of his speech, shouldn’t make the whole thing an enigma. Mind you, the President later returned to the podium. Yes, it was the third time in his public life, two times at the same place during the same occasion – an election campaign rally, but still our President is human. In fact, the Red Cross reported a total of 105 similar cases on the same day at Jangwani. The explanation offered by the Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s campaign guru, Mr Abdulrahman Kinana, that the President had suffered low blood sugar and low blood pressure sounds clear and logical. Missing your meals is among the causes of low blood sugar, medically known as hypoglycemia. We all know that the President was fasting in observance of the Holy Month of Ramadhan. Unless someone wants to say something else, realistically, with that kind of weather, fasting may have taken its toll on the Head of State. Yes, we ought to care about our leaders but we shouldn’t be overzealous about it. Probably we should learn how scientifically to manage our leaders’ lives rather than recalling the sheer luck we had in the past that our former presidents never collapsed in public. Do you know how many times US President Barack Obama has vacationed this year alone? He is now on his sixth holiday. When the White House was asked about Mr Obama’s 11-day vacation, the Deputy Press Secretary, Mr Bill Burton, said: “He is going to spend a little time recharging his batteries.” How many times do Tanzanian presidents vacation in a year, perhaps once or never at all? Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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