Senate President Mr. Bukola Saraki, who is touted as a trained medical doctor, is not licensed to practice medicine in the United Kingdom, according to the country’s General Medical Council (GMC). Saraki once claimed he practiced medicine at Rush Green Hospital, London, after qualifying as a medical doctor from the University of London in 1988 but that claimed could not be verified as the hospital closed shop in 1995. He had previously schooled in Nigeria.
The GMC, in an email message, signed by Sarah Orr, its Media Relations Officer, was responding to SaharaReporters’ enquiry about Mr. Saraki’s status as a medical doctor.
According to the GMC, all licensed doctors working in the United Kingdom have to undergo a revalidation process to ensure that their skills are up to date and they are fit to practice. Majority of doctors, said the GMC, revalidate every five years, a condition that disqualifies Mr. Saraki from practicing in the United Kingdom, as he has no licence.
The Senate President has, as its GMC registration number, 3196713. His name on the register is Olubukola Adebisi Olabowale (wrongly spelled as ‘Alabuwale’) Saraki. He was provisionally registered on January 7, 1988, and became fully registered exactly a year later. He is neither on the specialist register nor the General Practitioners’ register and therefore not eligible for validation. His registration/licensing history, according to the GMC, shows that he was registered on November 16, 2009, without a licence.
Saraki arrived Nigeria in the early 1990s to engage in NYSC and served in his father’s now-defunct bank Societe General Bank of Nigeria, in 1992, the Nigeria police arrested and charged him for stealing N500,000 from customers. According to Saraki’s entry on INEC former, he served at SGBN from 1990-2000. Saraki and other executives of the bank looted SGBN leading the bank to collapse completely.
