By Damola Emmanuel, with agency report
Contrary to speculations that he has died, former United States President, Jimmy Carter is “doing OK” but coming to an end’, so says the former President’s grandson.
Jason Carter was giving an update, Tuesday, on the health of the 39th President of the United States, and a staunch ally of Nigeria’s former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Jimmy Carter, who began his Presidency on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981, became the first US President to ever visit sub-Saharan Africa when he came to Nigeria in 1978, during Obasanjo’s rule as military Head of State.
Since he lost his wife and former First Lady, Rosalynn Carter, in 2023, there has been apprehension over the 39th president’s health.
Once, he was rumoured dead. Now, the rumour is back.
But Jason Carter dispelled the rumour at a mental health forum named in honor of his grandmother, the late former first lady Rosalynn Carter, at the Carter Center, Atlanta, on Tuesday, saying:
“(My grandfather) is doing OK. He has been in hospice, as you know, for almost a year and a half now, and he really is, I think, coming to the end that, as I’ve said before, there’s a part of this faith journey that is so important to him, and there’s a part of that faith journey that you only can live at the very end and I think he has been there in that space.”
Jimmy Carter, 99, became the oldest living president in history after George H.W. Bush died in 2018 at the age of 94. He has survived metastatic brain cancer, liver cancer and a number of health scares, including brain surgery after a fall in 2019.
He entered hospice care in February 2023 after a series of hospital admissions and made a rare public appearance at his wife’s memorial service last November.
“My grandmother’s passing was a difficult moment for all of us, including my grandfather,” Jason Carter said Tuesday, adding: “The outpouring of love and support that we, as a family, received from people in this room and from the rest of the world was so remarkable and meaningful to us. And it really turned that whole process into a celebration.”