ABUJA — Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, undergoing treatment for a heart condition in Saudi Arabia, is doing fine, his deputy said on Friday.


"There are some rumours , but let me assure Nigerians that the President is okay," Vice President Goodluck Jonathan told Nigerian Muslim clerics who visited him after saying special Eid prayers.


Yar'Adua is hospitalised at King Faisal hospital in Jeddah for acute pericarditis, inflammation of the membrane covering the heart.


Yar'Adua left Abuja on Monday night for Jeddah but on Wednesday rumours spread in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia that he had slipped into a coma or had died.


On Thursday and for the first time, his office publicly stated his ailment.


Jonathan said he was in constant touch with Yar'Adua by phone from his hospital bed.


"We spoke yesterday (Thursday) and even this morning," said Jonathan. "After this time I will speak with him again".


"So discountenance any form of false rumours being spread by mischievous characters in this country," he added.


Presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi told reporters Thursday that Yar'Adua "was aware of the rumours and he felt very bad about it like any other normal being will feel."


Asked when the President was expected to return, Adeniyi said: "As of now, I don't know. I will give an update on the situation".


The condition of Yar'Adua, 58, had until now been cloaked in an official veil of secrecy.


He is widely believed to have a history of kidney-related disease for which he has previously received hospital treatment in both Germany and Saudi Arabia.


Yar'Adua was dogged by ill-health even during the election campaign that brought him to power in 2007.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hkinLLnlHfSdzrpaaPcPjBYo488A