•President may be removed this week
•PDP BoT, Govs forum in emergency meeting
•‘He left King Faisal Hospital December 23’
By ISMAIL OMIPIDAN (Kaduna) & Olusola Balogun (Lagos)
Sunday, January 10, 2010



The hide-and-seek game over President Umaru Yar’Adua’s true health condition and the mystery surrounding his whereabouts continue to spin 48 days after he left the country to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Wednesday night stunned Nigerians with a report that Yar’Adua was not with the Saudi hospital where many thought he had been receiving treatment since November 23, 2009.
The Hausa Service of the BBC quoted an official of the King Faisal Hospital and Research Centre, Jeddah, that Yar’Adua was no longer with them.
The hospital official was also reported to have refused to confirm whether the President was earlier at the hospital at all.

To further compound the mystery, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors emerged from a closed door meeting with Vice President Goodluck Jonathan and told Nigerians that they didn’t know when Yar’Adua would return to his duty post.

Interestingly, chairman of the Governors’ Forum and governor of Kwara State, Dr Bukola Saraki, had told newsmen that the ailing leader phoned Jonathan, the Senate President, David Mark, and Speaker of the House, Dimeji Bankole, from his sick bed and spoke with them for about four minutes each.
But baring any last-minute change of mind, the ailing President may cease to be the leader of Nigeria any time from this week.

Already, both the members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and governors elected on the platform of the party are scheduled for separate meetings in Abuja, apparently, to deliberate on the rudderlessness that has being the lot of Nigeria since Yar’Adua left the shores of Nigeria.

The governors are meeting for the second time in the last ten days while the BoT was meeting for the first time.
Although the main agenda for the BoT meeting was still shrouded in secrecy, a source close to one of the leaders of the board scooped that the board is poised to take a position on the vacuum that has existed at the Presidency.
The BoT, which is presently led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, comprises of the past and present senate presidents, the past and present Speakers of the House of Representatives, the present party chairman and the party secretary, as well as several other party chieftains from across the country.

A source said: “Obasanjo is likely to push the board to make a case for the swearing in of Vice President Goodluck Jonathan as acting President. He will likely alert members of the illegality of placing an unwritten rule of PDP over and above provisions of the Constitution of the country.”

The source however predicted that members might not be predisposed to the idea of Jonathan taking over “because Obasanjo is not a good politician and he might not have done enough home work to garner support for his position. The number of members that might support his position might not be able to make the BoT come out boldly to say Jonathan should take over.”

Besides, governors of the PDP who last week met in Abuja are also heading towards the Federal Capital to meet again on the issue.
A source said the governors are “likely to look at the likely problem that the absence of the President is creating for the country and the likelihood of anti-democratic forces scuttling the nations democracy.
“ They are afraid that the vacuum could encourage some people to try to topple the government and then pull everybody down”.

The source added that the plan by some members of the House of Representatives to debate the continued absence of the president is one of the reasons for the frantic meetings.
Indeed, a National Assembly source hinted, “those that are bent on discussing the matter on the floors of the assembly may even push for their leaders to demonstrate their seriousness.
He said that those that also feel the same way in the senate might follow suit soon and that means serious trouble for David Mark and Dimeji Bankole (Senate President and Speaker House of Representatives respectively)
It was learnt that “the failure of the president to speak up while the American government is hammering us, for instance is an impeachable offence.”

A lot of the members are unhappy that Ambassador Garba Aminchi who said that he Yar’Adua is responding to treatment in a VIP Chalet of the Saudi Hospital could not persuade him to speak with President Barrack Obama over the Christmas day attempted bombing by Farouk Abdulmutallab.
‘‘What kind of leader will hear that his countryman tried to bomb another country and refuse to talk to those that are out to tar his country with a terror-nation brush?. It is difficult to agree that he is really conscious somewhere in the midst of all this confusion,” the source said.

But another source said that Yar’Adua might be ‘packaged’ into the country this week and ferried to Katsina from where he is expected to send his resignation left and allow Jonathan to take over the leadership of the country.
The source added, “the belief in many quarters in PDP is that the man’s health is hopeless. Forget all those lies that he spoke with some people and we believe we had better move on without him.”

Sources close to the leadership of the National Assembly doubted the claim by Saraki that the ailing leader spoke to some key leaders. They recalled similar doubts that accompanied earlier reports credited to Saraki on his return from Saudi Arabia that he met the President and that the man was in high spirits. It later turned out that he never met the sick leader, who at that time was reportedly in intensive care and only Yar’Adua’s wife, Turai, and Nigeria’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Alhaji Garba Aminchi, had access to him.
But Bankole, speaking through his aide, Kayode Odunaro, confirmed that the President actually spoke with the speaker and that he wished Nigerians well in the new year.

More posers
Who between the hospital authorities and the Nigerian government officials, who claimed to have seen or spoken to Yar’Adua, should be believed on the true position of his whereabouts?
While the controversy lingers, Sunday Sun can authoritatively reveal that Nigerians will have to wait longer for the return of their President.

Contrary to claims by government officials that the President’s health condition was improving, our investigation revealed that there had rather been no significant improvement. At the time of filing this report, Sunday Sun sources insist that Yar’Adua had since left Saudi Arabia.
A very dependable source disclosed that he left the King Faisal Hospital and Research Centre, Jeddah, precisely on December 23, 2009, exactly one month after he left Nigeria, for an undisclosed destination, to seek further treatment.
The source further said that contrary to insinuations that the President had spoken with some people in the past and in recent times, he had actually since November 23 not eaten food and as such does not have the energy to carry out the kind of conversation some of his aides claim he may have made.

Said our source: “Nigeria is a funny country. It is a country from past experience where you don’t believe anything until you see them happening. Mr President is not okay at all, and that is the gospel truth. Those hiding the true situation of things know why they are doing what they are doing.
“By the time the man was leaving Nigeria, he had no opportunity of writing anything, because he was practically in a state of coma when he left. That was why the NTA (Nigeria Television Authority) could not show us the footages they normally show each time the man was traveling abroad.

“Now, if you say the man has signed the supplementary budget and he is now speaking with some top people in Nigeria, that presupposes that he has some energy to, at least, write down something. He should have simply written to the National Assembly to allow his deputy run the affairs the country formally.
“But what I suspect is that they are only trying to buy time for the man. Don’t forget, before Mr President left for the first medical trip, before this contentious one, we are all knew the man was not okay. To buttress my point, if you know the (Presidential) Villa very well, from the red carpet to his office is just about a 100metres or even less. The man could not trek it. Instead what he does is to go by car.
“So what I am saying is that they are buying time for the man. I will not be surprised if the President does not return home till mid-2010 or thereabout. From the feelers we are getting, the man is likely to spend up to six months before returning home.”

The source further revealed that if it was true that Yar’Adua’s condition was getting better, by now the Turai (First Lady) they know would have since come out to say so.
“Any time you see any member of the first family saying anything concerning the state of health of Mr President, then know that truly the situation is improving,” the source added.
Other sources in Katsina, Kaduna and Abuja corroborated this claim, with one of them recalling that when Yar’Adua was Katsina State governor, he stayed away from office on medical grounds for about six months before returning to work.

The President’s Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Mohammed Abba Aji, even confirmed this to journalists in Abuja recently that when Yar’Adua was governor, people raised a lot of dust when he took ill and was away for about six months.
He added that he did not only return to work hale and hearty, but went ahead to win a second term and eventually won the presidential election.
At the time of filing this report, it was not exactly clear when Yar’Adua would return to the country, but one thing that was clear from Sunday Sun’s investigation was that Nigerians should be prepared to wait longer to see their President.

http://www.nigeriamasterweb.com/paperfrmes.html

No be small thing

A lot of the members are unhappy that Ambassador Garba Aminchi who said that he Yar’Adua is responding to treatment in a VIP Chalet of the Saudi Hospital could not persuade him to speak with President Barrack Obama over the Christmas day attempted bombing by Farouk Abdulmutallab.
‘‘What kind of leader will hear that his countryman tried to bomb another country and refuse to talk to those that are out to tar his country with a terror-nation brush?. It is difficult to agree that he is really conscious somewhere in the midst of all this confusion,” the source said.

This was what convinced me Yar Adua is clearly incapacitated in some form. If he was truly conscious, why could he not personally place a condolence call to Obama from his hospital bed?