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Why Yar'adua Was Stuck in Saudi Arabia.

Last View on Tue 2nd September, 2008
Last Modified on Mon 01st September, 2008 8:16:12 pm
Author: Posted by Admin Sahara

SaharaReporters, New York

Sources in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Umaru Yar'adua and his close family members have been in the last two weeks have described a web of deception regarding Mr. Yar’adua’s condition. Two highly connected sources told SaharaReporters that, contrary to publications in the local Nigerian media, Yar'adua was yet to undergo kidney transplant in Saudi Arabia. They added that barring a sharp decline in his condition, Yar’adua may return to Nigeria by mid-week.

The sources revealed that Yar'adua has been staying in a private house in Jeddah after his discharge from intensive care. At the residence, he is being attended by a Saudi-based Nigerian woman who is regarded as the most powerful foreign-born marabout in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, he has undergone a series of intensive tests conducted by nephrological specialists to determine a proper kidney donor for him.

SaharaReporters was first to report a series of events leading to the prolonged disappearance of Yar'adua from Nigeria. Officials of the federal government initially denied our reports, but later kept mute about Yar'adua's whereabouts even as governance ground to a halt in Abuja.

The sequence of events shows that there was a direct connection between changes in the top military hierarchy and Yar'adua’s two-week hiatus from Abuja that led to an embarrassing cancellation of a state visit to Brazil. Brazilian officials have confidentially told SaharaReporters that Yar'adua's visit is unlikely to be rescheduled anytime soon.

Yar'adua had travelled to Jeddah with his wife, Turai, one of his daughters, his aide de camp (ADC) and Chief Security Officer (CSO), two German doctors and two pilots from the presidential aviation pool.

Our sources said that, once in Saudi Arabia, Yar’adua began consulting the female marabout who had visited Kano two months ago. Our sources said that Yar'adua had met secretly with the Saudi-based spiritualist during her visit to Kano.

Our sources disclosed that Yar'adua believes that he could be miraculously cured of his Churg Strauss Syndrome having received a similar "healing" in 2000 after his German doctors had recommended kidney transplant for him. They said Yar’adua, once out of a seven-day stay in intensive care, has been “going through bouts of spiritual healing presided over by the spiritualist.”

Our sources indicated that, as Yar'adua prepared to travel to Saudi Arabia to meet with the marabout, he collapsed several times in Abuja. In panic, his family and inner circle decided to invite two German doctors to manage his condition until he could be flown to Germany. However, his closest aides advised against returning him to Germany, citing security reasons. They feared that Yar’adua’s third trip to Germany on health related grounds could trigger serious security alarm and create widespread anxiety about his ability to continue to govern Nigeria.

His closest aides decided that he should use the lesser hajj or ummra as a ruse to fly to Saudi Arabia to visit nephrologists at the Saudi German Hospital in Jeddah, where a kidney said to match his type 90% was made ready.

When Yar'adua arrived Saudi Arabia, he was advised to seek a second opinion from the top nephrologists in Saudi Arabia and Germany working in a Jeddah-based Saudi government owned hospital. After running a battery of tests, the team of doctors concluded that the kidney meant for the replacement was likely to suffer tissue rejection from him. They advised that tests be conducted on his close relatives to find alternative donors. His wife and daughter were tested, and his wife proved compatible, according to our sources. She was, however, unwilling to donate an organ in Saudi Arabia; she instead opted for it to be done in Germany. Her condition would mean that Yar'adua would spend a prolonged period of time in Germany to recuperate. To avoid that politically risky gamble, it was decided that his blood brother, a certain Major Audu Yar'adua of the Nigerian Army, be flown in for organ compatibility test.

Orders were issued to release a Gulfstream G-V aircraft to fly Major Audu Yar'adua to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. SaharaReporters cannot confirm the report that Major Yar’adua underwent a series of tests conducted today (Monday September 1, 2008) in the Saudi German Hospital at Jeddah.

Yar'adua's current sojourn in Saudi Arabia has revealed some disturbing trends in his regime. A minister in his government told Saharareporters that cabinet members as well as “Vice President” Goodluck Jonathan are sidelined in the government. “The power show is run by Yar'adua and his close-knit political and familial associates mostly from his home state of Katsina,” said the minister.

Also revealed is the critical role his younger brother in the military, Major Audu Yar'adua, has played in giving Yar'adua unusual confidence to ride roughshod on the people in Nigeria with regard to governance and a prolonged absence from his seat without any serious effort to tell the Nigerian people about his health condition.

Sources within the military said Yar’adua’s younger brother was the architect of the recent overhaul of military chiefs announced prior to Yar’adua’s departure to Saudi Arabia. Our sources said Major Yar’adua handpicked the commander of the brigade of guards at the Aso Rock villa and Yar'adua's Chief Security officer (CSO) Tilde, the Aide De Camp, Colonel Abdul as well as the current chief of army staff, Major General Dambauzu. “He single-handledly reshuffled the service chiefs, trust me,” said one source. “Audu is Nigeria’s new Mustapha,” he added, referring to the late General Abacha's once powerful and brash chief security officer known for ordering around senior military officers during the dictator's reign of terror.

Another striking similarity between Yar'adua and Abacha is their shared belief in the power of marabouts and spiritualized practices. In Yar'adua's case, his associates who spoke to SaharaReporters said his troubled life of prolonged mental and physical illness pushed him into the hands of marabouts.

One source who knew Yar'adua from his secondary school days said he once drank excessively and smoked weed (marijuana) during his youthful years. He still secretly smokes cigarettes.

A family photo of him published by SaharaReporters where he was holding his daughter at his wife’s graduation tells a bit of his mental state, according to one of his childhood friends. He told SaharaReporters that “it is unusual for a normal core Northerner to wear a T-shirt to his wife’s graduation in the 70's.”

The friend said Yar'adua once broke down mentally but sought help and found cure from one Alhaji Momodu Maijara, a marabout from Niger Republic, who cured him with a combination of horse whips, prayers and herbs.

One source told SaharaReporters that Alhaji Maijara frequently occupies Houses “5” and “7” in the Aso Rock Villa. Another marabout—one of several—also lives in House "8" at the villa. Another group of marabout imams live in the Defense House. The Defence House has a reputation for housing the “addictions” of Aso Rock occupants.

During the Obasanjo presidency, the "Defense House" housed a mobile harem of females who serviced Obasanjo’s legendary sexual appetite with Otunba Oyewole Fasawe coordinating the women until he and Obasanjo fell apart over former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

Our sources revealed that Shehu Inuwa Imam, a member of the House of Representatives representing Faskari/Kankara Sabuwa constituency, now coordinates the marabouts on behalf of Yar'adua. Shehu Imam was formerly the chairman of Faskari Local government area of Katsina State and later the chairman of the Katsina State Universal Basic Education Board. Some of the marabouts are kept in secret houses all over Abuja. Our sources said Mr. Imam, Mrs. Turai Yar’adua and her husband would drive out to see them at night. Another group of marabouts is maintained by Alhaji Dahiru Barau Mangal, described by one source as “Nigeria's most powerful cross-border criminal.” Alhaji Mangal is a smuggler and Yar'adua's richest moneybag.

If Yar'adua returns on Wednesday as planned, he will be welcomed by his associates as a "hale and hearty" returnee from Ummra or lesser hajj. “His hand’s off attitude to governance has allowed some of his ministers and aides to do as they wish in looting the national treasury unsupervised,” said one source, which is knowledgeable about the political goings-on.

A source in Abuja said Yar’adua’s arrogance in lying about his health crisis owes to the fact that his younger brother has helped him to cow and decimate any elements in the military that might challenge his regime. “Besides, the opposition is flatfooted and thoroughly in disarray, the labour movement is comatose, and the media too compromised to even report that the man was sick in the first place. It will be business as usual until Yar'adua departs Nigeria for another medical trip disguised as a headache.”