Nigeria: Yar’Adua’s Health Causes Concern

Concern is growing over the health of Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua following his admission to a hospital in Saudi Arabia with a serious heart condition.

President Yar’Adua was admitted at King Faisal Hospital's Intensive Care Unit in Jeddah nine days ago, where he was diagnosed with an inflation of the cardiac lining. So far, only his wife Turai and the Nigerian ambassador to Saudi Arabia have been allowed to see him in hospital.

Several local newspapers published a statement signed by over 50 politicians, former public officials and activists bluntly calling on the president to either resign or prove that he is still fit to run the government.

Yar’Adua’s cabinet has a resolution dismissing the statement and has stating that the president was capable of running the country.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili expressed the cabinet’s position to the public, saying the president had not been found incapable of discharging his functions, and stressing that all organs of government were functioning.

A former Nigeria ruler, Yakubu Gowon, chided the statement on Yar’Adua’s health as politicized and intended to cause the country to lose hope.

Yar’Adua, 58, has suffered from a chronic kidney condition for the last ten years.His ruling party People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the opposition for being unpatriotic and causing tension.

Rumours abound last week that Yar’Adua had succumbed to the heart condition. His doctor, Salisu Banye, responded by declaring that the president was out of danger and was recovering, but did not specify how he was expected to stay in hospital.

A Muslim from the remote northern state of Katsina, Yar’Adua was elected in a controversial 2007 poll marred with irregularities amid accusations that he had been shooed in by outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He has been credited for tackling conflict in the oil-rich Niger delta by offering amnesty to militants who renounce the conflict. [ER]