The Nigerian president, not seen or heard in public for seven weeks, has broken his silence in a bid to quash rumours that he is near death.
Umaru Yar’Adua (58) has been absent since going to Saudi Arabia for heart treatment in November, creating what opposition politicians and activists describe as a dangerous power vacuum.
But a rally due to be led by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on January 12 has apparently brought the situation to a head, forcing the president to make his first public comments since being hospitalised.
Speaking by telephone to the BBC, Yar’Adua said he was making a good recovery. ‘I am undergoing treatment and I’m getting better,” he said. ‘I hope that very soon there will be tremendous progress, which will allow me to get back home.
‘I wish, at this stage, to thank all Nigerians for their prayers for my good health and for their prayers for the nation.” He also wished the Nigerian national football team success in the Africa Nations Cup in Angola but, sounding weak, gave no indication of when he might return.
His comments came hours before religious leaders and politicians were due to hold a rally in Abuja to demand the government end uncertainty threatening the worst political crisis since army rule ended more than a decade ago.
Under the banner ‘Enough Is Enough”, the Save Nigeria Group has called people on to the streets. ‘The president did not hand over to his vice before leaving for medical treatment as the Constitution demands,” said one of the organisers.
‘Whether he is alive or brain-damaged or spoke to the BBC is not our bone of contention. He left a vacuum which we want filled.”
There are three different court cases under way calling for power to be transferred to the vice-president, Goodluck Jonathan. Critics say Yar’Adua has been unable to deal with urgent issues such as the Niger Delta peace process and the alleged involvement of a Nigerian citizen in the Christmas Day bomb plot on an airliner over Detroit.
Official denials that the president is seriously or even terminally ill have increasingly been challenged and dismissed as lies. Nigeria’s Next newspaper reported that Yar’Adua was ‘seriously brain-damaged and unable to recognise anyone, including his wife”. —