Dead or Alive: Latest Development

Details: Category: Politics; Published on Tuesday, 12 January 2010 07:56; Written by Admin; Hits: 2330

yar1 If this death panic has achieved anything at all, it has caused the government officials to open up and break official silence on the president’s condition.

Before the release of the quoted news of the American Chronicle on the President’s death, Transparency for Nigeria made efforts to confirm or rebuff the news. We ran into a brick wall while trying to speak with the government officials at the time of the release.

We were unable to get any independent proof of death nor any sign of life.

If this death panic has achieved anything at all, it has caused the government officials to open up and break official silence on the president’s condition.

Speaking from Luanda, the Angolan capital, President Yar'adua's Special Adviser on Communications Olusegun Adeniyi later dismissed the rumours and said the president is alive and getting better by the day.

On his part, the Chief Economic Adviser to the President, Taminu Yakubu, said the report that Yar’Adua was dead was a figment of the writer’s imagination. He reportedly told an online publication, huhuonline.com, that the president was alive and the proof would soon emerge.

Also a Member of the House of Representatives and Yar'adua's son-in-law Alhaji Badamasi Kabir reacted to this rumours saying the president is alive.

Meanwhile, an opposition party, Action Congress, has alleged that some cabals are holding Nigerians hostage over the true position of the President’s state of health.

The party said this had become imperative, as government had not given adequate responses to various reports in local and international media, indicating that Yar’Adua was either missing, brain damaged or even dead.

In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party demanded an immediate and concrete evidence of the state of health of Yar’Adua, noting that the latest whirl of rumours surrounding his health was due to the continuing lack of verifiable news about his condition.

The BBC, in a news posted at 02:10 GMT today says “Nigeria's ailing President Yar'Adua breaks silence”

The news reads “Nigeria's president, not seen since going into hospital in Saudi Arabia for heart treatment in November, has told the BBC he hopes to resume his duties.

In his first interview since then, Umaru Yar'Adua said he was recovering and hoped to make "tremendous progress" which would enable him to return home.”

Yar’Adua flew to a Saudi Arabian hospital on Nov. 23 (about 50 day ago) for treatment of a heart condition. He has not been heard or seen in public since then, prompting media speculation on his medical condition and calls for a transfer of power to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.