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WHERE IS YAR'ADUA?  NIGERIANS LOOKING FOR THEIR PRESIDENT
Posted  Chika Onyeani, Mar. 1, 2010

If President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua is dead, let his wife Turai Yar’Adua stop the charade she has been orchestrating and let Nigerians bury him with the greatest of honors.  He doesn’t deserve the treatment he is getting from her.

A theater of the absurd is taking place in Nigeria.  Nigerians have been looking for their president for the past 98 days.  They have neither heard from him nor seen him.  This absurbity started on November 23, 2009, when the President, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, was flown to a medical establishment in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.  He has been diagnosed with pericarditis,  a condition in which the sac-like covering around the heart (pericardium) becomes inflamed.  There is strong belief in many Nigerian quarters that the President is a vegetative state, and can hardly recognize anybody, even his wife, Turai Yar'Adua.

Before leaving Nigeria on medical leave, the President was mandated by the Nigerian constitution to transmit a letter to the National Assembly informing them of his departure.  That part of the Nigerian constitution, Section 145, states as follows, "Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a written declaration that he is proceeding on vacation or that he is otherwise unable to discharge the functions of his office, until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary such functions shall be discharged by the Vice-President as Acting President.”   However, Mr. Yar'Adua failed to transmit the letter, which would have automatically allowed the National Assembly to appoint his vice president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as Acting President.

Throughout the month of December 2009, nobody heard or saw Mr. Yar'Adua.  Even when a Nigerian Islamist terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a Northwest airplane on December 25, 2009, the Nigerian president was nowhere to be found either to make a statement or authorize his deputy on directions Nigeria should follow to deal with what was one of the most dangerous cataclysmatic events to have occurred in 2009.

But Nigerians continued to wait patiently for their President to return.  However, their patience began to run out in the month of January, 2010.  Nigerians started demanding to hear or see their President.  A budget had to be signed, and the budget was brought back supposedly having been signed by Yar'Adua.  Nigerians doubted the authenticity of the signature, and demanded they hear from Mr. Yar'Adua.  But then rumors began to swirl that Yar'Adua was dead.  All of a sudden, Mr. Yar'Adua decided to speak to the Hausa Service of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), a language that over 60% of Nigerians couldn't understand.  On January 12, in what was less than a two-minute clip,  Nigerians woke up to a supposed broadcast from Yar'Adua, in which he said as follows as translated from Hausa, "at the moment I am undergoing treatment and I'm getting better from the treatment. I hope that very soon there will be tremendous progress, which will allow me to get back home."  Nigerians cried foul, they wanted to see their President.  They didn't want to hear a voice they couldn't authenticate as that of Yar'Adua.  Nigerians believed that there was a group of people, led by the President's who were trying to deceive Nigerians into believing that Yar'Adua was still alive, or hadn't suffered massive brain injury. 

To assuage the rising anger and crisis in the country, a group of governors close to the President as well as from the northern part of the country, decided to fly to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and see the President and bring back the good news that, yes, indeed, the President was still alive.  But they were rebuffed by the President's wife who denied the delegation access to the President.  Then, the National Assembly empanelled a group of legislators to fly to Saudi Arabia, only to be also rebuffed.  A third delegation, that of members of the President's party, the Peoples Democratic Party, led by its Chairman and other members of the party, also flew to Saudi Arabia, only to be also rebuffed.  Then a judge ruled that the Federal Executive Council, which consists of ministers, had 14 days to decide whether the President was fit to continue his duties.  Being loyal to the President, the ministers voted that the President was still fit to rule.  However, one of the ministers. Dr. Dora Akunyili, prepared a very controversial memo in which she demanded that the Vice President be appointed as the Acting President. 

Whether prompted by this act of courage and bravery on the part of one of the ministers, the National Assembly on the 9th of February, empowering the Vice President as Acting President. 

But on the early hours of Wednesday, February 24, 2010, a plane ambulance landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.  Before the plane landed, all the lights were turned out at the airport, and the plane landed at a very remote and darkened area of the airport.  The plane was surrounded by a contingent of the Nigerian army, and an ambulance was there, which parked next to the plane.  Nobody saw the President alighting from the plane, or being carried onto to the ambulance.  The ambulance accompanied by a convoy of military trucks raced to the Presidential villa.  Journalists were not allowed either at the airport or at the presidential villa to see whether President Yar'Adua was in fact transported from Saudi Arabia to the Nigerian airport, and from there to the presidential villa.

The Acting President was neither at the airport to welcome his boss back, neither was he informed that the military was amassing troops at the airport.  Since Yar'Adua arrived on the 24th, the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan, has not been able to see the President.

In the afternoon of the 24th, a statement was issued and read by the President's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, a Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, who was an editor at the ThisDay newspaper, in which the non-existing president thanked the Nigerian people for their prayers for his recovery, and then went on to refer to the Acting President empowered by the peoples' representatives as "vice president."  This was the last straw that broke the camel's back, and Nigerians were infuriated that a statement was coming from a President they hadn't seen or talked to, referring to the Acting President as "vice president."

There is a strong belief amongst Nigerians that President Yar'Adua is dead, but if he is not dead, he is seriously brain-dead and he is unable to function.  They also believe that his wife, Turai Yar'Adua, attempted a coup d'etat, with a section of the Nigerian military.  There is a great deal of anger in the country that a woman who was never elected by Nigerians, was trying to impose herself as the de facto President of the country.  It is yet to be seen whether she will succeed.