Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua is in good health and may perform a pilgrimage to Mecca on Thursday, a clinic in Saudi Arabia said, as concern mounted in Nigeria about his medical condition.
Yar’Adua left suddenly for Saudi Arabia on Monday, for what his office said were “follow-up medical checks” with his personal physicians in the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah.
Yar’Adua has travelled to Saudi Arabia in the past to seek treatment for a chronic kidney problem, raising questions — particularly among his opponents — about whether he will be strong enough to stand for a second term in 2011 elections.
“The Nigerian president is in good condition. He underwent routine internal medical checks and had lunch today at the hospital,” a spokesman for the King Faisal Takhassussi Hospital in Jeddah said.
“He may well leave tomorrow to perform a pilgrimage to Mecca,” the spokesman said.
Yar’Adua has regularly sought medical treatment in Germany as well as Saudi Arabia in the past and his health was a source of concern even before he assumed the presidency.
He has not yet confirmed whether he plans to stand again in presidential elections in 2011 in Africa’s most populous nation but key figures in the ruling party have pledged support if he decides to do so.