And a few hours after signing the contentious 2008 budget into law yesterday, President Umaru Musa Yar�Adua travelled to Germany for urgent medical attention.
He was said to have taken ill after the Jumat service on Friday.
The President�s ill-health stalled a planned visit to his Katsina home state on Saturday just as it was said to have prevented him from going to Dakar, Senegal for a meeting of the New Partnership for Africa�s Development (NEPAD), which trip was slated for 1.30 pm on Saturday.
The President�s failing health also allegedly delayed the signing of the budget originally slated for 10 am in the full glare of newshounds till about 2.30 pm yesterday.
But when he eventually signed the budget into law, it was at his private residence within the Presidential Villa.
The Special Adviser to the President on Communications, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, said the President left for Wiesbaden, Germany to see his private physicians for a medical review of “an indisposition believed to be due to allergic reaction.”
Adeniyi said Yar�Adua was being expected back in the country before the weekend.
The President was said to have travelled aboard a presidential jet around 5 pm.
Early March 2007, Yar’Adua had quietly boarded a flight to Germany before the April 21 vote sparking rumours in the media of his death.
He later took to the airwaves from overseas to reassure the public.The then Katsina State Governor told the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that he was in Germany to treat a severe dose of catarrh, which had made breathing difficult for him.
The sudden ailment, he added, was caused by his recent campaign trips across the country.
Speaking with the Hausa Service of BBC about his health then in March 2007, Yar�Adua had said: “I’m alive. I’m responding to treatment. I have a severe dose of catarrh which has made it difficult for me to breathe. It is caused by strenuous campaign across the country.”
Waxing religious, Yar’Adua added: “As a Muslim, death is inevitable; sickness is a different kettle of fish. Insha Allah, I shall return to Nigeria on Sunday to carry on with the presidential campaign.�
“I am alright. I am very fine. I am very much alive,” Yar’Adua also told the then president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in a phone call transmitted live to thousands of PDP supporters at the M.K.O Abiola Stadium, Abeokuta.
Obasanjo described the rumour mongers as satanic and assured the crowd that Yar’Adua only had an infection which did not require surgery, saying the PDP standard bearer would soon return home. He also lambasted those alleging that he had known all along that Yar’Adua would not last a year in office.” They are wicked. Anybody saying that is a child of satan. How can anybody say somebody will die on a particular day? They even said that I was dead in far away Ghana. They are wicked,” Obasanjo said.
The then chairman of the PDP, Senator Ahmadu Ali, also explained that Yar’Adua was prevailed upon to go for medical check up after exhibiting symptoms of catarrh, adding that the presidential candidate was alive and responding to treatment. The BBC reported that it was able to speak to Yar’Adua by phone, and quoted him as saying he had suffered from breathlessness and sought a medical checkup abroad on his doctor’s advice.”There are speculations all the time since the year 2000 surrounding my health,” Yar’Adua had told BBC.
“I don’t think a human being has control over his health or ill health, life or death and therefore they (critics) should not create conclusions on any other human being.” Yar’Adua, had previously disclosed he had a kidney ailment, raising questions in the Nigerian media over his fitness, an issue he sought to dispel by publicly challenging any doubters to a squash match.
Apr152008