THE tension was infectious. Everyone was eager to get the latest. The news came as the usual ‘Breaking News’. There were calls from everywhere to our newsroom. Many of them had heard the ‘news’ on ‘CNN’, some said it was ‘BBC’.
So, the news came to us and the source said we should check the American Chronicle website for the news of the year. ‘Yar’Adua is Dead,’ the source said that, that was what was posted.
We checked www.americanchronicle.com, the story was not there. The source said we should rather check www.americanchronicle. com/articles/view. We checked it and there was the story with the headline boldly written ‘President Umaru Yar’Adua is Dead.’
We were curious. We checked the contents of the story. The first paragraph read: “Nigerian President, His Excellency Umaru Yaradua is dead, according to authoritative sources at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre.”
Many of us who are conversant with the way American journalists write their stories cried ‘foul.’ We said this could be a fraudulent website and the story could have been posted by some fraudulent people. No American journalist would write “His Excellency” to describe a country’s president. Also, the writer failed to observe the simple punctuation rules in the story.
According to the writer of the fabulous ‘story,’ Yar’Adua died on 10th of December at 3.30 p.m at an Intensive Care Unit… Sources at the Hospital (sic) say that the First Lady (no name), “wants to keep the news secret for the next few days for personal reasons.”
To show the whole world the ignorance of those behind the story, the website, which they said belongs to the American Chronicle newspaper, had so many adverts on Nigeria which included RMF Scrubs in Nigeria, www.RMFScrubs.com; Nigeria Updates, www.africaupdates.com and News Nigeria, www.France24.com, Nigerian Stock Market News, Africa, www.broadstreetlagos.com; and when we tried to open these websites, they could not be accessed.
The report was, however, removed from the website at about 3.30 p.m. But the controversy seemed to have gained ground, as a number of foreign news channels carried stories speculating the death of the ailing president on Monday. On a news programme conducted on Monday by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, a cable news channel based in the United States, and available in both the US and Canada, it was alleged that President Yar’Adua was dead.
The presenter, who discussed the disappearance of the Nigerian leader said President Yar’Adua might be secretly dead. A news magazine in the US, Foreign Policy (FP) similarly carried an opinion written by Elizabeth Dickinson questioning the whereabouts of the Nigerian leader. The online news magazine disclosed that President Yar’Adua might be dead.
The writer, while warning of an impending danger as a result of the prolonged absence of President Yar’Adua, alluded to an instance of the 1985 coup d’etat that ousted the erstwhile military government of General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), while a strong member of that government, Major-General Tunde Idi-agbon, was in Saudi Arabia on holy pilgrimage.
The report generated uneasy calm in Lagos, on Monday, as many residents and concerned groups bombarded the Lagos office of the Nigerian Tribune with enquiries on the report in the publication that the president had died.
Meanwhile, the spokes-person to the president, Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, has denied the story of the death of the president posted on a website. He issued the refutal on Monday in a telephone conversation with reporters.
The Special Adviser on Media and Publicity said President Yar’Adua was alive, while describing his reported death as untrue. Adeniyi said Yar’Adua had ordered him to return to Abuja, on Tuesday.
“The president is alive and actually getting better. He is conscious, can talk and has been talking, including making phone calls to some people back home,” he said.
Also, 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.
Yakubu was quoted as saying: “You are making me to break my silence on not responding again to recurring death wishes for President Umaru Yar’Adua. I confirm that the story in the hyper link you referred me to is yet another death wish for the president. President Yar’Adua is alive. Watch out for a proof shortly.”
Also, the Special Assistant to the President on Political Matters, Mr. Bolaji Adebiyi, in a radio programme monitored by the Nigerian Tribune in Ibadan, Oyo State, said only the doctors handling his treatment in Saudi Arabia could determine when he would return to the country.
However, the Minister of Information and Communications, Professor Dora Akunyili, on Monday, declined comment on the report that President Yar’Ádua had died.
When the Nigerian Tribune called her mobile line around 5.26 p.m to get the reaction of the Federal Government to the report, she replied “I am not in the country, I beg you.”
Also, her Special Assistant on Media, Ogbonnaya Orji, when contacted on the phone, claimed to be in a meeting.
Meanwhile, the Action Congress (AC) has demanded an immediate evidence of the state of health of President Yar’Adua, saying that the latest whirl of rumours surrounding his health was due to lack of verifiable news about his condition.
In a statement issued in Lagos, on Monday, by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Moha-mmed, the party said it was particularly alarmed at the various reports in local and international media, some of them sounding quite authoritative, saying the president was missing, brain-damaged or dead, adding that a few people surrounding him had woven an intricate web of lies and grand deception to hoodwink Nigerians.
It said the fact that the government had neither denied nor challenged the media reports, some of which were over 24 hours old, had raised fears that some cabal might, indeed, be holding Nigerians hostage.
The AC reiterated its earlier statement that the only conclusive evidence of the president’s well-being would be for him to address Nigerians via a date video, adding that anything short of that would be unconvincing.
“In the absence of a video evidence that the president is, indeed, getting well, it will become clear to Nigerians that there is a funny game going on somewhere, in which case the Federal Executive Council (FEC) must be compelled to immediately start the process of determining the ability or otherwise of the president to continue in office, in line with Section 145 of the constitution,” it said.
The AC expressed outrage that despite persistent calls from well-meaning Nigerians on the government to provide daily updates on the president’s health, there had been no coherent report on his condition, while ministers had been busy feathering their nests about their responsibility to Nigerians.
Meanwhile, strong indications emerged, on Monday, at the National Assembly that the Senate might resolve to send a delegation to King Faisal Hospital in Saudi Arabia where President Yar’Adua was reported to be receiving treatment to ascertain his true state of his health.
This, according to the Senate, might be part of the prayers of a motion to be moved by one of the principal officers, seeking to discuss the vacuum which the continued absence of the president had created.
However, the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, in Minna, Niger State, at the weekend, said the Senate would discuss the state of the nation and the continued absence of the president when it resumed.
It was learnt that part of the resolutions reached by the leadership of the Senate was to send a delegation to Saudi Arabia to get first-hand information concerning the health of the president.
Part of the agenda would include the recent decision of the United States (US) to include Nigeria among the 14 countries on terrorists’ watch list.
The senators may also ask questions on the position of the 2009 supplementary appropriation bill which the National Assembly was reported to have approved and passed on to the president for his assent on the day he travelled out of the country for medical treatment.
This followed conflicting reports from Aso Rock on the status of the N315 billion supplementary appropriation bill.
The attempt by Senator George Sekibo before the Senate proceeded on recess to move a motion to allow it to debate the absence of the president without notifying the National Assembly was turned down by the senators.