With just weeks to go before Nigeria’s presidential vote, the governing party candidate arrived in Germany on Wednesday for medical treatment and was in stable condition, his spokesman said.
Katsina Governor Umar Yar’Adua, of the People’s Democratic Party, flew overnight to an undisclosed medical facility in Germany, said his spokesman, Ndu Ughamadu.
“I spoke with him myself by telephone one hour ago,” said Ughamadu. “He’s very stable.”
He didn’t give details on the candidate’s ailment or treatment. Party officials previously said it was kidney-related.
Yar’Adua, 56, had previously disclosed 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.
As the presidential nominee from President Olusegun Obasanjo’s powerful party, Yar’Adua is seen as the front-runner in the April poll meant to give Nigeria its first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power.
Obasanjo, who is barred from running again by constitutional term limits his supporters tried and failed to overturn, won 1999 elections that ended years of military rule. He won re-election in a 2003 vote that the opposition said was rigged.
The April election already has added to volatility. The campaign has seen killings that appear politically motivated, and crime and militancy is on the rise in the southern oil regions.
Obasanjo’s vice president and one-time ally before a falling out over the attempted term extension, Atiku Abubakar, is also competing to head up Africa’s most populous nation.
Abubakar is embroiled in corruption allegations that could potentially derail his candidacy. He maintains his innocence, calling the accusations politically based.
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a former military leader, is also considered a top candidate in the April 21 vote.
With 140 million people, one in five sub-Saharan Africans are from Nigeria. It is the continent’s biggest oil producer, but years of corrupt governance have left the country’s people among the world’s poorest.
After a series of coups following Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960, the April vote is meant to cement civilian rule in Nigeria.