Nigerian MPs who travelled to Saudi Arabia to meet President Umaru Yar’Adua returned home after a week without being able to see the ailing leader, reports said today.
The delegation from the lower house of parliament was able only to meet Yar’Adua’s wife Turai, the ThisDay newspaper reported.
The delegation, which spent five days in Jeddah waiting to see Yar’Adua, returned to Nigeria on Saturday.
The 58-year-old president has not been seen in public since he flew to Saudi Arabia on November 23 for treatment for an acute heart condition.
Parliament decided to send a delegation to visit Yar’Adua to try to determine his state of health, amid opposition calls for him to hand power to his deputy in his absence.
The parliament last week voted to hand power to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan until Yar’Adua recovers. However, according to ThisDay, Yar’Adua loyalists have also travelled to Saudi Arabia this week to “regroup” and prepare a court challenge to Jonathan’s installation as acting president.
It said a delegation comprising senior officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and at least three state governors are currently in Jeddah to meet Yar’Adua.
The group includes PDP national chairman Vincent Ogbulafor, at least three state governors from the party — Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Ibrahim Shema (Katsina, the president’s home state) and Isa Yuguda (Bauchi) — party officials and local media said
Mr Yuguda is also President Yar’Adua’s son-in-law.
Meanwhile, a group of eminent Nigerians, including three former heads of state, met acting President Jonathan and asked him to take “decisive” action on a host of problems, their spokesman said.
The elders visited the new helmsman “to say to him to be focused, courageous, decisive, firm, but fair, honest and just,” Jerry Gana, a former information minister, told journalists after the meeting.
At the meeting, the group, led by former military leader General Yakubu Gowon, listed good governance, free and credible elections in 2011, reliable power supply, good infrastructure, unemployment, peace and security as priority programmes for Jonathan’s government, said Gana.
“People really want to see action and results on the ground,” he stated.
“They want this administration to do everything humanly possible to ensure that elections in Nigeria are free and fair so that we can have legitimately-elected government in the coming election,” said Gana, a former information minister.
Presidential elections are due in April 2011 in a country which has a history of flawed polls
On the issue of poor power supply in the oil-producing nation, the group “emphasized that political will should be demonstrated in this area that decisive action should be taken,” Gana said.
He said that the group wants the Jonathan-led administration “in the short time to take a few things and do them effectively to ensure results.”
Many critics have derided a seven-point agenda drawn up by Yar’Adua’s government as mere sloganeering.
Mr Jonathan was last week voted by the parliament the powers of acting president in the absence of Yar’Adua, hospitalised in Saudi Arabia for an acute heart condition since November 23.
The elders expressed their deep concern at a spate of assassinations in the country and urged Jonathan to tackle the problem seriously
“These political killings are getting very, very worrying and the elders really emphasised the need for resources to be deployed to ensure that criminals are detected and punished effectively,” he stated.
Several prominent politicians, including a justice minister and two gubernatorial candidates, have been murdered by unidentified gunmen in recent years and police have failed to find the killers.