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Almost matches the Sanford saga to his lover in Argentina, not quite the same for a President of a divided nation of 155 million souls in the heart of Africa.
LAGOS (AFP) – Regional governors from Nigeria’s 36 states headed into emergency talks Monday to discuss the country’s power vacuum as calls grew for ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua to step down, officials said.
“All the governors are meeting this evening to discuss matters of national importance, including the president’s continued absence from the country,” an official from a southern Nigerian state told AFP.
The meeting comes as Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka prepared to lead a march and rally in the capital Abuja on Tuesday, to protest Yar’Adua’s seven-week absence from the country.
“We are displeased by the vacuum created by the long absence from office of President Umaru Yar’Adua,” a spokesman for civil rights movement Save Nigeria Group (SNG), Yinka Odumakin, told AFP.
President Umaru Yar'Adua missing since Nov. 23, 2009. (AFP)
The growing speculation over Yar’Adua comes as Africa’s most populous nation and second-largest oil exporter faces its most serious constitutional crisis in decades, with government business stalled amid opposition allegations of a cover-up over his condition.
The country has also been thrust into the international spotlight by Islamist fundamentalist violence in the north and the failed Christmas Day bombing of a US airliner by a young Nigerian, prompting its appearance on a 14-nation terror watchlist by the United States.
The 58-year-old president has not been seen or heard since he was flown to hospital in Saudi Arabia on November 23 for treatment for acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the membrane around the heart.
LAGOS, Nigeria – Nigeria’s hospitalized president, Umaru Yar’Adua, gave a radio interview from Saudi Arabia early Tuesday as protesters planned to descend on the West African nation’s capital to demand an end to a growing constitutional crisis over his long absence.
The BBC quoted Yar’Adua, 58, as saying he hoped to make “tremendous progress” and return to Nigeria to resume power in Africa’s most populous nation. Yar’Adua has been silent since Nov. 23, when he left Abuja for treatment in Saudi Arabia for what officials described as acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart.
“At the moment I am undergoing treatment, and I’m getting better from the treatment,” the broadcaster quoted Yar’Adua as saying.
(Herald Express / CFR) – President Umaru Yar’adua appears likely to leave office soon. Nigeria’s king makers–the country’s competing and cooperating power brokers–seem poised to reassign presidential duties and responsibilities elsewhere because the ailing president can no longer exercise them. According to the Nigerian press, Nigeria’s attorney general has already written to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan saying that he should assume presidential powers. Jonathan has reportedly refused, probably out of fear of offending the clique surrounding Yar’adua.
Whatever the case, a void in executive authority has existed since Yar’adua was hospitalized a month ago. However, the recent arrest of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab following a failed bombing attempt on a U.S. airliner appears to have forced Jonathan’s hand. The latter has ordered the Nigerian security services to cooperate fully with the United States, in effect a presidential decision.
Yar’adua’s removal from office would result in a political and constitutional crisis for the United States’ most important strategic partner in Africa and one of its largest suppliers of oil.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
