Yar’adua not here - Hospital says
WRITTEN BY ATIKA BALAL & SHARAFA DAUDA
WEDNESDAY, 06 JANUARY 2010 11:16
Forty days since President Umaru Yar’adua left the country to seek medical attention abroad, more mystery was added to the story yesterday when an official of the King Faisal Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah told the British Broadcasting Corporation [BBC] that Yar’adua was not in the hospital. Sources in the Nigerian Consulate in Jeddah however denied the claim to Daily Trust, saying Yar’adua was still in the hospital.
The BBC Hausa service programme quoted an unnamed hospital official as telling their correspondent that Yar’adua, who has been receiving medical attention there since he left this country, is no longer with them. The hospital official also refused to say whether the president was at the hospital earlier. He referred the BBC reporters to the Nigerian embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
But phone calls made by its reporters to the office of the Nigerian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Abdullahi Garba Aminchi, were not answered, the BBC said.
Efforts by Daily Trust to obtain a comment from some government officials were rebuffed last night. Several calls placed to Ambassador Aminci’s telephones were also not answered. Yar’adua’s Special Adviser of Communication Olusegun Adeniyi also did not answer text messages sent to him. However, Information and Communications Minister Professor Dora Akunyili, told Daily Trust that she did not know anything about the report which claimed Yar’adua was no longer in the Saudi hospital. She said, “I don’t know the report you are talking about. Where did you see it? Do you believe it?”
Meanwhile, an Abuja Federal High Court yesterday fixed January 14 to hear three suits challenging the absence of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua from office on health grounds since November 2009.
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