Log In | Register
LAGOS — A high-profile Nigerian government minister on Sunday accused people surrounding the country's ailing president of sneaking him back into the oil-rich nation for their own gain after his lengthy hospitalization abroad.
Information Minister Dora Akunyili also told the Nigerian newspaper ThisDay that no one has seen President Umaru Yar'Adua besides his wife and few other trusted aides since he returned Wednesday — not even the nation's acting president.
Yar'Adua, 58, arrived in Nigeria under the cover of darkness at the nation's capital airport, an adviser said, apparently leaving in an ambulance escorted by a heavily armed military guard. He had left the country Nov. 23 and spent three months at a Saudi hospital, where his physician said he had been diagnosed with acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart.
The information minister accused people around him of "gaining from the confusion."
"The cabals want to continue with their usual statement of 'The president said this and you must comply.' They want to continue dishing out instructions even when the president did not say so," she told the newspaper in an interview published Sunday. "These cabals should please stop heating up the system and allow President Yar'Adua to recover."
Reached Sunday by The Associated Press, Akunyili confirmed she made the remarks in the interview, but declined to discuss them.
"I have made my point. It is clear," she said. "I don't want to talk on that matter any more."
Yar'Adua left Nigeria without formally putting Vice President Goodluck Jonathan in charge as required by the constitution, launching a political crisis in the young democracy. With no sign of Yar'Adua returning, lawmakers voted Feb. 9 to install Jonathan, a Christian from the country's south, to stand in for the president, a Muslim from the north.
Many worry Yar'Adua's return could start another political crisis. Even Akunyili, who serves as the government's chief spokeswoman, said she too had a hard time separating fact from rumor.
"The rumor around our president is very discomforting. One group said he never came back because they have shrouded everything in secrecy and when there is a vacuum, rumors take over," she told the newspaper. "Another group said that he came back and he's still in the ambulance. Another group said that he had been carried into the house.
"There are three different stories and as at today, it is difficult to argue with anybody to say you are lying because I don't know the truth."
Turai Yar'Adua, the president's wife, apparently has tight control over who actually sees the president, who has a long history of kidney problems and poor health.
Akunyili had previously circulated a memo to the federal cabinet calling on it to install Jonathan as acting president — providing a public voice to those discontent with Yar'Adua's long absence from the country.
The federal cabinet meets again Wednesday, when they may take up Yar'Adua's sudden return.
