Where is Umaru Yar’Adua? Is the Supreme Court-proclaimed Nigerian leader missing? When he embarked on his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, Saharareporters insisted he would not be back in one week, as his handlers had announced. True to our report, the sickly Nigerian leader did not return to Abuja on Friday.
Worse still, it is not clear that he will be back at the start of the work week on Monday. To cover up his absence from the country going into the 10th day today, Yar'Adua activated the strategy of having the Economic and Financial crimes Commission (EFCC) prolong the banking crisis by some spirited public activism and noise-making. The EFCC is actually making some noise publicly.
That strategy continued today with the agency declaring two leading bank executives, Erastus Akingbola and Mrs. Cecila Ibru wanted. As the drama continues, both former officials have also sought the protection of federal high court judges to restore them to their respective positions as bank CEOs following their sack last week by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria as reported by Saharareporters during the week.
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Sensing that the CBN's action was losing political steam, Yar'adua instructed his aides to reach out to the media to announce that he had completed his "medical check up" and left for Mecca to observe the Umrah, also known as the “Lesser Hajj." Attentive Nigerians would recall that this was the same ruse he used in August last year to embark on a 17-day hiatus that became a major public relations nightmare and also fuelled conspiracy theories that led to the eventual removal of the Secretary to the government, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe. Medical sources told Saharareporters on Sunday that Yar'adua could not have traveled from Jeddah to Mecca for the Umrah.
The “Lesser Hajj” takes about 2 hours to complete and requires a tedious physical exertion that Yar'Adua's frail health, particularly following his Saudi sick bed, cannot sustain, they explained. Some Nigerian business and political leaders who had gone to observe the “Lesser Hajj” in the hope of meeting Yar'Adua independently told Saharareporters that they had seen no signs of him in Mecca.
Sources in Abuja told Saharareporters that Yar’Adua’s medical treatment has confined him to Jeddah, and that the entire propaganda about his intended return to Nigeria last Friday was aimed at reducing local and international apprehension about his deplorable state of health.
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