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Yar'Adua: Poor Health And Half-truths

Image removed.FIRST, I send my sympathies and prayers to President Umaru Yar'Adua, who is lying on a sick bed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Last week, he finally summoned up the courage to tell Nigerians that he has a serious health condition.


Regrettably, only Nigerians seem to keep faith with Yar'Adua, a favour that is not returned. He plays us like a game of hide-and-seek.

He has always told Nigerians that his health was none of their business. Last Thursday's admission that he now suffers from "acute pericarditis," inflammation of the lining surrounding the heart, has not really changed anything.

His announcement amounts to no more than notice to Nigerians that he is taking a sick leave, and will not be back in the "four days" the presidency had originally announced. I suspect his doctors must have told him that he needed to remain in bed, and not go about pretending to be capable of any work.

Let us remember that pericarditis is not Yar'Adua's basic health challenge. What has grounded him, if he ever had wings to begin with, is that he suffers from Churg-Strauss Syndrome (CSS). This is a blood vessel inflammation disorder which he has refused to admit, perhaps because although it may be managed through the use of powerful drugs, including steroids, it has no cure.

Doctors say that the inflammation suffered by a CSS patient can be serious. It may severely restrict blood flow to vital organs and tissues, or even damage them, permanently. CSS is said to be difficult to diagnose, but a patient may exhibit such symptoms as severe tingling in the hands and feet, shooting pains, hay fever, rash or gastrointestinal bleeding.

Asthma is said to be the most common sign of the condition. In fact, the typical patient is a middle aged individual with a history of new-onset or newly-worsened asthma. The man awarded Nigeria's presidency by his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo, suffers from asthma, but prefers to say he has a "cold" or "catarrh."

What does this mean for Yar'Adua?

To begin with, it means that he is still deceiving Nigeria. His announcement of acute pericarditis is, as usual, in his own interest, not in that of Nigeria. It is another of those sugar-covered bitter-colanuts by which he and his People's Democratic Party have kept Nigeria buried for 10 years. As usual, his government had first said his mission in Saudi Arabia was the hajj pilgrimage, but would call on his doctor.

The truth is simpler: his two conditions are serious. They may not kill him, but they will not permit him to champion anything, either, let alone to be a champion at anything more demanding than lying down in bed next to the television remote control.

As a humanist, I completely, enthusiastically support having him in bed trying to get better and prolong his life. He owes himself that. He owes his family that.

But Nigeria does not owe him that. Nigeria is neither part of his condition, nor should it be a part of its management.

What Yar'Adua is doing is the ultimate blackmail of an entire nation: an incapacitated leader who keeps his country handcuffed to his poor physical condition. It is the ultimate greed in a sick leader who, out of love for power, keeps his country in his sick bed with him like the very bed cover, sleeping on it, immobilizing it. He might as well be a criminal who takes his family to jail with him.

Yar'Adua's conduct emits an unforgivable odour. It is the ultimate sickness when a leader thinks nothing of what is at stake when he goes to the hospital. Yar'Adua's foreign sick bed may be a special suite, but out there, when he lies paralyzed, or is unconscious, he is not just one patient. He is a country. He is 130 million unfortunate people lying prostrate, medicated, going nowhere.

It is not difficult for me to understand why Yar'Adua is indifferent: even when he is in Nigeria and presumably in charge, he knows better than anyone else that he is not. What we have is a shell of a government: all the trappings are in place, and as long as the leader does not have to perform a particular ritual in the open every day, everything will always appear to be normal.

Even when he is within our shores, Yar'Adua travels with the nearest thing to a full-fledged Emergency hospital, with an ambulance and medical personnel but a few feet away. He is neither healthy enough nor concerned enough to care what happens to any other Nigerian who is sick. And he exists within a political bubble that is ruthless enough to exploit his "dying today, alive tomorrow" situation.

In effect, Yar'Adua's current situation is proof positive, if anyone needed one, that he was neither elected, nor do we have true democracy in our country. What we have is an abducted presidency that its "owners" keep in place to serve only their selfish interests. Yar'Adua is not healthy enough truly to understand what is going on, let alone to rise and serve.

We have to be the laughing stock of the world. We claim a democracy the leader of which is constitutionally unfit to serve, but would not step aside. We have a government the leader of which cannot present a budget to the legislature, let alone put out any kind of political fire or undertake serious governance. We have a leader that cannot go to any gatherings of world leaders or conduct his cabinet meetings or stay awake long enough to fire a minister. Bad governance? Is that better than "no governance"?

This is the definition of shame. What time does this man have to think about our nation's strategic interests and best policies, or to monitor a policy, any policy? With all those strong medications, how often does he really know when is day, and when night; who is man, and who is woman; which direction is left, and which right?

This is far beyond UMYA's condition. It is about our growing irrelevance as an underdeveloping country. Obasanjo knew what he was doing when he handcuffed us to Yar'Adua: lies, cliches and make-believe: a fate worse than death.

We need a long scream in the streets.

APOLOGIES

The title of Chinua Achebe's new book is "The Education of a British-Protected Child." It is not "The Education of a British-Protected Citizen," as I wrongly mentioned here last week. In addition, Professor Achebe's road crash was in 1989, not 2001. I apologize for these errors.

Two weeks ago, I also predicted that Nigeria would win the Under-17 World Cup. We did not; I am still trying to wipe the egg off my face.

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