April 1, 2010
Investigations by Saharareporters indicate a widening schism within the extended family of ailing Nigerian ruler, Umaru Yar’adua, even as his wife this week embarked on another desperate ploy to sell the propaganda that her husband is on the cusp of recovering enough to take back power. On Thursday, the “First Lady,” who has emerged as greedy and blinded by political power, recruited four Islamic clerics to propagate the falsehood of her husband’s steady recovery and imminent return to office. It was her fourth major push in recent weeks to present Yar’adua as a fast recovering patient itching to return to work.“Many members of the family now regard her moves as ridiculous,” stated a source, a member of the Yar’adua clan. He added, “She is turning her husband into an object of ridicule.” The source stated, however, that those opposed to Turai have kept quiet so far in order not to further degrade the family's name and cause more damage to the image of the ailing ruler.
Turai’s desperation for power has created a split within the Yar’adua family, a family source told Saharareporters. “Most members of the president’s extended family wanted him to resign from office two weeks after his return from Jeddah and for Jonathan to look after his interests by providing him the best medical treatment as long as necessary,” said the source. However, a furious Turai vetoed that sensible plan.
Our sources said Governor Saidu Usman Dakin Gari of Kebbi State, one of Yar’adua’s sons-in-law, supported the plan for Yar’adua’s resignation, and had offered to broker the deal with Jonathan. He was forced to retreat when Turai and another son-in-law, Isah Yuguda, vehemently opposed the move. Both Turai and Yuguda preferred to use some elements in the Nigerian military to ensure Yar’adua’s continuation in office regardless of his health condition. “Those military elements helped to organize and facilitate his return to Nigeria on February 23 2010,” said one source. Since that shadowy return, Yar’adua has neither been seen in public nor spoken to anyone.
The four clerics enlisted in Turai’s latest propaganda are Ustaz Musa Mohammed, the Chief Imam of the Abuja National Mosque; Sheik Yakubu Musa, leader of the Izala Muslim sect in Katsina State; Sheik Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, the President of the Supreme Council of Sharia in Nigeria (SCSN), and Sheik Isa Pantami.
The four men became tools in Turai’s latest game plan that included her sponsorship of a syndicated story that appeared in the Daily Trust and Thisday newspapers. Even though the two newspapers have different owners and pools of reporters, the same reporter wrote their latest reports on Yar’adua’s ostensible recovery. “Both Daily Trust and Thisday have been reliable outlets for Mrs. Turai Yar’adua’s deceptive reports,” said a source in Abuja, adding that other newspapers, especially the Bola Tinubu-owned The Nation, have also been used for the nefarious purpose.
Last week, Saharareporters debunked planted reports in the two newspapers that claimed that Yar’adua was well enough and was on his way to resuming work last week or early this week.
Even though those stories turned out to be false, the newspapers sponsored by Yar’adua’s wife are not relenting in their propaganda. “Turai’s desperation grows as she and other members of her cabal realize that Nigerians are moving to further confine her husband’s era to history,” said a member of the House of Representatives from one of the middle belt states. He added that the Senate’s quick approval of “acting President” Goodluck Jonathan’s ministerial nominees took Turai and her cabal by surprise.
Our sources indicated that Mrs. Yar’adua’s exploitation of sectional and religious sentiments to maintain a fantasy of her husband’s phantom recovery and return to office is calculated to politically damage and emasculate “acting President” Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan, a Christian and member of the minority Ijaw ethnic group, is seen as vulnerable to the kind of scheme adopted by Turai and her coterie. In recent weeks, Mrs. Yar’adua and some members of her inner circle have sponsored massive campaigns in the north portraying Jonathan as anti-north.
Paralyzed by the fear that Jonathan’s reconstituted cabinet is likely to declare Yar’adua incapacitated, Turai quickly lined up four senior clerics “to create confusion, uncertainty and panic,” said one of our sources.
The clerics were quoted as saying that Yar’adua’s condition was not in anyway as bad as presented in the media. Even so, they reportedly confirmed what Saharareporters had reported exclusively, which is that Yar’adua, since returning to Nigeria, has not been able to communicate through speech or to move around on his own.
However, one of our sources disclosed that the clerics’ mission was to shore up Turai’s failed bid a week ago to present Yar’adua to the public at the National Mosque in Abuja. One source told us that Turai’s foiled plot, which was to be televised by some television stations, was to display “Yar’adua’s body double at the National Mosque.” The ploy was for a “Yar’adua look-alike” to make a short brisk visit to the mosque that would have been televised to Nigerians, “but they wanted to carry out the plan without pre-publicity,” said our highly connected source. He added that a report by a local newspaper that Yar’adua would appear at the mosque “effectively derailed the plot.” Once the report of Yar’adua’s “appearance” was leaked, Turai abandoned the ruse. Even so, hundreds of Muslim faithful – young and old – trooped to the National Mosque last week curious to catch a glimpse of Yar’adua, a no-show.
Last week, two sources told Saharareporters that Turai’s group had also contacted the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to play a role in a broadcast that would create the impression that Yar’adua was making steady progress. But a members of the BBC’s Hausa Service crew, who were in Nigeria two weeks ago, insisted on taping a televised interview with the ailing ruler. They were never contacted again.
The BBC had taken critical hits earlier this year when it broadcast a so-called interview with Yar’adua that lasted less than a minute. Many critics questioned the authenticity of the broadcast.
Since Yar’adua’s commando-style return to Nigeria in the wee hours of February 23, Turai and a tight-knit group of her allies have sponsored a series of propaganda stunts, in the international and local media, to paint a picture of a healthy Yar’adua who is merely taking his time to fully regain his energy. But Saharareporters has written several investigative reports, based on interviews with highly knowledgeable sources, to expose the grand deception about Yar’adua.
Turai’s first international hoax appeared on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera Television. Yvonne Ndege, the network’s Abuja correspondent, interviewed Yar’adua’s cousin, Zubairu Aliyu Gafai, who claimed that Yar’adua was walking around. Mr. Gafai told Al Jazeera that he and Yar’adua had had tea during his visit to the ailing president. He also claimed that he spoke with Yar’adua who asked after family members.
However, our investigations revealed that Gafai never met Yar’adua, but was goaded by Turai to give the false interview. “Madam Turai wanted to capitalize on Al Jazeera’s popularity with Nigerian viewers to perpetrate a major scam,” said one of our sources.
The Abuja-based Daily Trust has been recruited, as the major organ for spreading a series of lies concocted by Turai’s group. Some of the fabrications amount to outright mockery of Yar’adua. In one report, Yar’adua was reported to be walking around on the gardens of the presidential villa grounds playing with birds and animals.
But a medical source knowledgeable about Yar’adua’s condition insists that his purported recovery and planned return to office is a fallacy. But the source also pointed out that if Nigerians permit an incapacitated man to run their affairs, then “a Yar’adua limited in speech and movement will be readily available anytime to take over power.” Otherwise, said another source, Yar’adua’s doctors and family members know full well that Yar’adua can never make the type of recovery to enable him to read and respond to memos much less to move around commissioning or inspecting projects. Yar’adua was for more than 90 days marooned in a Saudi Arabian hospital and has spent close to 40 days sequestered in the Presidential Villa.
An exasperated member of Yar’adua’s extended family told Saharareporters that Turai “must now be reined in because she is acting in a manner that is at odds with her husband’s personality and conduct.” He said most members of the family were disturbed that Turai was using her husband to hold Nigeria to ransom, asking whether “she plans to set Nigeria on fire.” The source said the family might soon be forced to publicly state that Turai was not acting in her husband’s best interests.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });