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Bloomberg News: Nigeria’s Yar’Adua Says Health Better, as Groups Ready Protest

Posted by Paul "EFCC" Hawk Adams on January 11, 2010 at 8:26pm
By Antony Sguazzin Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua, who has been receiving treatment for a heart ailment in Saudi Arabia since November, said he is “getting better,” the British Broadcasting Corp. reported. “I am undergoing treatment and I’m getting better,” Yar’Adua said in an interview with the BBC. “I hope very soon there will be tremendous progress, which will allow me to get back home.” Yar’Adua, 58, gave the interview as Nigerian opposition figures and rights activists planned a protest march in the capital, Abuja, today over the power vacuum they say has been created by the president’s absence from the country. Nigeria, which vies with Angola to be Africa’s top oil producer, has been under civilian rule since 1999, the longest period since it became independent of the U.K. in 1960. Yar’Adua flew to a Saudi Arabian hospital on Nov. 23 for treatment of a heart condition. He hasn’t been seen in public since then, prompting media speculation on his medical condition and calls for a transfer of power to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. Save Nigeria, which includes opposition parties, pro- democracy groups and human-rights campaigners, is organizing the march, Bamidele Aturu, a supporter of the group, said on Jan. 8 by phone from his law office in Lagos, the commercial hub. Critics of the government say Yar’Adua’s delayed return to Nigeria is affecting the implementation of the budget, efforts to entrench peace in the oil-producing Niger River delta and attempts to reform the electoral system before general elections next year. A group of politicians, former military officers and rights activists signed a document calling for the president to resign because his ill health has made it difficult for him to lead the country, Lagos-based ThisDay reported on Dec. 2. The signatories include Ken Nnamani, a former president of the Senate, and Aminu Masari, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, it said. Government officials have dismissed the demands, insisting that the administration is carrying on smoothly. To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Okolo in Abuja pokolo@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: January 12, 2010 01:50 EST
Tags: Better, Groups, Health, Nigeria’s, Protest, Ready, Says, Yar’Adua, as
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