Update: The meeting has just taken place – There were indications last night that Pro-Yar’adua cabal has succeeded in wooing Pastor Enoch Adebayo, Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and Bishop onayekan to visit the Aso Villa on Easter Monday on a visit to ailing President Umaru Yar’adua.
This follows the uproar that attended the meeting between the ailing President and four Muslim clerics which held last Thursday. The Christian leaders are being invited by Yar’Adua to pray with him for his quick recovery.
Following agitations for ethnic and religious balancing and realising the gaffe it committed by getting some Islamic clerics to be the first set of “independent” people to claim to have seen Yar’Adua about 40 days after he returned to the country, the cabal has frantically trying to withdraw the weapon it has just donated to Ghaddafi who called for the splitting of the country along religious lines.
Sources within the presidency have confirmed the cabal is said to be doing all it knows how best to do to get the Christian faith leaders to tow the lines of the largely compromised Islamic clerics who went to the Villa last Thursday.
It is yet to be known how “these men of God” intends to pray for the Muslim President or the manner of their recruitment.
Yar’Adua had been sick since November 23, 2009 when he was rushed out of the country for treatment in the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Jeddah. He has not been seen in public since then though he returned to the country on Feberuary 10.
The ailing President could not speak audibly and coherently, even as he is still looking emaciated when the Chief Imam of the National Mosque in Abuja, Ustaz Musa Mohammed, along with two other Islamic clerics, visited him at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Thursday.
Observers believe these moves by the rump of Yar’Adua loyalists, led by Turai, his wife, are aimed at scuttling any attempt by the in-coming members of the Executive Council of the Federation, EXCOF, to invoke provisions of Section 144 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Elombah.com had on Friday reported that President Yar’Adua met with some clerics, friends and associates on Tuesday and Thursday. The Chief Imam of the Abuja National Mosque, Ustaz Musa Mohammed, leader of the Izala Muslim sect in Katsina State, Sheikh Yakubu Musa, Sheikh Isa Pantami and Ahmed were the clerics who saw Yar’Adua.
Speaking on the parley between the clerics and the Acting President, Ahmed said: “We actually met with Turai on two different occasions where we discussed various issues of national importance. We then told her that we wanted to see the President in order to dispel rumours that he was not even in the country or that he is still in some kind of intensive care. Our mission was to see him and confirm for ourselves that he is still alive and that he is recuperating as we were told.
“She agreed to our request and said she will get back to us. We told her to please give us a day notice any time they decide we should see him. That was what happened. They called us last Wednesday and said we will see him the following day which we did,” he said.
On how the last Thursday meeting with Yar’Adua went, Ahmed said: “We met him (President Yar’Adua) sitting on a dining chair supporting himself. No one held him or supported him. He was wearing a jumper and wando (trouser). Both the First Lady Hajiya Turai and his ADC were by his side and as soon as we were ushered in, he extended his hands to us which we received.
“Thereafter, we offered prayers for him and he joined us in the prayer by lifting his hands to pray with us. We then decided to go and he then extended his hands and shook us again.”
Ustaz Muhammed, the Chief Imam of Abuja National Mosque, had also given detail accounts to members of the congregation and to newsmen on the meeting his team had with Yar’Adua.
Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports say security agencies are probing the activities of some loyalists of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua. Those under investigation are believed to be behind a campaign to give the impression that Yar’Adua is getting better.
THE NATION reports that the agencies have identified five security breaches by loyalists of Yar’Adua including deliberate shielding of the President from the Acting President, provoking Jonathan into taking extra security measures; alleged plan to incite Muslims in the North against Jonathan; promoting psychological warfare over the President’s health condition; sponsoring of campaigns in the media; and using some lawmakers in the National Assembly to oppose policies or actions of the Acting President.
According to the newspaper, “What the Yar’Adua group is doing could be regarded as ‘psychological warfare’. Sometimes, you engage in ‘psychological warfare’ out of frustration or when you become desperate. It is either of the two factors.
“We do not know whether such ‘warfare’ has the backing of the family but we are certainly closing in on these loyalists of the President.
“All security agencies have been placed on the alert because they appear to be hell-bent on distracting the Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.”
It was also reported that the agencies have uncovered a plot to incite the North against the Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and frustrate the inauguration of new Ministers.
A security source told The Nation:”Security agencies are monitoring the development. If the situation is not well –handled, they are plotting to set Muslims in the North against Jonathan.
“Imagine what the scenario in the North will be if security agencies invite the Chief Imam and others are invited to explain how they were cleared to enter the Presidential Villa and those who facilitated the visit.
“But we are certainly treating the matter with caution. At the appropriate time, relevant security agencies will brief the nation on their findings.”
All these come at a time it is alleged that Acting President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is yet to have audience with his boss, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Acting President Jonathan has not been allowed to see Yar’Adua is “because of the fears by Yar’Adua loyalists, especially Madam Turai, of what the response of Acting President Jonathan would be when he sees the shape of Yar’Adua’s health.”
As some people are insisting and piling pressure on the Acting President to ensure that in-coming members of EXCOF invoke Section 144.
However, Insider sources say the acting president is not deceived about Yar’adua’s health status
They point to the fact that “the western intelligence has incontrovertible facts about Yar’adua’s health status. The western countries, particularly countries of Europe and the United States of America, USA, have up to 80 per cent investment in Nigeria. Our trade with them is about 90 per cent and it is largely crude oil.
“These countries cannot be fooled on Yar’adua’s health condition and the incontrovertible evidence before them suggests that Yar’Adua is not fit to govern this country.
A member of the Presidential Advisory Council, PAC, chaired by General T Y Danjuma, told Vanguard that “what these people are doing is nothing more than a divisive game which is not in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. Why would a few people just decide to toe a path of destruction not just for themselves, or Yar’Adua but for the generality of Nigerians by attempting to polarize the country?”
“Mind you, the Acting President has not been allowed to see this man yet they arranged some so called religious leaders to go and see him and those ones came out and started talking and pontificating on why the man is not incapacitated.
“Why have they not allowed the Acting President to see Yar’adua if they are not hiding something? Is that what they have reduced Nigeria to? Just one man! And a few people are the ones doing this thing.”