After 17 days in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, President Umar Yar’Adua has reportedly lost his voice and his condition dreadful.

Sources close to President Yar’Adua this morning confirmed to P.M.NEWS that the ailing President has lost his voice and that doctors are battling to rectify this.

According to sources, the President’s lungs were infected and doctors had to operate on them.

P.M.NEWS also gathered that doctors handling Yar’Adua have put off his return to Nigeria indefinitely after they discovered that his kidneys and pancreatic functions had diminished considerably.

A report published by Saharareporters revealed that the functioning of Yar’Adua’s kidneys has been the lowest since he was diagnosed with Churg Strauss disease in 2007 by a medical team in Germany.

Based on the report, Yar’Adua now faces the certain prospect of prolonged hospitalization.

The grim turn in Yar’Adua’s condition was also reflected in the statement issued by the Federal Executive Council yesterday after its weekly meeting that it is only the doctors that can determine when he will come back.

One of the ministers told Saharareporters that: “Everybody is engaged in a guessing game. We’re in the dark about how Mr. President is doing.”

Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili, who briefed journalists after yesterday’s meeting said only doctors treating President Yar’Adua can determine for sure if and when he would be able to return to Abuja.

President Yar’Adua’s current state of health, as scooped by P.M.News, is in contrast to claims yesterday by Akunyili that the president’s condition was improving.

“I can confirm to you that Mr. President is still in the Saudi Hospital, and he is responding to treatment,” declared the information minister, while responding to enquiries by journalists at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, yesterday in Abuja.

There are also reports that the President may be moved to the US for further treatment.

His possible movement to US was given credence by the arrival of the President’s son-in-law, Isa Yuguda, Governor of Bauchi State in New York Tuesday.

P.M.NEWS gathered that Yuguda, who is married to Nafisat, President Yar’Adua’s daughter, is believed to be in US to prepare the ground for the arrival of the President.

There have been several calls by prominent Nigerians on President Yar’Adua to resign and take care of his health but he has not taken to this advice.

There are also those who are also calling on the vice president to take over the administration of the country in the light of the president’s illness. But lawyers argued that the vice president cannot act for the President because the President did not inform the National Assembly that he was going to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.


na wah oh