‘Aides hid Yar’Adua’s illness with stuffed clothes, makeup’

 

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Controversial whistleblower website, WikiLeaks, has claimed that aides of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua stuffed his clothes to hide his weight loss during the peak of illness.

WikiLeaks, in some United States diplomatic cables it released on Saturday night, also disclosed that makeup was used to cover the signs and symptoms of illness on his face and hands.

According to WikiLeaks, one of the cables dated February 2009, revealed that at an event in December 2008 , Yar’Adua “appeared to weigh no more than 140 pounds(about 64 kilogrammes) while his skin was very taut.”

It added that Yar’Adua’s “handshake was weak, his voice fainter than on previous meetings, his eyes deep set with dark circles underneath, and his teeth also very badly tarred.”

The site stated that the late President, who would have had a second kidney transplant in 2002, first began experiencing renal failure shortly before he became Katsina State governor in 1999.

The February cable claimed that the younger brother of a former Minister of Water Resources, Alhaji Sayyadi Abba-Ruma, would have donated the kidney for the second transplant.

WikiLeaks said the discolorations on Yar’Adua’s face which fuelled rumours about his ill health, was caused by the steroids doctors gave him to help his body accept the transplant.

One of the cables said that Julius Berger, one of the dominant road construction firms in Nigeria, set up a dialysis clinic in Yar’Adua’s home. It added that the firm later flew German experts in and out of Nigeria to privately treat Yar’Adua.

It also said that when doctors told Yar’Adua that he needed a second transplant, Abba-Ruma’s brother whose name was not given, was sent to Germany to be checked as a possible donor.

According to the cable, the planned trip was put on hold by the late President over fears that it could cause unrest in the country.

“Yar’Adua did not take this planned trip given public reaction to rumours about travel and concerns about his ability to govern,” WikiLeaks quoted the February cable saying.”

The cable added that, “What is clear is that the President’s health is a matter of growing concern, particularly on the minds of the northern Nigerian elite.

“We have noted a considerable uptick in what appears to be behind-the-scenes machinations and back-room dealing.”

A spokesman at the US Embassy in Abuja, said officials would have no comment on anything released by the website. Also, Ruma could not be immediately reached for comment on Sunday.

The cables suggested top power brokers in the People’s Democratic Party knew about Yar’Adua’s condition, but still propped him up to become the party’s presidential candidate in 2007.

Yar’Adua left Nigeria on Nov. 23, 2009, to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia. His physician later told journalists that he suffered from acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart.

However, his stay in Saudi Arabia drifted from days to weeks, to months, stalling government activity in a nation vital to U.S. oil supplies.

Yar’Adua returned to Nigeria in late February 2010, but never appeared publicly. He died on May 5, 2010.

Yar’Adua, who became President in 2007, died in May 2010, propelling Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, who was then the Vice-President, into the presidency.