Nigeria�s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mr. Abdullah Garba Aminchi, has said the only obstacle to meeting ailing President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is a directive issued by his doctors at the Jeddah hospital barring any visitor from having access to him.
This may effectively dash the hopes of a six-member ministerial team which was raised by the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF) to visit the President in the hospital. The team finally left last night after failing to take off on Sunday night owing to what Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Maduekwe attributed to �protocol�.
But Aminchi said he himself had visited Yar'Adua on Saturday and that the condition of the president, who has not been seen in public for three months, was improving after treatment for a heart ailment.
"I saw him the day before yesterday ... He's really feeling better now," Aminchi told AFP.
Aminchi confirmed that a delegation of legislators were not allowed to see Yar'Adua earlier this month despite coming to Jeddah on a mission to gauge the health of the 58-year-old president, who checked into King Faisal Specialist Hospital on November 23, 2009 for an acute heart condition.
He said it was Yar'Adua's doctors and not Saudi authorities, as some Nigerian officials have charged, who had denied access to the ailing president. "It is only the doctors assigned to him who are preventing them (visitors) from seeing the president despite a green light from the Saudi authorities,� Aminchi told AFP.
Aminchi has regularly given assurances that Yar'Adua's condition is improving, saying in mid-January that he was awaiting doctors' permission to return home.
Members of the team who traveled with a presidential aircraft are Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed; Minister of Health Professor Babatunde Osotimehin; Minister of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman; Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Adekotunbo Kayode (SAN); Agriculture Minister, Dr. Abba Ruma; and Maduekwe himself.
The decision to embark on the trip was agreed upon by way of a resolution of EXCOF at its Wednesday, February 10, 2010 meeting. Even though Information and Communications Minister, Professor Dora Akunyili, who made public the resolution of council failed to disclose details of the visit, it was gathered that the trip was a medical fact-finding one to ascertain the health status of the President.
The minister explained that the mandate of the team was to express the government�s deep appreciation �to the King of Saudi Arabia for the excellent and generous attention both personally and the government and people of Saudi have given to our president, who unfortunately has been away for almost three months now for medical treatment.
We need to be on record to thank the king for that and that�s enough reason for us to go and it�s enough reason for a strong team from the government to go. We didn�t know that this thing would last two weeks, will last one month, will last two months and it�s close to the third month. It�s just time.
We couldn�t have done it much earlier because we would have thought it was just for a few weeks but it�s entering the third month. So we felt there is need to be on record. We don�t want it to be on record that when our president comes back even if he comes back today, that for the three months he was there we didn�t go to Riyadh to thank the king�.
Source: Thisdayonline.com
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