While Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua returned home on Wednesday after three months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, a spokesman indicated that he would not immediately seek to reclaim the powers that parliament transferred to his deputy two weeks ago.
Yar’Adua’s return in the early hours of Wednesday morning had raised concerns among diplomats in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, that a power struggle might unfold. Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in two weeks ago as acting president.
In a statement quoted by news agencies, Olusegun Adeniyi, the presidential spokesman, said: “President Yar’Adua wishes to reassure all Nigerians that on account of their unceasing prayers and by the special grace of God, his health has greatly improved.”
“However, while the president completes his recuperation, Vice President Jonathan will continue to oversee the affairs of state,” the spokesman said.
The statement followed hours of uncertainty about the president’s intentions and intense jockeying among politicians, some of whom had been anticipating a new era under Jonathan, who had promised a drive against corruption and other significant changes in the oil-rich country.
News of the president’s return emerged after two planes landed at the presidential wing of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja and were met by a convoy of police vehicles and an ambulance. Soldiers lined the route from the airport.
“The president got back last night around 2am,” said Oronto Douglas, an aide to Jonathan.
“He was conveyed in an ambulance to the villa,” he said, referring to the presidential villa in Abuja.
Douglas said a delegation from Yar’Adua’s Cabinet had gone to Saudi Arabia to check on his condition, only to be told on arrival that the president was on his way back to Nigeria.
“Maybe it’s a pre-emptive step,” Douglas said.
Diplomats in Abuja attributed the ailing president’s return to maneuvering by his inner circle.
“Considering his condition, the only reason they brought him back is they’re desperately trying to hold on to power,” said one Western diplomat in Abuja who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
The diplomat noted that some around Yar’Adua have felt exposed to renewed corruption allegations since Jonathan took power.
“All of these people who have been shielded from corruption allegations will now be vulnerable,” he said.
The diplomat said strenuous efforts were undertaken to shield Yar’Adua’s arrival early on Wednesday from public scrutiny.
“They had the plane disembark in an area where there is no light,” he said. “Not even protocol officers were allowed to see him.”
In his inaugural speech earlier this month, Jonathan, 52, a mild-mannered academic, promised that “the war against corruption will be prosecuted more robustly.”
Jonathan also pledged to strengthen the shaky peace in the turbulent Niger Delta, where militants and thugs battle for control of oil, and to reinforce the government’s faltering amnesty program in the region.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not