Nigeria’s ill, long absent president greets religious guests briefly, but remains seated

Imam: Nigeria’s ill, absent president meets guests

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s long ill and unseen president met briefly with Muslim religious leaders, raising his hands in prayer though never standing during the first visit since November by anyone outside a small group of advisers and family members, the nation’s chief imam said Friday.

Imam Ustaz Musa Mohammed of Nigeria’s national mosque told The Associated Press that he and three other Muslim leaders met Thursday night with President Umaru Yar’Adua at the presidential palace.

The visit, a first by those outside of Yar’Adua’s closest allies since the leader returned to Nigeria, comes after the country’s Christian acting president dissolved the oil-rich country’s Cabinet and appears poised to claim more political power in a nation tenuously split along religious lines.

Mohammed said he and three other men were led into a room in Aso Rock presidential palace just after 6:30 p.m. There, Mohammed said he saw Yar’Adua seated with his wife at his left hand, dressed in traditional robes, with no medical equipment nor doctors around. Yar’Adua’s top aide stood off to the right, the imam said.

“He was in his senses,” Mohammed said. “He had no trouble at all.”

The leaders began praying with Yar’Adua, a Muslim from Nigeria’s Islamic north. At the end of the prayers, Yar’Adua lifted his hands in the air, “communicating with Allah,” and those there grabbed his hands afterward in a traditional embrace, Mohammed said.

“We didn’t talk to him more than greeting him and asking for his recovery,” the imam said. Asked if the leaders questioned Yar’Adua about when he planned to return to power, the imam said: “It is not our own business since we are not government officials or politicians. We should not be asking him that.”

Yar’Adua, 58, hasn’t been seen publicly since late November, when he left Nigeria for treatment in a Saudi Arabian hospital. The president’s chief physician said Yar’Adua suffered from acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart. But kidney problems and ill health long have plagued Yar’Adua, who even left the country during his 2007 electoral campaign to seek medical treatments in Germany.

Yar’Adua left the country without formally placing Vice President Goodluck Jonathan in charge, sparking a constitutional crisis in a nation that is America’s No. 3 supplier of crude oil. The National Assembly empowered Jonathan to become acting president Feb. 9. A military convoy and an ambulance apparently swept Yar’Adua back into the presidential palace Feb. 24, though his Christian vice president remained in control of the nation.

The split among religions in Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people, erupts into periodic violence. The nation’s ruling People’s Democratic Party rotates its presidential candidates among the two faiths, though democracy only has existed for a decade’s time in a nation once ruled by coup and military dictators.

Yar’Adua can resume control of the presidency by notifying the National Assembly, but so far hasn’t. Analysts have suggested those surrounding Yar’Adua brought the ailing leader back to the country to keep a check on Jonathan’s ambitions even if he’s not strong enough to lead.