This little nugget of information may well have gone un-noticed by many Prune readers:
YAR’ADUA NAMES NEW CDS,
SERVICE CHIEFS
President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has approved the appointment of Air Marshal Paul Dike as Chief of Defence Staff. Air Marshal Dike is to take over from General Andrew Azazi who is retiring from service.
President Yar’Adua also approved the appointment of Major-General A.B. Dambazau as Chief of Army Staff in place of Lieutenant-General Luka Yusuf who is also retiring. Until his new appointment, Maj.-Gen. Dambazau was the General Officer Commanding the 2nd Division of the Nigerian Army in Ibadan .
Other changes approved by the President in the command structure of the Armed Forces include the appointment of Rear Admiral Isaiah Iko Ibrahim as Chief of Naval Staff in place of Vice Admiral G.T.A. Adekeye who retires from active service. Rear Admiral Ibrahim was the Flag Officer Commanding the Naval Training Command, Lagos .
President Yar’Adua who left Abuja this evening to perform the lesser Hajj in Saudi Arabia also approved the appointment of Air Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin as Chief of Air Staff. Until this appointment, Air Marshal Petinrin was the Air Officer Commanding the Nigerian Air Force Training Command, Kaduna .
All the appointments are with immediate effect.
President Yar’Adua and the Minister of Defence, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed have met with the outgoing Chief of Defence Staff and Service Chiefs to thank them for their services to the nation.
Olusegun Adeniyi
Special Adviser to the President
(Communications)
August 20, 2008
President Yar'Adua is said to be facing another health crisis and will be treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia. His spin doctors are claiming he is going for an early Hajj timed to coincide with Ramadan. With the latest reshuffle, men loyal to James Ibori, the notorious former governor of Delta state, facing charges of laundering more money than anyone in the history of this country, will take charge of the Yar'adua regime. Two weeks ago, Yar'adua had appointed David Edevbie, a former commissioner of finance of Delta State with extensive links to Ibori's money laundering activities as his "Private Principal Secretary".
Ibori owns Wings Aviation and both he and his wife Theresa are being extensively investigated in both Nigeria and UK on charges of money laundering.
Sahara Reporters further reports:
Yar'adua had delayed his medical trip for a day in order to announce the removal of the service chiefs following what SaharaReporters had earlier reported as a spreading sense of unease in military circles over the illegitimacy of Yar'adua’s presidency. “Many military officers are still upset about the way the April 2007 elections were conducted,” a source, who is a retired military officer, recently told our correspondent.
Mr. Yar’adua's present sickness has provided a public relations nightmare for his wife and closest aides who dread the political fallout of public knowledge that Yar’adua remains in fragile health condition. Last week Tuesday, Yar'adua canceled a meeting with newspaper publishers due to medical emergencies.
A reliable source within Aso Rock told Saharareporters that this concern with public perception led to a decision to announce Yar’adua’s medical trip to Saudi Arabia as a lesser hajj. Muslim fasting commences in two weeks time.
Yar'adua will not be traveling with his aides or his Nigerian doctor in order to make the trip appear like a private religious trip. He is expected to be away for one week starting from tonight.
Yar’adua, who was thrust into the presidency in last year’s massively rigged election, has been bedeviled by a series of health crises.
At the end of July 2008, Yar’adua collapsed in the presidential vehicle on his way to a launch at the Yar'adua Center in Abuja (named for his late elder brother). He was driven back to Aso Rock Villa, missing the ceremony he was to attend.
Dating back to his presidential campaign days, Yar’adua has been flown several times to Germany for treatment. But his present relapse has created a dilemma on how to embark on another international medical trip to Germany. His closest aides calculate that another emergency medical trip to Germany would be politically costly.
“The fear is that another medical trip to Germany might leave the impression that President Yar’adua is too physically ravaged to continue the day-to-day running of the country,” said a source close to the Yar’aduas.
Yar’adua’s wife, Turai Yar’adua, who is personally overseeing the campaign to influence Supreme Court justices to uphold her husband’s election, is particularly worried about any perception that her husband is too frail to continue in office, according to several of our sources. Mrs. Yar’adua has recently rebuffed pleas by some northern leaders to encourage her husband to endorse the idea of new presidential elections—and to announce his retreat from running. She has countered that, even if her husband dies in office, he would not be the first Nigerian ruler to do so, pointing to the case of Sani Abacha, the late military dictator.
The plan to fly Yar’adua to Saudi Arabia became the option once his inner circle decided that it would be politically damaging to return him to Germany to see his doctors.
Saharareporters has exclusively reported that Yar'adua suffers from Churg Strauss syndrome, a condition that kept him hospitalized in a hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany for 10 days last April.
Yar’adua’s medical treatments in Germany have also created a legal problem for Bilfinger Berger, the parent company of Julius Berger, Nigeria's biggest construction company with a reputation for corruption. German State investigators are poring over Bilfinger Berger’s financial documents over improper payments made to Nigerian public officials in relation to several construction projects.
According to published reports corroborated by officials of the Yar'adua regime, Julius Berger has been responsible for flying Yar'adua to hospital in Wiesbaden. Some of the hospital bills footed by Julius Berger are believed to be the subject of investigations and inquiry by the German police, BKA.
In Nigeria we may be sick of military rule, but since the return to civilian rule corruption has increased exponentially and there are a significant number of people who would welcome someone like Gerry Rawlings to sort out the country's malaise. However, we would do well to remember the old adage, 'be careful what you wish for as it may come true'.