Presidency: No Plans For Nigerian Journalists To See President In Jeddah

San Francisco Jan 13, (THEWILL) – Despite the controversies on the President’s ill health, his AWOL and the furor generated by the BBC speech, the Presidency has said it has no plans for Nigerian journalists to visit the President at the King Faisal Hospital in Jeddah to confirm his true condition.

Presidential spokesman Mr. Segun Adeniyi told THEWILL in a text message after we sought clarification on speculations that the Presidency was making plans to transport some top Nigerian Journalists to Jeddah to confirm that the President is alive and well.

“No such thing,” was the spokesman’s short response.

The President and the Presidency have come under severe criticisms by a large majority of Nigerians for the manner in which it has conducted affairs relating to the President’s ill health and particularly his refusal to allow the Vice President fully discharge executive functions as enshrined in the constitution.

On Tuesday, thousands of Nigerians marched in Abuja to protest the President’s absence and refusal to write the National Assembly on his incapacitation so that the Vice President can formally assume duties in an acting capacity.

Nigerians have continued to call on the Presidency to produce the President either in person or via live telecast to the nation to quell talks of his vegetative state or death.

Meanwhile, the President of Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), and Chairman of Punch Newspaper, Chief Ajibola Ogunsola, has condemned the President’s refusal to inform the National Assembly of his prolonged absence from the country.

In a statement on Wednesday he said:

"The charade, deception, collusion and outright fraud that we have been witnessing in the three realms of the federal government over the unconstitutional refusal of President Yar’ Adua to observe the provisions of the constitution by writing to the National Assembly to enable Vice President Jonathan Goodluck act as President while he is away in Saudi Arabia for medical rescue should open the eyes of all Nigerians to the need for the Freedom of Access to Information Act.

“It is also a potent evidence that the Act will not be for the benefit of journalists and the press alone, but for all Nigerians. It further demonstrates, perhaps, why the present National Assembly has been unwilling to pass such Act."

Ajibola trashed the House of Representatives for its decision to send a delegation to Saudi Arabia on what he called, “A jamboree to pay a get-well visit to the President and discuss some matters of urgent importance with him".

The Nigerian Bar Association and other eminent Nigerians have all criticized the President for his very selfish action.