Not even Turai has free access to Yar’adua –Ndume

I am granting this interview believing you will only use it on Sunday after our committee must have tabled its report on Friday (February 19, 2010). Nobody was dropped in the real sense of the word. We were to go on an official trip, which is more of a diplomatic thing. If you are going […]

I am granting this interview believing you will only use it on Sunday after our committee must have tabled its report on Friday (February 19, 2010). Nobody was dropped in the real sense of the word. We were to go on an official trip, which is more of a diplomatic thing. If you are going on a diplomatic trip, you use your official or diplomatic passport. Unfortunately, she didn’t have either of them. And by the time we applied for visa and got response, it was about three days to our take-off time. She failed to get the passport within those two remaining days. Honestly, there was no other reason that I know of.  
 
The House reportedly mentioned that there was problem of visa generally. Is that right?
 
No. There were statements that were speculative. When the House applied for visa, we were promptly given visas. It took them only one day to get the visas. So, stories that were coming out before now were just speculative.
How many of you went to Saudi Arabia?
 
Five, with the Secretary of the Committee making us six. We left for Saudi Arabia from Abuja on the night of Sunday 7th February, 2010. We flew to Dubai and departed for Jeddah in the night of Monday. We traveled on a commercial flight, Emirate Airlines.
 
Who received you on arrival in Jeddah?
 
The Ambassador and Consular General in Jeddah and other officials. I think they were so many. Then we checked into the hotel that night and were given our programme.

What programme?
 
Based on it, we were supposed to go for Umrah (Lesser Hajj) on the 9th, according to them. On the 10th, we were supposed to visit Medina. On the 11th, we were to see the First Lady and then on the 12th we were supposed to see the President. That was on Friday. But promptly, we said the programme was not what we wanted. We said what brought us to Saudi was to see the President. So, we requested that the programme should be reversed so that the next day, Tuesday, we would see the president. We waited in the hotel till the afternoon of Tuesday, because the Ambassador was to get in touch with the Saudi authorities who have now taken over the healthcare of the President.
 On Tuesday, we couldn’t make progress and on Wednesday, we insisted that they should make arrangements for us to either see the president himself or see the doctor taking care of him or at least, his personal physician. We went to Mecca that day and when we came back (on Wednesday), we met the Chief Physician of the President, Dr. Banye, with the Ambassador. We had a meeting that Wednesday. It was then that Banye informed us that when the President came he was taken into Intensive Care Unit (ICU), that after his medical attention and he was recovering, he was transferred to a ward where he had access to people. That unfortunately, because of the frequent contacts with people, he had what they called a contact infection, which is an infection as a result of contact between him and the visitors. And that he had a bad experience of relapse, a relapse that was life-threatening.
 The doctor (Banye) said that when he (Yar’adua) had that experience, the information got to King Abdallah himself, and he (the King) now detailed his own personal physician from Riyadh to come and take over; and that when he got out of the relapse, nobody should see him. That was where the problem started. He gave that instruction and since then, not everybody has unfettered access to him, not even his wife.
 
So, King Abdulazeez now prevents even Turai from seeing Yar’adua?
 
Yes, he restricted even the First Lady from seeing him regularly. So, the rumour that it was the First Lady who stopped us from seeing him was not true. Now, for us that went there, we explained to them that we were on a diplomatic mission and it had some political relevance and we had to see the President; and we insisted that we should see the president even if we were going to be sterilized or something.
 But, in their setup, it is not easy to even get somebody to go and argue with the King to say that this is what Nigerians want.

So, people do not have access to the President because of the restriction and, basically because the medical care of the President now is entirely in the hands of the Saudi Government, headed by the King. Only he can allow people to see Yar’adua.
So, when we tried on Wednesday and we couldn’t see him, we were there on Thursday, making efforts again to get feedback because we insisted that his personal physician should inform whoever he could inform to let the King know the importance of us seeing the President. It didn’t work, but we saw the First Lady that Thursday.
 
Where did you meet her? In the hospital?
 
No! There is a special guest house for the King in Jeddah. That is where they kept the family of the President.
 
Was she together with other relations?
 
No; I don’t know, really. We saw her alone. But, let me say personally here that our interaction with her gave us hope because you can at least read somebody’s mood. And she assured us that the president was getting better. She doesn’t see him regularly because of this fear of infection. But said every time she saw him, there was tremendous improvement. And that as soon as he gets better, they would be back home. We prayed for her and she even started joking. That was what gave me hope actually because she was joking that I am from Borno, that we are their slaves and I cannot go back; and that I should stay with her to do some menial work. And I said, “You are Fulani. We thought you got lost in Mecca here, that was why I came to look for you. Now that I have found you, I will go and tell people that you were not lost.” You know, that kind of joke.
 My take on this is that we went there. It would have been good. I even told the First Lady why I had to see him. It is very important for me, as the opposition leader because Nigerians are very eager. They are very anxious and they would want to hear from him. But she was so philosophical. She said, ‘Well, I told you the position. The Saudi Government virtually has taken over. They are taking care of the medical bill, everything, hotel, our feeding here. And when somebody is so hospitable to you, when there was a bad experience as a result of contact, you cannot now insist that people should be seeing him.’
Truly, that was what happened. So, when we went there, we saw the situation and we were convinced because there was virtually nothing they can do. But the truth of it is that the management of the situation has not been adequate. It was not okay for us. We as members of the House of Representatives desired to see him, because the President is our own, not Saudi’s. At least, they should have allowed us. I insisted that they should allow us to see him for one minute or even just to sight him, but as I told you, who would go and tell the King that this is what the Nigerians want? I am concerned about that incident. That is, there should have been a higher level of communication, to the extent that I was expecting that the Ambassador would arrange for us to see the King himself so that when we hear from him, then we know we are talking on authoritative basis. But we were not even able to see any official or even the Saudi Foreign Minister, or something like that.

So, it was not Turai who told…?

No. Dr. Banye gave us the rundown of activities. But the way I understand it, even Banye doesn’t see the President as frequently as he should because they have taken over the medical records and everything.
 
Does it mean that they have more confidence in their own doctors than the President’s chief physician?
 
Of course! All these things happened when the physician was here. If we had good facilities, we wouldn’t even take Yar’adua out.
 While you were there, you heard about the resolution to make Vice President Goodluck Jonathan Acting President. Did you discuss that with the First Lady?
 
No! Our discussion was purely a goodwill message.

Given your experience now, would you say the mission of your panel to Saudi Arabia has failed?
 
It failed, actually. Our mission was to see the President and deliver a goodwill message. We didn’t see him. Whatever we say now is just word of mouth, because we didn’t see the President. Although we were not a medical team, we would have been able to say we saw the president and then be in the position to say something about his health.

Did Banye tell you in which hospital the President was?
 
We were shown the hospital. We could see it from our hotel in Jeddah. It is the King Faisal Hospital, a specialized military hospital built for the royal family and the military, I think.
 
In the light of your experience there, what would you tell Nigerian leaders?
 
I have always said this: it is very unfortunate that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is playing politics with the health of the President. This is not the first time the President of a country would fall sick. I remember vividly in the 1940s or thereabout, the President of America, Franklin Roosevelt, was sick for a long period. It got to when he could not even communicate. But then, the country was moving. I am glad now that the tension has calmed down a bit. These things are happening because the PDP does not have a programme for the Nigerian masses. They are now diverting the attention of Nigerians to the health of the President. They are not talking about the budget. We are in the second month and we have not passed the budget. Nobody is talking about the electoral reforms, the constitutional review, the budget implementation, and what have happened to the supplementary budget, the post-amnesty programme in the Niger Delta, security in the country, people that were killed in Jos and all these things? They just put all these things aside and move the populace’s emotion to other areas. So, we in the opposition are looking at this government as a failure. Instead of them to concentrate on the issues that would touch the lives of Nigerians; everything now has been overtaken by the absence of the President. But I am glad that the Vice President has been given the acting capacity to work. It has reduced the tension in the land. But my concern again is that instead of concentrating on good governance, they are trying to create troubles again – changing here, posting this man there, and so on.

We should go back to this issue: The Saudi Ambassador in Nigeria recently granted an interview saying the Saudi Government had no hand in who sees the President and who does not.

I cannot join issues with them because I do not know what is there, but I am telling you what happened because we went there. I insisted severally that we should see the President; and sought to know where the President was. We even offered to be sterilized if they were afraid of infection. Or let us be given a special jacket or something to put on to avoid the infection.
 
So what they are saying is that those people that met him transmitted some bacteria to him?
 
Dr. Banye told us that Yar’adua had contact infection three times as a result of the flock of people coming to see him when he recovered. He said and I am quoting him: “One contact infection was life-threatening and that led to what they called relapse, so that when he got out of that situation, the King gave the instruction that nobody should see him until he is well and fit enough to even go home. That was what happened. So, whatever anybody says is another thing. I am just telling you before God what Dr. Banye actually said on Wednesday at the Embassy office in Jeddah.