Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has told the BBC he has not seen or had “sustained discussion” with the ill president in about five months.

Umaru Yar’Adua went to Saudi Arabia for treatment in November 2009 and despite returning home in February has still not been seen in public.

Mr Jonathan gave no indication whether the president’s condition had improved.

He said he had not seen the president’s doctor but said he had spoken to his wife three times.

“I’ve not seen the doctor. I have had - on about three occasions - discussions with his wife,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

“And I’ve had discussions with some of the other aides.

“In terms of the last time we [Mr Jonathan and Mr Yar'Adua] really had sustained discussions, that was 26 November - I think so - yeah,” he said.

Mr Yar’Adua was flown to hospital in Saudi Arabia three days earlier, on 23 November.

Mr Jonathan said Mr Yar’Adua’s doctor had not tried to contact him.

“He [the doctor] has not come to me. I don’t want to compel him,” said the acting president.

source/full story: bbc

Nigeria’s president, not seen since going into hospital in Saudi Arabia for heart treatment in November, has told the BBC he hopes to resume his duties.

In his first interview since then, Umaru Yar’Adua said he was recovering and hoped to make “tremendous progress” which would enable him to return home.

Nigerian opposition parties have been demanding evidence about the true state of Mr Yar’Adua’s health.

A rally has been called for Tuesday, mainly to protest over his absence.

There are three different court cases under way calling for power to be transferred to the Vice-President, Goodluck Jonathan.

Mr Yar’Adua is also known to have kidney problems.

‘Save Nigeria’

Speaking by telephone, Mr Yar’Adua said he was making a good recovery.

“At the moment I am undergoing treatment, and I’m getting better from the treatment. I hope that very soon there will be tremendous progress, which will allow me to get back home,” he said.

“I wish, at this stage, to thank all Nigerians for their prayers for my good health, and for their prayers for the nation.”

Rumours had been rife that he was critically ill and unable to return to the presidency.

Under the banner Enough Is Enough, an organisation called the Save Nigeria Group called people on to the streets of the capital, Abuja.

There is a perceived danger of a power vacuum in a country which only saw the back of military rule just over 10 years ago, the BBC’s Will Ross reports from the city.

The opposition plan is to march to the national assembly where senators are expected to be discussing the president’s health.

Prominent opposition politicians and lawyers, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and the Biafran secessionist leader, Chief Emeka Ojukwu, will be among the demonstrators.

It is not clear if the demonstration will be well attended, our correspondent says.

Nigerians may be worried about their absent president but whether they will take time off to demonstrate is another matter, he adds.

source; bbc

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua has a heart condition, his spokesman has said, after he flew to Saudi Arabia on Monday for medical treatment.

Mr Yar’Adua has acute pericarditis, or inflammation of the lining around the heart, his spokesman told the BBC.

He said the president, 58, was responding well to treatment. Officials earlier denied rumours that the president was seriously ill.

Mr Yar’Adua has had a chronic kidney condition for at least 10 years.

He has been unable to perform a number of official duties because of recurring health problems.

Presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi told Reuters news agency that Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan was “acting on behalf of the president” in his absence.

President Yar’Adua has twice been flown to Germany for emergency treatment and it is the second time he has visited hospitals in Saudi Arabia.

He has refused to say exactly what condition he suffers from, and has repeatedly said in interviews that his life is “in the hands of God”.

BBC health reporter Michelle Roberts says most cases of pericarditis clear up with rest and medication within a few weeks, although patients will initially need to be treated in hospital to check for complications.

Our reporter says occasionally pericarditis is triggered by cancer, which is something doctors need to check for.

Rarely patients may need surgery if the pressure around the heart becomes too great, a complication that could potentially be fatal, she adds.

Mr Adeniyi said the president felt pains after performing Friday prayers last week.

“At about 3pm Friday November 20, after he returned from the Abuja Central Mosque where he performed Muslim prayer, President Yar’Adua complained of a left-sided severe chest pain,” he said, reports Reuters.

Mr Adeniyi said the initial diagnosis was pericarditis, which has since been confirmed.

Officials had earlier been quoted as saying the president intended to make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca this week.

Analysts say his continued ill-health poses a problem for Nigeria’s constitution.

If he were to step down or die, he would be replaced by Vice-President Jonathan, who is from the country’s southern Niger Delta region.

But according to the ruling People’s Democratic Party’s own formula for sharing power among the country’s regions, the president must be a northerner.

A curfew has been imposed in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Bauchi, after violence on Sunday in which at least 39 people were killed.

A Red Cross official told the BBC the whole city was silent. He said no-one knew the exact number of dead, as the mortuary was being guarded by the army.

Officials said clashes erupted when 60 Islamist militants armed with guns and explosives attacked a police station.

They said security forces repelled the attack and arrested around 170 people.

Authorities said the militants belonged to Boko Haram, a group that wants Sharia law imposed across Nigeria.

Islamic law has been in effect in the state of Bauchi since 2001.

Military clampdown

One report put the death toll from Sunday’s attack as high as 50, but there were conflicting reports of the number of casualties.

“The security took control of the corpses and started to transport them to the mortuary,” Red Cross official Adamu Abubakarr told the BBC’s Network Africa from Bauchi.

“Right now the… mortuary is well guarded by security so no one can tell exactly the number of corpses apart from them,” he added.

The BBC’s Caroline Duffield in Nigeria says the military is controlling all roads leading into the area.

The governor of Bauchi state, Isa Yuguda, told AFP the curfew would be in place “for as long as required to restore lasting peace” in the city.

Bauchi was the scene of clashes between Muslim and Christian communities in February that left four people dead.

Nigeria’s 140 million people are split almost equally between Muslims and Christians and the two groups generally live peacefully side by side.