Ailing Nigerian President Umaru Yar’ Adua is dead, Lagos based Silverbird Television reported late on Wednesday.
A senior government official told Xinhua on phone that the report was true that the Nigerian leader was dead.
“He passed on earlier this night (Wednesday) between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. local time,” the competent source told Xinhua. “He will be buried tomorrow (Thursday),” the source added.
Yar’ Aadua has been battling acute pericaditis, an inflammation of the membrane around the heart, since November last year for which he received treatment at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
He returned to the country under the cover of darkness in February and since then had been held incommunicado.
On Feb. 9, the Nigerian National Assembly empowered Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to take over for ill President Yar’ Adua.
The decision of the House of Representatives came after the Senate endorsed a motion to empower Jonathan as acting president in the absence of Yar ‘Adua.
The long absence of Yar’Adua has generated controversy among Nigerians across the world.
Since his surprise return to the country in the early hours of Feb. 24, he has not been seen outside his official residence in the presidential villa.
The late president health challenge first came to the fore during his days as the governor of northern Nigeria’s Katisna State where he went for treatment for about six months and during the campaign period leading to his election he was also rushed to Germany where he has been receiving treatment for a long time before his recent choice of Saudi Arabia. He later returned to continue the campaign.
However, since his assumption of office in 2007, he has traveled about three times for medical treatment abroad. He was in Saudi Arabia on two occasions and also visited Germany once.
