Nigerian leader: State ’security personnel’ hid and blocked access to ill president

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Nigerian leader: State security hid ill president

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria — Nigeria’s new president said Sunday that “security personnel” blocked the oil-rich nation from seeing its elected leader during the long illness that preceded his death, raising concerns over how strong the country’s young democracy is going into next year’s presidential election.

The admission by President Goodluck Jonathan came during his first live televised interview with the state-run broadcaster NTA before a panel of journalists who were apparently free to pose any questions they wished.

Asked if the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s wife had hidden the ailing leader from public view, Jonathan said, “It was not the first lady alone” who shielded him.

“There were senior government functionaries; they were not political office holders. They were security personnel,” Jonathan said. “I expect the security agencies to look into the conduct of their security officers.”

He declined to elaborate on what that review would entail. The West African nation has a host of security agencies, including the State Security Service, a secret police force long criticized for stifling political dissent.

Yar’Adua, 58, left the country in late November after falling ill with what his physician described as an inflammation of the heart. He remained hospitalized in Saudi Arabia for months, leading to a constitutional crisis that saw the nation’s National Assembly going beyond the law to name Jonathan as acting president.

Yar’Adua later returned to Nigeria’s capital in an ambulance led by a nighttime Army convoy, apparently mobilized without Jonathan being informed. He died weeks later without ever making a public appearance.

During the wide-ranging, hour-long interview Sunday, Jonathan acknowledged that he had his own fears about trying to see Yar’Adua before his death on May 5. Analysts say Jonathan moved into power slowly out of fear of a possible coup against him in a nation with a long history of brutal military dictatorships.

“Supposing I forced my way in and after seeing him, something happened, and they started to make inclinations I was part of the problem,” Jonathan said.

The president pledged not to let a similar fate befall him and Africa’s most populous nation.

“If anything happened to me, I’m the public property of this country,” Jonathan said. “The people will want to know whether it’s malaria or what.”

Nigeria, which has had only a decade of continuous democracy since it gained its independence from Britain in 1960, is one of the top crude oil suppliers to the U.S. Since taking over, Jonathan has been lauded by U.S. President Barack Obama and others, highlighting the desire of world leaders to make sure political uncertainty doesn’t stop the oil from flowing.

Jonathan, a Christian from the country’s south, was sworn in as president May 6, a day after the death of Yar’Adua, a Muslim from the north. An unwritten power-sharing agreement within Nigeria’s ruling People’s Democratic Party calls for the presidency to alternate between Nigeria’s Christians and Muslims. However, Yar’Adua was still in his first four-year term and leaders in the north had expected him to serve two terms.

If Jonathan runs for the presidency in the coming 2010 election, his candidacy could shatter the ruling party, which has the political muscle necessary to manipulate Nigeria’s unruly and corrupt electoral system. However, Jonathan declined to discuss his thoughts on the power-sharing agreement.

The new president also declined to say whether he’d run for the nation’s highest office in the election due by April 2010. He promised to announce his decision at “the proper time,” saying announcing a decision now could put the country into political chaos as the government tries to reform its election laws.

“We feel like the best thing to do is keep our mouth sealed up,” Jonathan said.