Swiss Conspiracy:Swiss court awards Haiti funds to Baby Doc Duvalier

At least $4.6m (£2.9m) in Swiss bank accounts must be returned to the family of Haiti's former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, a Swiss court has ruled.

A lower court had previously awarded charities the money - but that decision was overturned on 12 January and the ruling released on 3 February.

However, the Swiss government has blocked the release of the money until a law is passed to return it to Haiti.

The exile, known as Baby Doc, allegedly looted millions. He denies wrong-doing.

The court decision was made hours before the Haiti earthquake killed at least 150,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless.

The three-week delay before the ruling had been released was a common feature of Swiss courts, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

The Federal Supreme Court reversed the lower court's ruling that the money should go to aid groups in Haiti because the statute of limitations on any crimes committed by the Duvalier clan expired in 2001.

Yar’adua’s health status: The lies, cover up and manipulation continue

Rumors that Umaru Yar’adua, Nigeria’s sickly “president", had died swept through Nigeria and among Nigerians abroad after a hitherto little known website, “American Chronicles,” claimed in a report that the Nigerian “leader” had passed on December 10 2009 at the King Faisal Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The report, which turned to be false, quickly spread amongst Nigerians through the Internet and phone calls. Saharareporters received numerous telephone and email inquiries as to whether we could confirm the report.

The speculation about Yar’adua’s demise came on the heels of another news report carried by Lagos-based newspaper, Next, reports from sources that told the publication that Yar’adua was “brain-dead”.

A source in government in Abuja told Saharareporters that members of Yar’adua’s cabinet could not scramble to come up with a response to the Next story yesterday because Yar’adua’s absence had paralyzed governmental operations, and many ministers had skipped out of town, some of them abroad.

Segun Adeniyi, Yar’adua’s spokesperson, had traveled to watch the African Cup of Nations in Luanda while Information Minister, Dora Akunyili, had gone to Germany “to meet with her doctors and beauticians,” according to a presidency source. Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe was away in Ghana.

Last week, Ahmed Yayale, Secretary to the Federal Government, made what a source described as a “futile trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to assess Yar’adua’s condition.” This source said Yayale spent five days in Jeddah, but was not allowed to see Yar’adua. Our source said that, on his return three nights ago, Yayale voiced private fears to a few confidants that he feared Yar’adua was comatose.

Yayale’s failure to see Yar’adua also further exposed the lies orchestrated by Yar’adua’s handlers that the bed-bound “president” made phone calls to numerous officials, including VP Goodluck Jonathan, House Speaker Dimeji Bankole, and Senate President David Mark. Accounts of the alleged calls were leaked to the Nigerian press by Yar’adua’s Chief Economic adviser, Tanimu Yakubu Kurfi. The hoax was part of Mr. Kurfi’s effort to convince Nigerians that “Yar’adua was now recuperating well and well on his way to work and.”

How Babangida killed Maryam

Only God knows how painful Maryam Babangida's death has been to her husband of 40 years, Ibrahim. From all indications, it must have been very painful. They had never been separated for four decades, living together through the good, tough and bad times. When Babangida annulled a free and fair election in 1993 and was given the boot, he found comfort in his wife. She was never known to have failed to render him unconditional love and support. Even when Babangida character as a ruthless dictator was in play, Maryam never spoke badly about anything her husband did. Contrarily, she used her husband's position to her greatest benefit.
How bad it must have been for Ibrahim to have spent the last few months like an ordinary human being attending to a sick wife in the United States? One of Nigeria's richest and most crowding-drawing leaders must have been humbled, going back and forth in an American hospital to care for a sick wife. Babangida was not ordinary. He had lots of money. He could have bought the hospital where his wife died and all the medical staff, if he wished, and shipped them to Minna. What went wrong? This did not happen, did it? Nigerian leaders know when they leave the shores of Africa, they lose the air of importance accorded at home. Quite often, they drive their own cars and are treated with courtesy but with none of the 'rankadede' accompaniments in Nigeria. When they eat their snacks, they have to throw the wrap in the bin like everyone else. When they go to the post office, they have to wait in line as everyone else. When they get to the airport, they must obey the rules. It must have been very humbling for Ibrahim Babangida to have gone through the 'disrespect' of the American life while at the same time tendering to a seriously ill wife.

Maryam hangs on to life as IBB becomes scared about being sued in US court

Former Nigerian dictator Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida is reportedly jittery about the prospect of being sued in a US court following revelations by Saharareporters that he and his family are in California to be with his dying wife, Maryam. Maryam Babangida is terminally ill of cancer at the University of California (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles. The rumor mill in Nigeria is that Mrs. Babangida has died, but one of our sources said the former First Lady remained under intensive chemotherapy and pain therapy in the intensive care unit of the UCLA cancer treatment center. Sources close to Babangida told Saharareporters that the former dictator joined his wife a few weeks ago. Last week, Mr. Babangida, a retired general, and his children were summoned to Maryam’s bedside as her condition deteriorated. “She has turned blacker than charcoal,” said a family source who saw Maryam last week.