Nigeria President Yar'Adua budget signature 'forged'

Allies

of Nigeria's ailing president forged his signature on the country's supplementary budget last month, opposition politicians ha

ve

alleged.

They have written to the police asking them to investigate the forgery claims.

The government said President Umaru

Yar'Adua signed the budget despite being treated for a heart condition in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Yar'A

dua has been away for six weeks, fuelling fears of a power vacuum in Africa's most

populous nation.

Doctors say he is suffering from acute pericarditis - inflammation of the lining of the heart. He also has a long-standing

kidney complaint.

In a bid to dispel fevered speculation over Mr Yar'Adua's health, ministers have insisted the president is recovering from treatment.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili said the president had spoken to his colleagues over the telephone on Tuesday.

Several court cases have been launched demanding that power be officially handed to the vice-president.

And one group of activists has even suggested the president should be declared a missing person, and a search party should be sent out.

Declare ‘president’ Yar’adua missing

Worried by the prolonged absence from his presidential functions in Nigeria due to ill-health and the total ignorance by the Nigerian citizens of the whereabouts of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, a call has gone to the National Assembly legislators billed to resume today, to declare the president missing and order a search team to locate precise whereabouts of our president and report back to Nigerians with verifiable video evidence.
Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) a pro-democracy and development focused civil society organization which made the plea to the National Assembly legislators in a statement authorized by its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko averred that the search team to be made up of top government officials, National Assembly leaders and some leaders of the organized civil society including Nigerian Medical Association and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) should ensure that when located, the ailing president should respect section 145 of the 1999 constitution by transmitting Presidential power temporarily pending his full recuperation to vice president Goodluck Jonathan to fill the leadership vacuum currently existing in Nigeria occasioned by President Yar’adua’s absence.