Nov. 20, 2013
NewsRescue– USA Wikileaks secret cables, reveal that according to Professor Ukandi G. Damachi, Nigeria’s former president, Musa Yar’Adua was poisoned. Yar’Adua died while in office as president of Nigeria in May, 2010.
Professor Ukandi G. Damachi is a friend to US consul, long term confidant to Nigeria’s past president Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida with privy to Nigeria’s government workings inside information.
The Wikileaks cable, of Apr. 2008, reference ID 08LAGOS153, described in Professor Damachi’s narration, that late president Yar’Adua was given poison in his food, “his food was poisoned”, he alleged. Further stating that the president inherited his predecessor, president Obasanjo’s kitchen, and these kitchen staff were likely used to poison Nigeria’s president. The professor further revealed that when president Yar’Adua realized this he fired the Obasanjo kitchen staff.
Quoting Damachi from the US secret cables:
“There are lots of problems in Nigeria.” The first problem, he said, is the President’s illness; “his food was poisoned”, Damachi alleged. Asked whether he meant “food poisoning” or that someone had deliberately poisoned the President’s food, Damachi shrugged, replying “The President inherited Obasanjo’s kitchen staff”; Yar’Adua has now fired them all, and the kitchen has been cleaned out following the incident, Damachi said. At the same time, Damachi went on, the President did attend functions on both the Saturday and Sunday preceding his illness and ate some food at both of them. “What President eats at a function?”, Damachi asked rhetorically. The President was so sick that the day he signed the budget, he was unable to sign a second piece of legislation awaiting his approval…”
Link: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/04/08LAGOS153.html; Cable dated 24 Apr. 2008
Yar’Adua was known to have stepped hard on his predecessors toes. Upon entering office president Yar’Adua, described by his wife as a very honest man who left no wealth behind; seriously went after the reversal of Nigeria’s public assets that his predecessor had sold to his allies, Aliku Dangote and Femi Otedola.
Reuters reported on the serious transfer of Nigeria’s assets by Obasanjo to Dangote:
(Reuters) – “Nigerian tycoon Aliko Dangote has acquired a controlling stake in Nigeria’s third-largest refinery in Kaduna for an undisclosed sum, consolidating his grip on the OPEC member nation’s refining sector. It was the second major refinery purchase in a week by Dangote, who is a major financier of the ruling party and ally of outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo, after he bought the largest refinery in Port Harcourt on May 17.”
“In the weeks leading up to Obasanjo’s departure, Dangote’s privately held company has also scooped up a cement plant, a telecoms licence and mining concessions in a rush of privatisations that has triggered accusations of cronyism by opposition parties.”
By July of 2007, barely 2 months into office, Yar’Adua had held meetings with Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), to query the sale of Nigeria’s refineries to Obasanjo’s henchmen, Aliku Dangote and tycoon Otedola. BPE reportedly justified the sale to Bluestar, saying it was transparent, but the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) faulted it, and maintained that the corporation was capable of running them efficiently.
President Yar’Adua “after considering the facts presented to him, the President directed that the sale should be revoked as the exercise was not transparent enough. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) praised President Yar’Adua for the revocation of the privatization of the refineries.”
President Yar’Adua, determined to recover Nigeria’s infrastructure and assets coveted by Obasanjo and his cronies, moved on to other government assets.
According to Bashani Aminu, as relayed in other cables, aka “Disentangling Obasanjo” :
“Aminu expects more of the same soon — particularly an overturn of the Transcorp purchase of the Abuja Nicon Hilton. Aminu also noted Yar’adua’s commitment to fighting corruption and told Post he gave the greenlight to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate anyone.
He predicted Yar’adua will overturn the Transcorp purchase of the Abuja Nicon Hilton soon. These deals will be aimed at removing the ill-earned gains of Obasanjo and his close allies such as Aliko Dangote. (NOTE: Dangote and Obasanjo’s Transcorp were both part of the consortium that purchased the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries.) Aminu claimed Dangote gave Obasanjo a 35 million USD jet plane as a recent “gift.””
http://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07ABUJA1658_a.html
Former Ambassador to the United Nations (1979-1983) Maitama Sule, a well-known confidante of President Umaru Yar’Adua according to other cables [TransparencyNg], told US officials that Obasanjo was worried Yar’Adua was going to prosecute him for corruption. AC’s Garba Shehu further relayed that Atiku has warned Yar’Adua of Obasanjo’s scheme’s to remove Yar’Adua from office due to these fears, and what Obasanjo referred to as “Yar’Adua’s “treachery.”” Cable 08ABUJA457_a
Yar’Adua also suffered from chronic allergic disorder and this was easily attributed to be the direct cause of his death, but his illness’ sudden turn for the worst few months after he started ambitiously hunting his predecessor and his suspicion that he was poisoned by the ex-president’s kitchen staff, raises obvious questions.
The possibility of the poisoning to death of a Nigerian serving head of State will amount to a grievous crime. The exhumation of late President Yar’Adua’s body may be necessitated as well as a thorough investigation of all who may have been involved in the murder of a president in office.
Late Palestinian premier, Yasser Arafat was recently exhumed due to evidence of polonium poisoning as an investigation into alleged Israeli intelligence poisoning was reopened.
Fresh Facts Support Yar’Adua Poisoning Story; Revealed Wife Turai Complained
Nov. 22, 2013
NewsRescue investigations revealed in an exclusive article that the late President Umaru Yar’Adua was allegedly poisoned. Our November 20th article, “EXCLUSIVE: Yar’Adua Was Poisoned By Obasanjo’s Kitchen Staff — Professor Ukandi G. Damachi, USA Cables,” which uncovered USA wikileaks cables from 2008 that suggested murder of the president, has since gone viral, provoking public discourse on such a possible crime of grand treason and dangerous sabotage to the nation.
NewsRescue investigators have again uncovered another piece of evidence from a May 2010 Fresh Facts article, that suggested a fear the late president Yar’Adua’s wife, Turai had that the Yar’Adua could be poisoned.
They Killed Yar’Adua –FreshFacts
According to it, the president could have visited his office the following day (Thursday) and observed the Jumat prayer on the following Friday at the National Mosque, if his recovery rate had not nose-dived that Wednesday, and if he had not died same day
By Our Correspondents, May 2010
Many people believe former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died from natural causes, but fresh insight by an impeccable family source suggests that there may have been more to his death than met the eye.
Yar’Adua, no doubt, had been afflicted with a kidney disease and later pericarditis, both dangerous terminal ailments. When he was governor of Katsina State, he had come down with the kidney ailment and sought medical help in Germany where he allegedly spent close to six months in admission.
According to the family source, his medical antecedent seemed a plausible reason for people to believe Yar’Adua died from natural causes. “But I think the federal government may need to investigate the actual cause of the president’s death whether it was natural or not,” the source disclosed to FRESH FACTS.
Yar’Adua’s medical report and survival chances were only hidden to Nigerians, but not to interested foreign nations and their security agencies.“They knew he was going to die, eventually, and that was why they had embraced Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and encouraged the various mass protests against the then dying administration of President Yar’Adua,” declared another highly – placed source close to the late president.
FRESH FACTS’ other impeccable sources had also told the newspaper that it was not the foreign interests alone that knew the president’s medical report and of his imminent death. According to them, Nigeria’s veteran spy – master and National Security Adviser to Jonathan, retired General Aliyu Gusau, also knew.
In fact, Gusau was said to have informed the then acting president that the then ailing president’s health condition was very severe, and perhaps, even hopeless, and that Jonathan should brace up for the imminent good fortune that fate was about to bestow on him.
Gusau, a benefactor to many politicians from northern Nigeria and young entrepreneurs from across the nation, was something of a mentor and financier to the late Umaru Yar’Adua.
In actual fact, Yar’Adua’s first kidney dialysis machine was personally purchased for him by Gusau. It is the same Gusau who anointed and presented him for the governorship of his state in 1999.
It was not as if Jonathan himself was in total darkness about his boss’ looming demise. A source in the intelligence community hinted this newspaper that Jonathan may have been aware since February this year that Yar’Adua was not likely to survive his ailment.
According to the source, foreign interests were fed up with Yar’Adua’s sickly nature and leadership style which they perceived as directionless and uninspiring, especially due to the hounding of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, erstwhile chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the many reversals of Obasanjo’s policies which were in sync with the interests of those nations. So, they had allegedly hoped for a Jonathan Presidency. They had also allegedly hinted him through one of their Nigerian collaborators that the president was already on borrowed time.
Chaperoned by the revelation, Jonathan had warned, in unveiled terms, that those who were hampering his rise to the post of Acting President would be dealt with, “in the fullness of time”.
Before that celebrated statement, FRESH FACTS had reported Jonathan’s plot to dissolve Yar’Adua’s cabinet and sack his boss’ loyalists, as soon as he became acting president as his first act of personal vendetta against those he felt supplanted him in the hey days of the Yar’Adua presidency. Although, Jonathan denied the report, but that was what he did shortly after he became Acting President. He threw out all Yar’Adua loyalists and replaced with his own.
Egged on by his main political benefactor, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and buoyed by the knowledge of the actual medical conditions of the late president, which Obasanjo was also said to be privy to, Jonathan moved progressively on to consolidate his hold on the reins of government. The former president’s death was, therefore, not altogether shocking to those who were privy to the privileged information of his imminent, certain death.
Who killed Yar’Adua?
Our source disclosed that the president’s health had been unstable a few times since he returned from Saudi Arabia, but that he had recovered steadily and even ‘tremendously’, until only two hours before his death, when he had breathing problems and a cardiac arrest.
According to it, the president could have visited his office the following day (Thursday) and observed the Jumat prayer on the following Friday at the National Mosque, if his recovery rate had not nose-dived that Wednesday, and if he had not died same day.
Yar’Adua died on Wednesday 5th of this month between 9:02pm and 9:04pm, according to the family source.
Former President Obasanjo has been blamed by most citizens for foisting an “unwilling horse” on Nigeria.
But Yar’Adua may really not have been an unwilling horse, as he actually coveted the prized post of the president. A reliable source close to Obasanjo had actually alleged that the late president may have forged a medical report, when Obasanjo requested for one from him, when the hullabaloo of his ill – health was too deafening for the retired general. According to the source, the medical report gave Yar’Adua a clean bill of health, stating that he had come off dialysis.
Obasanjo’s statement at a Daily Trust Newspaper’s conference, earlier this year, corroborated that: “I asked experts who then told me that if you were under dialysis or you are on dialysis and you are no longer on dialysis, it means you have had a successful kidney transplant and that you can live for as long as God may wish you to live”.
Was Obasanjo fooled? Not really, because he could have ordered his doctors or government in the State House to carry out their own tests, said a concerned Nigerian.
That mischievous slip on the part of the Obasanjo Presidency, may have also accelerated the death of Yar’Adua. The rigorous schedules of the president of a large, complex nation like Nigeria were too burdensome for his frail, disease – ravished body.
But the question still begging for an answer is why Yar’Adua suddenly relapsed and died after he had steadily recovered? And only after word had gone round that he was likely to resume work anytime that week?
There were telling revelations by those who should know around Abuja and Katsina late last week as to another likely cause of the sudden death of Yar’Adua. Beyond the privileged few personages that had some level of access to the late president, his family members had cause to reflect on his association with a certain very top member of his government in trying to solve the puzzle.
According to a scion of the Yar’Adua’s family, there was a very senior federal government official who was more than an appointee of the administration.
“Before his health deteriorated, this top government official would always come to the house and eat with Mr. President. At times, the official will bring food from his own house to the villa and Mr. President will eat with him. Then Turai will be complaining. We did not suspect anything. But with what happened, we now suspect that Mr. President may have been poisoned in the process of eating. And the poison could be the one that kills slowly. And with his previous health condition, the plot worked,” said the source.
Another scenario according to FRESH FACTS’ findings was the likelihood of somebody or persons who had direct access to the late president while he was recuperating inside the Villa “doing something funny with either his prescribed medication and/or the many devices in place to keep him alive while he recovers from the protracted illness.”
Why would any body want to take the life of the president? FRESH FACTS found out that given the noticeable progress Jonathan was making during his Acting presidency days, it became clearer to sane members of the legendary cabal that before long, the game would be up for them. Such members of the group, it was further learnt, disagreed with their fellow members who still believed that things were looking up for Yar’Adua.
The ensuing division weakened the hitherto perceived unity among them, especially as two members of the so-called cabal went to then Acting President Jonathan and his wife, Patience, begging for forgiveness. Under that kind of situation, the remnants of the cabal were said to have been torn between desperation and common sense. “Any thing could have happened then. Anybody could have seized the opportunity of the clearly uncoordinated fallout to do some grievous harm to Yar’Adua,” said a top private security source who retorted; “evil thrives well when division and anarchy reign.”
Last Tuesday, some members of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, perhaps also sensing some foul play, had called for thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding President Yar’Adua’s ailment and death. But a call for a motion to institute a probe into the matter during the day’s plenary was killed by the “Nays.”
A close relation of the late President has suggested to this paper that the federal government should carry out thorough checks on the medications received, and beverages consumed, by Yar’Adua, including the conditions of the room he slept in the presidential villa since he arrived Nigeria from his recent and last medical trip to Saudi Arabia, three months ago. “There are people who should be asked some questions on this matter. Before some of us family members were allowed to be close to him, there were people who were close to him on a daily basis,” he fumed.
If you have any information, please send it to editor @NewsRescue.com
- Related: NewsRescue–Diezani Prepared To Sell Nigeria’s Refineries, Again
