By Ibrahim Sheme, Iyobosa Uwugiaren, and Golu Timothy & Mojeed Jamiu:

Jonathan steps in as president  ||  Nigeria’s 13th Head of State, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succumbed to an acute heart disease last night, leaving a nation in deep pain and shock. He was 58 years old. Sources said Yar’Adua died at 9 p.m. at the Aso Rock presidential villa in Abuja. His spokesman Segun Adeniyi told the Associated Press, his voice cracking, that the president’s wife Hajiya Turai Yar’Adua was by his side when he died.

The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) interrupted its normal programming to announce the news briefly last night. The announcer said: “The president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, died a few hours ago at the presidential villa.

“Security aides notified the National Security Adviser, General Aliyu Gusau, who immediately called the acting president. The late president has been ill for some time.”

LEADERSHIP gathered that Jonathan promptly summoned a top security meeting, where arrangements for the burial of his late boss and other security issues were discussed. The meeting lasted several hours. While the meeting was going on, all the gates leading to the presidential villa were manned by security personnel.

Yar’Adua will be buried in his home town of Katsina in Katsina State at 2 p.m. today.

The Federal Government has declared today would a public holiday while a seven-day mourning period will begin tomorrow, during which the national flag will be flown at half-mast.

This was the second time a serving Nigerian president died of natural causes. The last time a head of state died in office was in 1998 when Gen. Sani Abacha died suddenly.

Rumours about the ailing President Yar’Adua’s health situation had ceaselessly dominated political discourse for several months following his admission at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last November 23.

He was diagnosed with pericarditis, an acute heart disease, according to his personal doctor, Dr. Salisu Banye, who said the president had started “receiving treatment for an acute condition of the inflammation of the membrane of the heart” at the hospital.

The doctor said Yar’Adua had started complaining of severe pains on the left side of his chest in which preliminary tests later suggested acute pericarditis, inflammation of the pericardium, a thin membrane covering the outer surface of the heart. It was then decided he should take further tests at the hospital in Jeddah, where he eventually spent nearly four months.

He was eventually rushed back to Nigeria in controversial circumstances in the middle of the night on February 23, this year.

Yar’Adua had been receiving treatment in the presidential villa with the help of life-support equipment that were imported when he was brought back from Saudi Arabia. His health situation, which was tightly guarded by his security men in the last few months, had generated a huge controversy locally and internationally.

His sudden demise has thrown up a new president for the nation: Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. He is expected to be sworn in today before or after the burial of the late president.

Section 146 of the 1999 Constitution says, “The Vice-President shall hold the office of the President if the office of President becomes vacant by reason of death or resignation, impeachment, permanent incapacity or the removal of the President from the office for any other reason in accordance with section 143 or 144 of this constitution.”

Also, in line with the same constitution, Jonathan is expected to appoint a new vice-president, who will be approved by the National Assembly.

Yar’Adua was governor of Katsina State from 1999 to 2007, a period in which he was hospitalised for several months in a German hospital for kidney-related disease.

On becoming president at the end of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s eight-year tenure, Yar’Adua overturned many of his predecessor’s policies, including the sale of the nation’s refineries.

One of his legacies was the granting of unconditional amnesty to militants in the Niger Delta region, a legacy that became threatened when he became incapacitated by illness.

Jonathan, who hails from the region, is expected to build on that legacy. However, the new president’s main challenge is to organise a free and fair election next year in a country where many have lost hope in seeing such a possibility in their life time.

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