Date Published: 01/12/10

A man claiming to be Yar'Adua speaks to the BBC says NEXT

Exactly 50 days after Umaru Yar'Adua disappeared from public view on a medical trip to Saudi Arabia, the BBC is reporting that it spoke to a man purporting to be our president. The one minute clip which has been used in various programmes and can be accessed via the BBC ‘s website, has a man who presented himself as the president saying he is recuperating , "at the moment I am undergoing treatment and I'm getting better from the treatment. I hope that very soon there will be tremendous progress, which will allow me to get back home."

However there has been no independent verification of the authenticity of the voice on the tape.

The BBC story is coming on the back of a story by NEXT reporting that President Yar'Adua is brain damaged and unable to function as president.

In reaction to the BBC report, NEXT editors said, ‘'we stand by our story, to wit: we have it on good authority that the president has suffered brain damage and other impairments, and is no longer able to effectively discharge the office of president.

Anyone who claims we are wrong should please produce our president, so that he can speak to us directly as Nigerians, and not via an audio clip through a foreign news organization.''

NEXT also said it is willing to immediately dispatch journalists to meet the president in Saudi Arabia as soon as his kitchen cabinet permits access to him. ‘'We would like to see for ourselves and talk directly to our president.

This is one occasion where we would be happily wrong. So we call on those keeping the president hidden from the Nigerian people to produce him immediately for all to see,'' the media organisation said.