Apprehension over the fate of Nigeria’s First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, heightened yesterday evening after President Goodluck Jonathan abruptly returned to Abuja, the Nigerian capital, cutting short his official visit to Malawi and Bostwana.

Presidential Spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, had in a statement issued last Saturday in Abuja said that his principal would return home today (Wednesday).

The President, however, had to abruptly end his tour after receiving “a message which allegedly changed his countenance” mid-way into a luncheon in Gaborone, Bostwana, said a report in the mass circulating Lagos-based Punch this morning.
The President’s hasty return to Abuja has fuelled speculations among his aides that the First Lady might have died, but a report in the US-based online newspaper Sahara Reporters quoted Dr. Jonathan as reassuring his aides that his wife is still alive.

News Express had two days ago broken the story about a rumour making the rounds on the purported death of Dame Jonathan, who was airlifted to a German hospital two weeks ago but has remained incommunicado for the third straight week.

Both Dame Jonathan’s office and the Presidency have maintained sealed lips on her fate and whereabouts, thereby betraying the grave condition of her health.

As reported by News Express on Sept. 5, a spokesperson for Horst Schmidt Klinik, the hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany, where Dame Jonathan is believed to be receiving treatment, had revealed that she was in a bad state of health when she arrived the hospital for treatment two weeks ago.

The official disclosed that initial records showed that the Nigerian President’s wife had earlier been treated for food poisoning back home before being brought to Horst Schmidt Klinik, where she underwent a major surgery for a ruptured appendix to remove the poisons in her intestine.

*Photo: Dame Jonathan