Abuja - Nigeria President, Umaru Yar’Adua has finally opened up on the state of his health as he admitted having a kidney problem. The President made this known during a live telecast of a special presidential media chat organized to mark Democracy Day and one year in office.

He also stated that Nigerians had been exaggerating his health condition and that it had been politicized. Yar’Adua said his last trip to Germany was to treat a reaction he had to malaria drugs administered to him by his doctors in Nigeria, adding that the effects of the drugs were so severe that they made his face to swell up.

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Abuja - The 13 members of the Senate Committee on Health will not honor the invitation with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) following a directive by the soon-to-be ousted President of the Senate, Chief David Mark.

Mark who cited the ongoing recess has, however, directed the Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello-led Committee to make a public defense of the claims of wrongdoings alleged against it in utilizing the N10 million from the N300 million unspent 2007 budget of the Federal Ministry of Health for a retreat in Ghana.

Consequently, the Committee has issued a statement denying any wrongdoing and declared that it acted upon the rules of the Senate.

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Abuja - The House of Representatives has admitted that its Committee on Health has returned the N10m it had collected from the Ministry of Health out of the N300m unspent 2007 budget allegedly shared by its officials in December.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes, Mr. Dave Salako, disclosed this in Abuja.

Salako’s committee oversees the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which had quizzed the affected lawmakers, House and Senate committees’ officials and their colleagues in the ministry over the scandal.

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Abuja - Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange, and her Minister of State, Mr. Gabriel Aduku, an architect, have resigned on the strength of the allegations of corruption in the ministry.

The ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Professor Simon Ogamdi; the Director of Administration, Dr. H. B. Oyedepo; the Director of Finance, Hanafi Muhammed, and 11 other officials have also been sent on suspension pending further disciplinary action against them.

In the meantime, President Umaru Yar’Adua has accepted the supposed voluntary resignations of the Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange, and the Minister of State (Health), Arc. Gabriel Aduku.

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Cambridge - A Nigerian man has described how he watched his wife “slowly die” in Britain as she fought to get her name on an urgent heart transplant list for surgery at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge.

Ese Elizabeth Alabi, a 29-year-old mother of three, was considered by doctors at Papworth to be clinically appropriate for a transplant. But they were stopped from carrying out the operation by government regulations preventing non-European Union nationals from being treated on the NHS.

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