Nigeria President dead

NIGERIA: Nigeria President Umaru Yar’Adua has died, leaving Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to take over in this oil-rich nation riven by often-violent religious and political divisions.

Early Thursday, the president’s office confirmed media reports that the president, who had been sick and virtually incommunicado for several months, had died late the previous night.

“President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua is dead. He passed away on Wednesday night in the Presidential Villa, Abuja,” Jonathan’s spokesman, Ima Niboro said in the statement. The president of Africa’s most populous nation died after more than five months battling a heart ailment, a condition that in November took him to Saudi Arabia for treatment at a Jeddah hospital. There he stayed for more than three months, amid growing concern about the power vaccum at the top until parliament finally handed power to his deputy, Jonathan. Abuja, AFP