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President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has been hospitalised in Saudi Arabia, where he is believed to have undergone surgery early in the week, two Nigerian independent dailies said on Saturday.
LAGOS (AFP) - President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has been hospitalised in Saudi Arabia, where he is believed to have undergone surgery early in the week, two Nigerian independent dailies said on Saturday.
The Punch and Vanguard cited what they called authoritative sources close to the presidency, saying the head of state is recovering from surgery conducted at a hospital in Jeddah.
"He underwent surgery," an unnamed source told Punch.
One paper said the head of state was operated on at Solimah Akeeh Hospital, while another named King Fahd Hospital, both in the same city.
Authorities have denied the president is out of the country to seek medical attention, saying he is on a religious pilgrimage.
Yar'Adua, 57, left Nigeria 10 days ago for the Muslim lesser hajj, according to government.
"The president is still performing the lesser hajj," Information Minister John Odey told reporters on Wednesday.
Odey and Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Maduekwe on Wednesday said the president was well and would return to the country "anytime from now".
Maduekwe also denied that Yar'Adua's planned official trip to Brazil had been put off due to the president's health.
"It is not cancelled. It is just readjusted. The postponement has nothing to do with the health of the president," Maduekwe told reporters.
In the middle of last year's electoral campaign, Yar'Adua had to be evacuated to Germany for a few days after a health scare.
He was flown to see private physicians at a hospital in Weisbaden for what his spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi, had described as "medical review of an indisposition believed to be due to an allergic reaction."