Posted by By TOPE ADEBOBOYE, Lagos and JACOB EDI, Abuja on
Vice President Atiku Abubakar was scheduled to undergo a minor surgery on his injured knee Monday night at the London Bridge Hospital.
•Why he was flown abroad - VP camp
Vice President Atiku Abubakar was scheduled to undergo a minor surgery on his injured knee Monday night at the London Bridge Hospital.
The surgery, Daily Sun learnt, was to reattach a torn ligament on his knee.
Atiku, presidential standard bearer of the Action Congress, had sustained the injury on Sunday during a routine work-out at his official quarters. He was subsequently flown to London on Sunday night.
"The Vice President is in good condition. He is optimistically looking forward to the surgery and his early return to Nigeria," Atiku's spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, said.
Meanwhile, the Turaki Vanguard, one of the campaign groups for Vice President Atiku Abubakar's presidential ambition, Monday gave fresh details on why he had to be flown outside the country just as the organisation said its members would fight with their last blood if Atiku was disallowed from contesting next month's election.
According to Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, Turaki Vangurad's media chief, the decision to seek medical attention outside the country was taken after a failed attempt at both Aso clinic and National Hospital, the two leading government hospitals in the country to perform a bone surgery on the vice president.
According to him, the doctors at the two government hospitals said the equipment needed to carry out the surgery could only be found in Lagos.
Asked if London was closer to Abuja than Lagos, Chief Eze said: "We did not want to take chances or jeopardize the health of our next president."
Reacting to media reports credited to INEC chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu that Atiku will be barred from contesting next month's election, the Turaki Vanguard media chief said: "Turaki Vanguard is prepared to resist their evil plot with the last drop of our blood. Turaki Vanguard shall fight this corrupt, inept, visionless, ruthless and lawless rulership whose legacy to Nigerians is political banditry and double standards."
Eze emphasized that it amounted to a "sad commentary that another professor of Igbo extraction is making himself available for the job of truncating the democratic process," adding that it was a shame that the INEC chairman and his cohorts have consistently arrogated to themselves powers of the judiciary.
The power to disqualify Atiku, Eze reiterated, lies only with the court and not INEC.
He expressed appreciation to President Obasanjo over the concern he has shown since the vice president broke his knee mid-afternoon on Sunday.
"We are touched by what the president has done. He has been phoning him at every 30 minutes interval to find out how he is doing. We are touched and if that is what it takes for Obasanjo to give Atiku favour, so be it," Eze said.