SaharaReporters has learned that Nigeria’s First Lady, Patience Jonathan, is sick again and is shuttling between Spain and Germany in search of treatment. A source also told SaharaReporters that the First Lady was also contemplating receiving medical treatment from a US hospital.
Mrs. Jonathan’s renewed health woes have accounted for her absence from several official events in Abuja and her home state of Bayelsa State over the last few days. A few days ago, Mrs. Jonathan made a quiet exit from Abuja en route to France where she was to allegedly receive some unspecified award. However, a source within the Presidency told SaharaReporters that Mrs. Jonathan’s trip to France was a ploy to enable her to shop for new doctors in Europe for her deteriorating health.
A source disclosed that she left France for Spain. The same source disclosed that the First Lady was considering being moved to a US hospital today. However, a source in the US who is close to the First Family told SaharaReporters that he was “not heard from the first lady regarding her trip to the US.”
Ayo Osinlu, a spokesman of the First Lady, told SaharaReporters that Mrs. Jonathan was in Europe in order to care for an ailing elderly woman who helped raise the First Lady. He failed to disclose the specific European nation where Mrs. Jonathan’s foster mother is hospitalized.
During Mrs. Jonathan’s first extended medical sojourn in Germany, Mr. Osinlu had misled reporters by declaring that the First Lady was merely vacationing abroad after what he described as a series of grueling official functions, including the hosting of a conference of African First Ladies.
Mrs. Jonathan was noticeably absent from a Friday church service organized at the presidential villa yesterday as part of Easter celebrations. She was also missing at another key event where her Africa First Ladies Peace Mission donated relief material to the war-torn country of Mali. An aide of the First Lady reported that a minister, Ms. Jumoke Akinjide, represented Mrs. Jonathan at the event where relief material was donated to Mali.
During the church service at the Presidential Villa, President Jonathan was flanked by his elderly mother, Eunice Jonathan, as well as Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke and Ndudi Elumelu, a member of the House of Representatives indicted for corruption in power sector projects. Mrs. Alison-Madueke, who has been romantically linked to Mr. Jonathan, wore a large diamond ring at the church service.
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