Hopes by Nigeria’s President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to attend the ongoing 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, USA, with First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, were dashed after doctors at the German hospital where she is receiving treatment declared her unfit for discharge, it has been revealed.

Quoting unnamed sources, the Lagos-based National Mirror reported this morning: “Dame was expected to join her husband in New York for the UN Assembly, but a team of doctors attending to the ailing first lady in Germany warned of dire consequences on her health should she embark on any long trip.”

The paper said “it was also gathered from a competent Presidency source that President Jonathan and his wife had planned to use the trip to New York to prove critics wrong and end speculations about the health of his wife.

“However, since it was not possible for Dame Patience to attend the UN Assembly with her husband, based on doctors’ advice, Jonathan had to make a stopover in Germany to see his ailing wife before arriving in New York.”

News Express reports that Dame Jonathan was rushed to Horst Schmidt Klinik in Wiesbaden, Germany, four weeks and assurances by the Presidency that she was recovering and would return to the country two weeks ago proved to be unrealistic. The ailing First Lady has remained incommunicado for over a month.

An official at Horst Schmidt Klinik once disclosed that initial records showed that the Nigerian President’s wife had earlier been treated for food poisoning back home before being brought to Horst Schmidt Klinik, where she underwent a major surgery for a ruptured appendix to remove the poisons in her intestine.

Though admitting that Dame Jonathan travelled to Germany, presidency spokesmen had claimed that she went for a rest but kept sealed lips on her whereabouts. The Presidency thereafter adopted a policy of silence on the First Lady’s fate despite repeated media enquiries.

*Photo: Dame Jonathan.

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