Nobody, no matter how uncharitable, should, as it has become the official habit, dismiss the media hype in the past two weeks as a Shakespearean case of much ado about nothing. The truth, no matter, how galling, is that President Musa Yar’Adua’s health or ill health has remained the biggest story in the country, because it has not ceased to be the biggest concern of all Nigerians, without exception. It is not a matter of politics. It is a matter of human life, the life of someone so dear, loving and lovable and a darling to his family, if not anything else.

And then we are talking about the Number One Citizen whose health and general well being have become intrinsically intertwined with the health and the well being of the country. If he is happy, the country should be happy with him and if he is in distress, it sends a signal that all is not well with the country. From this perspective, there is no iota of doubt that Nigerians are very much concerned about the health of the president. And it is only in the media that you can monitor this concern.

If the press went gaga over this issue, it is not untypical. For the media, it has been the greatest story in town. The president of the country, so it appeared, sneaked out of the country ostensibly on pilgrimage to the Holy Land for lesser hajj. Two days, three days, going to one week. No news about his return. And then suddenly the second leg of his trip to Brazil, where he would have gone to commission the country’s new house, was re-adjusted according to foreign affairs minister, Ojo Madueke.

The unofficial news went round that the president was hospitalised and that he had in fact undergone surgery. No, said officials. The man was hale and hearty; he was coming back soon. Monday date shifted to Tuesday. It again shifted to Wednesday when he was billed to preside over the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting. Wednesday came and went but he was apparently marooned in the Holy Land. At the time of writing, the report from Saudi Arabia was that the doctors would run more tests on him before they decide the next line of action. As far as the press is concerned, doctors would not be doing all this on a perfectly healthy man who is in the Holy Land for lesser hajj or any hajj at all.

President Yar’Adua has said it himself before. He is a human being. Like any human being he can fall ill any time. What is the big deal about covering up his state of health? In fact, the country should be praying for their leader. In one year, even if the pace has been sluggish, the Yar’Adua administration has been meticulous in its plan to take the country to 2020 in a blaze of miracle as one of the 50 most developed economies of the world. In the process of planning, he has opened many windows into the shenanigans of the past administration which came with a thundering vow to put an end to corruption but which ended as the most corrupt administration this country has had the misfortune of witnessing. If nothing else, Yar’Adua should quickly regain his health so that the show can continue.

Before we rush to prosecute or vilify the press next time over the president’s health, it will be nice for us, or for those who speak for the government, to give a thought to how these matters are handled elsewhere, especially in the United States of America from where the current system was imported roots and branches. Obviously, no journalist in his right senses would expect big stories, especially stories that have to do with the health of their president, to be handed down to them on a platter of anything, gold or silver.

The year was 1955. Specifically on August 14. The US president, Dwight David Eisenhower, the 34th in the series, had taken a vacation out of Washington to Denver. He was accompanied by a battery of officials and a press corps of 22 persons – seven newspaper men and women, three wire service reporters, two from newsmagazines, two TV reporters three wire service photographers, four TV cameramen and one newsreel camera man. Everybody in the US knew their president was on vacation and every bit of his activity was being reported to the nation. All that until one night when he had problem with his heart.

His minders did all they could to keep the truth from the prying eyes of the media. The story was out, falsely, that the president had an upset stomach. Like Segun Adeniyi’s allergy story. Every one hour, there was a bulletin to talk on the president’s indigestive system. And the press kept feeding this falsehood to the public until it was no longer possible to conceal the truth. The truth was that the president had suffered a heart attack. But he survived it.

A year later his heart condition had deteriorated and required surgery. This time the journalists, having learnt the bitter lesson of having to be misinformed so that they in turn would misinform the public, decided to be on guard. Once beaten. They had known in advance that the operation would take place in Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington and they moved there in their battalion. The operation, an all night affair, was to create a bypass around ten inches of the president’s ileum – part of the small intestine.

Reporters who had besieged the hospital stood on the lawn in front of the building some with their binoculars, some with their unaided eye; they all had a very good view of the operating amphitheatre where six surgeons and nurses and technicians were on duty attending to the president’s problematic heart which was synonymous with the heart of America. They dutifully reported the truth about the health of their president to the American public. Spin doctors and other minders of our own president will do well next time to recognise the limits of deception.