First Lady Hajia Turai Yar’Adua who has been beside her husband in Saudi Arabia where he is being treated for acute pericarditis (inflammation of the heart’s lining) since November 23, was to return to Nigeria on Saturday with many of the close aides of the president, who initially accompanied them on the Saudi trip, but sources said she cancelled the trip when the president’s condition took a turn for the worse.

Back home, the uncertainty from Saudi Arabia made the Presidency to place its officials on 24-hour alert up till Saturday morning, according to an anonymous source from Aso Rock - Nigeria's presidential mansion.

Mounting the nationwide panic, Nigeria’s senate president, David Mark, reiterated his call on Nigerians to pray for the health of the president. In a statement, Mark said “in spite of the anxious moments in the country, Nigerians should stay steadfast and pray for their leader.”

Top traditional rulers and politicians from northern Nigeria - Yar’Adua’s stronghold - met in Abuja last week to discuss the president’s health situation.

No communiqué was issued after the meeting but sources close to the conclave, according to the Nigerian Tribune, said the attendants raised a contact committee to find out if President Yar'Adua could continue till 2011 – end of his first term - and if he could not, he would be pressured to resign and hand over to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan to continue with the rest of the term.

It was also learnt via same sources that the committee was poised to extract a commitment from the vice-president to only complete Yar'Adua's tenure and not to run for the 2011 presidential elections.

Many Nigerians, according to The Guardian newspaper, are getting more apprehensive about the health of their president and the future of their country.