The Action Congress (AC) has rejected the accusation that the opposition was responsible for peddling rumours about President Umaru Yar'Adua's health, insisting that the government's inept information managers triggered the scare by engaging in bare-faced lies in the first instance.

In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party lambasted those who have now resorted to blaming the opposition for the President's plight, warning them against using opposition bashing to feather their own nests.

"These people, most of whom are either seeking to be relevant or currying favours from the government in view of pending corruption allegations against them, have targeted the opposition and the media - especially the online news agencies - for the fiasco which the President's health issue has become in the past few weeks.

"Conveniently, they have failed to mention that had the information managers been straight with Nigerians from the start, there would have been nothing to speculate on," AC said.

Saying key officials of this federal government need a lesson in elementary information management, the party said President Yar'Adua's plight would have attracted sympathy and prayers from his compatriots, rather than anger and fear fuelled by rumours, had the government simply said from the onset that the President would use the opportunity offered by his visit to Saudi Arabia for lesser hajj to undergo medical checks.

Alternatively, it said, the President - if he does not want his health to become so big an issue - could have taken a two-week vacation, ostensibly to enable him rest, and then use the opportunity to attend to his health. After all, Presidents of the world's most advanced democracies, including the US, routinely take time off to relax.

"Having said that, we insist, without equivocating, that the President's health should not be treated as a private issue. The moment Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua signed on to be President, he signed off his privacy.

"Whether he likes it or not, every move he makes will always be a subject of intense public/media interest. This has nothing to do with the opposition as some palace jesters and expired party officials will want Nigerians to believe," AC said.

The party said it is simply irresponsible for PDP and federal government officials to now latch on to the fiasco they have made of the President's health to accuse the opposition of plotting secretly to remove the President from office or politicising the issue.

"They forgot that we, the AC, had said in our earlier statement that the issue of the President's health should neither be politicised nor trivialised, because he is the father of the nation. To now accuse us of politicising the issue is not only a lie but designed to exonerate those inept officials who - in other settings, will by now be languishing in the job market.

"This is not the first time that the information about the President's health has been mismanaged and this will definitely not be the last. This is because indications are that those who should be blamed for this faux pas have learnt nothing.

"We are a responsible opposition and will remain so, irrespective of the antics of a few misguided self seeking clowns. It is up to the President to see beyond these clowns masquerading as his loyalists to ensure better management of such a sensitive information next time," AC said.