NIGERIA'S Foreign Minister, Ojo Maduekwe, spent most of the last one week warding off charges from members of the Nigerian public that the Federal Government has been less than forthcoming in the manner it has intimated the country about the fate of President Umar Musa Yar'Adua since the later (reportedly) traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, because of a presumed heart defect.

Following the controversial election victory that catapulted Alhaji Yar'Adua from governor of the northern Katsina State to president, commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria, he has embarked on a number of foreign trips, some of them deemed as "working visits" to either Europe or the Arab World. Once or twice, the print media in the country has confirmed that the president's well-known medical condition had necessitated an emergency visit to Paris, France.

President Yar'Adua's most recent foreign trip may be traced to November 23, last year, when he was seen entering a Saudi hospital. His protracted absence from the country, now proven to have surpassed his impromptu departure to France, ahead of April 2007 polls, has now led to three separate court cases. One of them is said to border on Mr. Yar'Adua failure or refusal to handover the reigns of power to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, in the spirit of the constitution of the land.

Criticism of the government has grown much more vociferous, especially since the December 25 botched attempt by a foreign-trained Nigerian-born engineer, Umar Faruk Abdul Mutallab, to blow up an American passenger aircraft over the U.S. city of Detroit. On two fronts, the government has come under a lot of flak. On the failed attempt by the Nigerian man, for instance, the government had, at one time, been accused of a lack of co-ordination or forthrightness in its handling of the matter. In recent days, however, Information Minister, Mrs. Dora Akunyili, has been going to extra length to reassure both a skeptical Nigerian public and a less amenable international community that the government remains in charge of affairs, and no political vacuum of any sort exists, in the wake of President Yar'Adua's prolonged absence. In one of her numerous news conferences since December 5, an irate Mrs. Akunyili announced last Wednesday new security rules for Nigerian air travellers. According to her, the new rule, which also affects nationals of 13 other countries, has the potential to undermine "the established, longstanding bilateral ties between Abuja and Washington".

As for Mr. Maduekwe, he appeared upset about rife accusations that the government has been economical with information on either the state of Mr. President's health or how long he's to remain out of the country, in the face of what may sooner, rather than later, evolve into a major crisis between Nigeria and a cross-section of the international community over the Mutallab affair. "It's well within the rights of these Nigerians to go to court," Mr. Maduekwe told a reporter. "But, what do Nigerians want to know about the president that we've not told them?" He inquired angrily. He then went cynical, asking to know whether Nigerians needed more information about "how many times the president coughs in a day", "if he's been eating", "how often he sneezes', and the likes.

But, in a move that was widely interpreted as designed to assuage the domestic public, or merely co bridge the communication gap with the populace, President Yar'Adua's chief economic adviser told the country that the president's condition "has substantially improved", and that he had begun speaking to top government officials. The president reportedly spoke by phone, on the night of Tuesday, January 5, to his vice-president, as well as the leaders of the national assembly.

Guinea-Conakry is another country in the sub-region where the populace and the wider world community have to come to terms with the fall-outs of absentee-leader. On Tuesday, January 5, the top United States diplomat for Africa, Johnny Carson, and his French counterpart met in Morocco with Guinea's defence minister, Sekouba Konate. The army general also doubles as the country's interim leader, after the leader of the military junta, Moussa Dadis Kamara, was shot in the head by one of his aides on December 3.

Less than a day after the junta leader was shot by Major Abubakar "Toumba" Diakite, the authorities flew him away to Morocco, where he was treated. It is not as if the issue of an ailing, non-functioning president is a particularly strange phenomenon to Guineans. For instance, during the twilight years of his twenty-four-year reign, the late president, General Lansana Conte, was bed-ridden for virtually all the time, and was deemed incapable of carrying out his official duties.

During the period in review, rumours of the president's death were as widespread as they were umpteen. More importantly, however, his ill-health, as well as incidental incapacitation, did create a power vacuum, and politicians, be they from the opposition and the government, are known to have profited from Mr. Conte's inability to take charge of the affairs of the country. The outcome was a flourishing spate of corrupt practices and paralysis of governance.

So, as Dadis Kamara was flown to Morocco, has, quite understandably, sent ordinary Guineans into an anxious and disquieting wait, demanding that the true state of their president's health be made public, so as not to throw Guinea into the same trap as in the case of the General Conte.

At present in Guinea, there is no clear-cut succession policy within the thirty-two-member military junta, known as the C.N.D.D., or the National Council for Democracy and Development. The reason is simple. Prior to Dadis's shooting well over a month ago, he had been military leader for just under a year, in the wake of the bloodless coup that followed the passing of Lansana Conte in 2008. The man believed to be the actual mastermind of the coup is General Sekouba Konate, who is senior to the officer, Captain Kamara, who was allowed to become head of the junta.

Even now that Capital Kamara's absence has more or less forced the top job on General Konate, he's so far proved unable to make any clear pronouncement on Kamara's health, despite having been to Morocco to see the junta boss a couple of times since December 3.

Nevertheless, contradictory statements from other members of the government, concerning the state of the captain's condition have failed to reassure no one. In response, Guinea's social forces, including trade union organizations and civil society groups, recently delivered an ultimatum to the military government: i.e. clarification of Captain Kamara's state of health or face civil disobedience (marches). "We will never again allow the health of a leader to impede the progress of this nation," said one union leader.

Next-door to regional giant, Nigeria is another French-speaking country, Cameroon. Even if Cameroon is widely recognized as almost entirely seated on the sands of central Africa, it is in geopolitical terms part of West Africa. For just under nineteen years, he has been the only leader known to many ordinary Cameroonians. He is also well known for spending a lot of time abroad; even it is more for holidays than medical treatments. The seventy-eight-year-old president can sometimes be so discreet about his foreign visits that Cameroonians often do not know his whereabouts.

President Paul Biya is the man. Not only does he embark on such trips with his wife, but, the presidential couple goes overseas so often that most people find it strange whenever he appears to stay "so long in the country without finding where to go". The biggest news of all has always been the president returns home, often to a lot of fanfare.

Many Cameroonians will not be in a hurry to forget the immediate aftermaths of their president's departure from the national capital, Yaoundé, to sign the historic Green Tree Peace Accords on the disputed Bakassi Peninsula with Nigeria's former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, in New York, a couple of years ago, when Paul Biya simply vanished for several weeks. When it seems that everyone had forgotten that Mr. President was absent in the first place, national radio came up with "breaking news" that the presidential couple had returned home, one Wednesday evening.

Cameroonians have not stopped worrying about President Biya's frequent and often prolonged holidays abroad, because he has given them little or no reason(s) whatever to stop worrying. Many times, the opposition has been left incensed.

"Working visits" is one term state radio in Cameroon has always described the president's foreign trips. On one of such trips, various reports filtered in to say the president had died, sending many Cameroonians out into the streets in wild celebrations. Shortly thereafter, an apparently healthy Mr. Biya returned to the stage, so to speak-declaring those wishing the president dead would be disappointed, because he was still their president for many more years. Government ministers and other cohorts of the ruling party also went on the offensive, denouncing the authors of the rumour, calling them agents that were being used to "destabilize the state".

Only last year, the French press claims that Mr. Biya was spending more than 40,000 dollars per night in a luxury hotel in the south of France. Springing to the defence of his boss, the Communications Minister, Isa Chiroma Bakarre, called the stories "dangerous lies generated by enemies of the sate to create political upheaval in the country".