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Lagos - Amb. Mokgethi Monaisa, Consul-General of the South African High Commission in Nigeria, on Sunday urged Nigerians to join in prayers for former South African President, Dr Nelson Mandela’s quick recovery. Monaisa in Lagos, said that South Africans were “earnestly praying” for their former president’s recovery, and would also need the prayers of the Nigerian people. ``As we all know, our former president is in hospital right now. South Africans are holding special prayer sessions for him, because we cannot afford to miss him. [caption id="attachment_279534" align="alignnone" width="412"] File photo: Nelson Mandela[/caption] ``We are also calling on our Nigerian brothers and sisters, to join us in praying for his quick recovery. We know that Nigerians and the rest of the world also hold him in high esteem. ``We believe that Nigeria and South Africa are close allies. So we need to jointly pray for him to live for many more years,” he said. The envoy s...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A day after turning 95, Nelson Mandela was Friday visited by fellow peace laureate, archbishop Desmond Tutu, who praised him for continuing to inspire the world even from his sickbed. "We have a special gift in a man who can unite not only South Africa but the world, even from his sickbed," Tutu told journalists outside a Pretoria hospital where the anti-apartheid icon is critically ill. [caption id="attachment_404882" align="alignnone" width="412"] South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu (R) and staff from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy hold up a poster wishing Nelson Mandela a happy birthday at the Marconi Beam Public Primary School in Cape Town on AFP PHOTO[/caption] Tutu said he found Mandela asleep but managed to hold his hand. "He inspired us to become a great country and the world to become compassionate," he said. Tutu also read the messages of support posted by the public on the wall o...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - US President Barack Obama paid warm tribute to South Africa's Nelson Mandela for his 95th birthday on Thursday, which the anti-apartheid icon will spend in hospital recovering from a lung infection. Obama's message came as Mandela's youngest daughter Zindzi said her father was making "remarkable" progress, and as admirers around the world prepared to honour the former South African president's legacy with a wave of charitable acts. [caption id="attachment_379050" align="alignnone" width="412"] *Obama[/caption] Obama, who visited South Africa last month but was unable to see Mandela because of his illness, was fulsome in his praise of the former statesman, referring to him by his clan name, Madiba. "Our family was deeply moved by our visit to Madiba's former cell on Robben Island during our recent trip to South Africa, and we will forever draw strength and inspiration from his extraordinary example of...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Graca Machel, the wife of ailing South African icon Nelson Mandela, said she was less anxious about his condition Friday, five weeks after he was admitted to hospital. "He continues to respond positively to treatment. I would say that today I'm less anxious than I was a week ago," she told state-backed SABC television. It is the latest in a series of upbeat accounts, which seem to suggest that while the 94-year-old's condition remains "critical", it has improved somewhat. [caption id="attachment_398100" align="alignnone" width="412"] Nelson Mandela[/caption] After visiting Mandela late Thursday, President Jacob Zuma said he was "responding to treatment." "He remains as much of a fighter now as he was 50 years ago," Zuma said, marking the anniversary of a police raid that led to Mandela's life sentence in prison. Earlier in the week Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, who is one of Mandela's ...

JOHANNESBURG - Nelson Mandela is responding to treatment but still in a critical condition, South African President Jacob Zuma said Wednesday after visiting the global peace icon in hospital. Zuma's comments came after one of Mandela's nephews told AFP that the former president was conscious. "We are encouraged that Madiba is responding to treatment," said Zuma, referring to the anti-apartheid hero by his clan name. Zuma added the 94-year-old is remains in "critical but stable" condition after more than one month of intensive hospital treatment. He urged the public to continue "showering him with love which gives him and the family strength". Mandela was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 over a recurring lung infection. Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, who is one of Mandela's nephew and king of his Thembu tribe, told AFP Wednesday the former statesman was "conscious". "He could not talk, but he recognised me and made a few gestures ...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Nelson Mandela's grandson on Monday denounced efforts to remove him as chief of the anti-apartheid icon's clan following a bitter family feud, as the former president started a second month in hospital. Mandla Mandela rejected attempts by Thembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo to strip him of his Madiba chieftaincy as the latest in a line of "delusional" statements from the monarch. [caption id="attachment_402527" align="alignnone" width="412"] The grandson of ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela, Mandla Mandela, talks to journalists during a press conference recently. AFP[/caption] "He doesn't have the authority to do that," Mandla's spokesman Freddy Pilusa told AFP. Mandla, 39, earlier said processes to appoint and remove chiefs were lengthy. "King Dalindyebo has a habit of making delusional announcements," Mandla said in a statement. "You don't just wake up and call...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A South African traditional king will try to revoke the chieftaincy of Nelson Mandela's grandson Mandla after a bitter family feud over gravesites, South African media reported Sunday. King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, the Xhosa king who rules the Thembu tribe to which the Mandela family belongs, accused Mandla Mandela of disgracing the family after the younger Mandela launched a nationally-televised tirade against his relatives and the king. "Mandla has never been the legitimate heir of the Madiba family," he told City Press newspaper, using the Mandela clan name. "I will write to him and tell him that my wish is that he is not involved in any of the affairs," he added. Nelson Mandela handpicked Mandla, 39, as his successor to head the Madiba clan in 2007. Dalindyebo's spokeswoman told the Sunday Times incorrect processes had been followed to install Mandla. [caption id="attachment_402527" align="alignnone" width="41...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Nelson Mandela remained hospitalised in a critical state for a fourth week Saturday after doctors ruled out turning off his life support unless he suffered massive organ failure. Meanwhile his grandson's lawyers were planning to lodge an official complaint over a court document which they say falsely claimed he was "in a permanent vegetative state". The anti-apartheid hero's health condition was unchanged over the weekend, South Africa's presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj told AFP. [caption id="attachment_402527" align="alignnone" width="412"] The grandson of ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela, Mandla Mandela, talks to journalists during a press conference recently. AFP[/caption] He is in a critical but stable condition after his June 8 admittance for an obstinate pulmonary infection and relies on machines to help him breathe. A close friend of the former statesman had said turning off life supp...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Nearly 15 years ago Nelson Mandela was unperturbed by his own death, telling a dying teenager that he had lived his life to the full. The video dating from 1998, broadcast by American news channel CBS on Thursday as Mandela remained in critically ill in hospital, showed the towering South African statesman visiting a 15-year-old, also named Nelson. "Understanding the fact that I'm near the end, I remain optimistic with my morale very high, because I'm saying I have lived my life," the statesman, then 80, told the teen, who was dying of brain cancer. In the amateur video the boy, his head shaved, smiled shyly from his bed at the peace icon, who wore one of his colourful trademark shirts. Posters of cars adorned the wall next to where the then-president sat holding a teacup. "If your spirit is not optimistic, your morale is not high, medicine is not very effective," the then president said. The boy died under three months after the visit. ...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A grave-digging dispute has added to the bitter family feuding, over sex, money and power, among Nelson Mandela's heirs which has set South Africans on edge as the anti-apartheid icon lies critically ill in hospital. The Nobel peace laureate is famous the world over for spending 27 years in jail and then reconciling with his white oppressors after he became the nation's first black president. But as the 94-year-old Mandela fights for his life, a legal battle among feuding relatives over his eventual resting place has descended into a messy public soap opera. Mandela's three deceased children were reburied Thursday after 15 family members, including his three daughters and wife Graca Machel, won an urgent court order against Mandela's oldest grandson, Mandla. The family said the 39-year-old Mandla, who is the clan's traditional chief had moved the remains from Mandela's childhood home in 2011 without the consent of the rest of the family. Sho...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Nelson Mandela's doctors have rejected the idea of turning off the ailing icon's life support unless he suffers massive organ failure, a close family friend told AFP. Denis Goldberg -- an anti-apartheid activist who has been Mandela's friend for more than half a century -- on Friday said the issue of turning off life support was discussed and ultimately dismissed. "I was told the matter had been raised and the doctors said they would only consider such a situation if there was a genuine state of organ failure," Goldberg said. [caption id="attachment_279534" align="alignnone" width="412"] File photo: Nelson Mandela [/caption] "Since that hasn't occurred they were quite prepared to go on stabilising him until he recovers." The 80-year-old Goldberg was convicted along with Mandela in 1964 for their fight against white-minority rule. He visited the former president in hospital on Monday. A court documen...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu Thursday pleaded with Nelson Mandela's family not to "besmirch" his name after they engaged in a public spat fuelled by a legal dispute over a burial site. The family of the global icon has been involved in a bitter legal squabble over the reburial of Mandela's three children whose remains were exhumed from a family graveyard in Qunu in 2011 and reburied in Mvezo. [caption id="attachment_353458" align="alignnone" width="412"] *Archbishop Desmond Tutu (I) with ‘son’[/caption] The remains were dug out by Mandela's oldest grandson Mandla, without the family's approval. On Thursday the remains were reburied in Qunu, Mandela's childhood village, after more that a dozen family members led by Mandela's daughter Makaziwe, applied for an urgent ruling forcing Mandla to return them. "Please, please please may we think not only of ourselves. It'...

MTHATHA - A South African court on Tuesday ordered the return of the remains of three of Nelson Mandela's children to his ancestral village, following a bitter family feud linked to the eventual burial site of the ailing anti-apartheid hero. A judge in the southern city of Mthatha instructed Mandela's eldest grandson Mandla to transfer the remains to Qunu by 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) on Wednesday. Mandla allegedly had the graves moved to Mvezo, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) away, without the rest of the family's consent in 2011. Mandela, who remains critically ill in what is now his fourth week in hospital, had expressed his wish to be buried in Qunu, and his daughters want to have the children's remains transferred so they can be together. [caption id="attachment_398100" align="alignnone" width="412"] Nelson Mandela[/caption] Previously the grandson has argued that Mandela should be buried at his birthplace Mvezo, where Mandla holds court as cl...

MTHATHA  (AFP) - Lawyers for Nelson Mandela's relatives met Monday to try to resolve a bitter family feud over the eventual burial site of the critically ill anti-apartheid hero. Legal teams met all day in the southern city of Mthatha after 16 relatives last week asked a court to order the return of the remains of three of Mandela's children to his ancestral village Qunu, a family lawyer said. His eldest grandson Mandla allegedly had the graves moved to Mvezo, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) away, without the rest of the family's consent in 2011. [caption id="attachment_279534" align="alignnone" width="412"] File photo: Nelson Mandela[/caption] Mandla is expected to file his answering papers on Tuesday and "then we will decide how to move forward," the 16 relatives' lawyer Sandla Sigadla told journalists after the talks. Mandela, who remains critically ill in what is now his fourth week in hospital, had expressed his wish to be bu...