![Nelson Mandela](http://cdn.informationnigeria.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Nelson-Mandela-9397017-1-4021-300x300.jpg)
Nelson Mandela
Former
South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela remained
in hospital for a third day on Monday with a lung infection and his
condition was “serious but stable”, unchanged from the weekend when a
statement was first released about his state of health, the government
said.
In a two-sentence statement, President Jacob Zuma repeated
his call for the country to pray for the ailing 94-year-old, who became
the first black leader of Africa’s biggest economy after historic
all-race elections in 1994.
It is Mandela’s fourth hospital stay
since December and the use of the word “serious” to describe his
condition has intensified concerns about the health of a man revered
around the world as a symbol of perseverance and reconciliation.
However,
among South Africa’s 53 million people there is a growing realisation
they will one day have to say goodbye to Mandela, who some thought
wouldn’t survive his last stay in the hospital.
On state radio on
Monday morning, the top two news items were a long-running scandal in
the national prosecutor’s office and a snap of cold weather hitting
Johannesburg.
The previous day, the Sunday Times newspaper struck a
philosophical tone, with the front-page headline “It’s time to let him
go”.
“The
family must release him so that God may have his own way. They must
release him spiritually and put their faith in the hands of God,” it
quoted long-time friend and anti-apartheid freedom fighter Andrew
Mlangeni as saying.
“Once the family releases him, the people of South Africa will follow.”
“Madiba”,
the clan name by which he is affectionately known, has a history of
lung problems dating back to his time on the wind-swept Robben Island
prison camp near Cape Town.
Before his 1990 release he spent nearly three decades in prison for conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government.
He
stepped down as president in 1999 after one term in office and has been
removed from politics for a decade. His last appearance in public was
at the final of the soccer World Cup in Johannesburg in 2010.
A
phalanx of international and local media assembled in front of the
Mediclinic Heart Hospital in the capital, Pretoria, where Mandela was
believed to be staying and receiving visits from close family.
His
wife, Graca Machel, had accompanied him to the hospital on Saturday
after cancelling a speaking engagement in London, the South African
Press Association reported.