Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan was at press time inaugurating members of his new cabinet and assigning them portfolios.

The Senate last Wednesday approved 38 nominations for ministers after Jonathan had two weeks earlier sacked his entire 42-member cabinet a little over a month after taking power from seriously ill President Umaru Yar’Adua. Fourteen members in the new cabinet are from the dissolved government.

Jonathan dissolved the cabinet on 17 March as he moved to assert his authority after taking over from Yar’Adua, who returned to Nigeria on February 24 after three months in Saudi Arabia for treatment for pericarditis, a heart condition.

His new cabinet line-up includes a top banker from Goldman Sachs, Olusegun Aganga. It also includes Murtala Yar’Adua, a nephew of the ailing president.

Former junior ministers Remi Babalola for finance, Odein Ajumogobia for petroleum and Godsday Orubebe for the oil-rich Niger Delta region are among the members of the former cabinet approved for the new government.

Others confirmed were ex-information minister Dora Akunyili, former finance minister Samsudeen Usman, ex-justice minister Adetokunbo Kayode and former minister of planning in the 1999-2007 administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Sanusi Daggash.

Jonathan is eyeing a pro-reform government for Africa’s most populous nation, where much of the population of 150 million lives in poverty without basics such as water, good roads and electricity despite its oil wealth.

The new ministers are expected to serve until next year when elections are to be held.

The ministers-designate would have been sworn-in on Thursday last week but the event was postponed till today because of the long Easter break.

The Acting President had on 17 March, after a meeting with the former Federal Executive Council members, announced its dissolution.




http://thepmnews.com/2010/04/06/jonathan-swears-in-new-ministers