Abuja (Nigeria): Nigeria`s acting president dissolved the Cabinet Wednesday more than a month after taking over the highest office in Africa`s most populous nation, the country`s information minister said.
"The acting president gives no reason for the dissolution," Dora Akunyili told reporters Wednesday. "There is no vacuum in the government as permanent secretaries will take charge."
Akunyili said that acting President Goodluck Jonathan would issue a statement soon on who will now serve in the Cabinet.
The Cabinet remained stocked with loyalists to ill President Umaru Yar`Adua, a Muslim from the country`s north. Some cabinet members had begun to shift allegiances from Yar`Adua to Jonathan as time passed. Akunyili herself had previously circulated a memo to the cabinet calling on it to install Jonathan as acting president — providing a rare public voice of dissent for those uncomfortable with Yar`Adua`s long absence from the country.
President Yar`Adua, long troubled by health ailments, hasn`t been seen publicly since November. He was treated at a hospital in Saudi Arabia for a heart condition for three months and only recently returned to Nigeria.
The National Assembly empowered Jonathan to become acting president in a vote last month. Since that time, Jonathan has yet to make any big moves to shake up government in this oil-rich nation.
Jonathan, a quiet 52-year-old biologist, remains largely an unknown in Nigeria. He is at the helm as the West African country faces endemic corruption, a simmering militancy and historical religious tensions that have led to hundreds of deaths in recent months.
Bureau Report
