Nigeria leader to choose new cabinet quickly

By Felix Onuah

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan will nominate a new ministerial team by early next week, and is likely to reappoint around half the cabinet he has just sacked, presidency sources said Thursday.

Fast appointment of the ministers could do much to alleviate uncertainty in Africa's most populous nation after Jonathan dismissed the entire cabinet Wednesday, consolidating his authority a month after assuming executive powers.

"Twenty of the ministers will certainly come back," one of the presidency sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity, adding that he expected Jonathan to send his list to the Senate for approval by Tuesday.

Former Minister of State for Petroleum Odein Ajumogobia was likely to be the new oil minister in the OPEC member nation while outgoing Defence Minister Godwin Abbe, who has overseen an amnesty program in the oil-producing Niger Delta, would be re-appointed, the source said.

Choosing a new cabinet which retains a large number of ministers suggests Nigeria's broad policy direction is unlikely to change and could let Jonathan push ahead more authoritatively with his agenda in the 14 months left in the presidential term.

"The cabinet dissolution is a bid to inject fresh blood and bring in greater vigour to governance," Jonathan's spokesman Ima Niboro said, declining to comment further.

Senator Abba Aji, the presidential adviser on national assembly matters, said the Senate would approve the list of ministerial nominees as quickly as possible. The chairman of the ruling PDP said the party was "very satisfied" with the dissolution of the cabinet.

Jonathan assumed executive powers in early February to try to end government paralysis in the absence of President Umaru Yar'Adua, who had been in a clinic in Saudi Arabia receiving treatment for a heart condition for more than two months.