The Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan has sacked nine members of his cabinet in what inside anonymous of the government say is a division in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
This latest development comes after seven ruling party governors and a former presidential candidate formed an alliance seeking to oppose President Jonathan in the 2015 general elections.
Presidential spokesman told journalists that Mr. Jonathan had removed the ministers of foreign affairs, education, science and technology, housing and urban development, national planning, and environment. Deputy Ministers of state for power, agriculture and defense were also dismissed.
Information Minister Labaran Maku also told journalists that other ministers will take on the responsibilities of the vacant positions until the president decides on replacements.
“The President said he needed to inject new blood for more service delivery, hence the need to adjust his cabinet, others will take charge for the time being now’’, he said.
But an anonymous source close to the presidency told journalists that President Jonathan held a mediation talks with members of the breakaway PDP faction but the meeting ended without a resolution and is the reason behind this development in the cabinet.
“It would be suicide for the defectors to come back now, equally Jonathan can’t realistically meet their demands,” one anonymous government official told the Reuters African Service.
The split within the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which has been in power since shortly after the end of military rule in 1998, is believed to be centered around president Jonathan’s assumed plan to run again in 2015.
Many northerners say Jonathan’s running again would violate an unwritten rule within the PDP that power should rotate between the largely Muslim north and mostly Christian south every two terms. President Jonathan is a southerner and a Christian.
President Jonathan, a southerner took office after the unexpected death of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2010 and run again in the 2011 general elections which he won.
But some northern politicians say it is the turn of someone from Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north to be the national president.
Issaka Adams / NationalTurk Africa News
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