President Goodluck Jonathan will finish naming his new administration in the coming days, a team which could make or break the nation’s hopes of forging ahead with reforms over the next four years.
Jonathan, who was sworn in for his first full term on May 29 after winning April elections, has already reappointed 12 ministers from the outgoing government to their old jobs, including oil minister Deziani Alison-Madueke.
The return of so many familiar faces led Jonathan’s critics to question whether his new team will have the reformist credentials it needs. His backers say retaining a core of the old guard will help to ensure consistency.
Government sources have said Jonathan has spoken with World Bank managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance minister, about her returning to the government in overall charge of the economy.
Her inclusion in the cabinet would bring credibility to his reform ambitions. But she is understood to want a role that would give her more autonomy than the outgoing minister and it is not clear whether she will be persuaded to return.
Jonathan is the first head of state from the minority Ijaw ethnic group in the oil-producing Niger Delta and the new cabinet will also need to balance out regional interests to ensure other parts of the country retain a political voice.
Radical Islamic sect Boko Haram poses a growing national security concern, beyond its traditional northeastern home region.
The sect claimed responsibility for a bomb blast two weeks ago outside the national police headquarters in the capital Abuja, while killings and bomb attacks in the northeast have killed more than 150 people since the start of the year.
NEW ADMINISTRATION
Jonathan has so far confirmed 14 new members of what is expected to be his more than 40-strong cabinet, 12 of them returning to the same posts they held in the outgoing administration.
Besides Alison-Madueke, those returning also include planning minister Shamsuddeen Usman, minister for the oil producing Niger Delta Godsday Orubebe, justice minister Mohammed Bello Adoke and mines minister Mohammed Sada.
Jonathan has so far submitted a list of 34 names for Senate approval meaning Okonjo-Iweala could still technically make a return. Outgoing finance minister Olusegun Aganga is on the list but could be moved to a new post.
Jonathan’s path to the presidency has not been an easy one and there is a list of regional and political factions who feel he owes them for his victory. Such debts have in the past crimped Nigerian leaders’ ability to pursue their reform plans.
He had to convince powerful northern politicians in his own party to back him at the primaries and eschew a tacit agreement that power rotates between north and south every two terms, a deal which would have ruled out his candidacy.
Jonathan emerged with a credible mandate, having won 59 percent of the vote, but the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) saw its parliamentary majority weaken and lost control of several powerful state governorships.
What to watch:
— The choice of finance minister
— Appointments of newcomers to key ministries
NATIONAL SECURITY
Bomb attacks in parts of the north have rapidly replaced militant raids on oil facilities in the southern Niger Delta as the main security threat in Africa’s most populous nation.
An explosion killed at least five people and injured 10 more on Sunday at a bar near a police barracks in the northeastern town of Maiduguri, the latest in a series of such strikes.
Home-made bombs thrown from the back of motorbikes killed around 25 people a week earlier in the most deadly single attack in the town so far.
Boko Haram’s ideology is not widely supported by Nigeria’s Muslim population, the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, but poverty and unemployment have helped it build a cult-like anti-government following.
Low-level guerrilla attacks on police stations and killings, including of traditional leaders and moderate Islamic clerics, have intensified since late last year.
The April polls may have been deemed the cleanest for decades but they threw regional rivalries into sharp relief.
Jonathan, a southern Christian, won a sweeping victory in the south but his rival, northern Muslim and ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, won a majority in most of the north, where there is resentment in some areas over the outcome.
Youths rioted in northern towns after Jonathan was announced the poll winner. Mosques, churches, homes and shops were razed in what the government said was orchestrated violence. Human Rights Watch said more than 800 people were killed.
There is a longer-term fear that economic and political marginalisation of the north will make it an increasingly fertile recruiting ground for militant Islamists.
What to watch:
— Further bomb attacks in the north or the capital
— Efforts to negotiate with or arrest Boko Haram members
POLICY AND REFORM
Jonathan signed an amended 4.485 trillion naira ($29 billion) budget at the end of May, spending which on paper will keep sub-Saharan Africa’s second biggest economy just within a 3 percent deficit target.
The final figure was a compromise between parliament, which wanted to spend more, and the outgoing government, which wanted this year to mark the start of a period of fiscal consolidation.
There have been other positive moves.
Jonathan signed a bill to create a sovereign wealth fund meant to better manage the OPEC member’s long-squandered oil savings, although its establishment is only the first step and its success will depend on how efficiently it is managed.
The naira has been strengthening against the dollar on the back of supportive policy moves by the central bank, including the easing of restrictions on foreign ownership of government debt.
The central bank is taking a tougher line to resolve a banking crisis, giving lenders rescued in a 2009 bailout until the end of September to reach deals with new investors or face effective nationalisation or liquidation.
Disgruntled shareholders in some of the banks have been holding out for better deals, delaying the central bank’s efforts to push ahead with reform.
But there is less progress in other areas.
Wide-ranging legislation to overhaul the mainstay oil sector, the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), faces further debate by a new parliament and is seen as unlikely to pass this year.
Billions of dollars of investment by oil firms is on hold until there is clarity over the bill, which will redefine the fiscal and legal framework for projects, dashing Nigeria’s hopes of a significant rise in oil output in the coming years.
What to watch:
— Deals signed by rescued banks
— Parliament taking up the PIB