Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan will send a list of ministerial nominees for Senate approval by early next week and is likely to reappoint around half the Cabinet, a presidency source said yesterday.
“Twenty of the ministers will certainly come back,” the source said, adding that outgoing Minister of State for Petroleum Odein Ajumogobia was likely to be chosen as the new oil minister of the OPEC member country.
The source also said outgoing Defense Minister Godwin Abbe, who has been leading implementation of an amnesty in the restive oil-producing Niger Delta, was likely to be reappointed to continue work on the program.
Jonathan dissolved the Cabinet on Wednesday in a bid to consolidate his authority at the helm of Africa’s most populous nation. He assumed executive powers early last month during a prolonged absence abroad of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua.
The surprise Cabinet move heightened immediate uncertainty in the oil-producing nation of 140 million people, leaving civil servants in charge of ministries until new ministers are screened and approved.
However, the step could allow Jonathan to move ahead more quickly with his own team on his stated priorities — including electoral reforms, fighting corruption, implementing the Niger Delta amnesty and delivering reliable electricity supplies.
Former Information Minister Dora Akunyili, the only Cabinet member to openly criticize those around Yar’Adua for the handling of his absence, was likely to be made Minister for the Federal Capital Territory, the source said.
Meanwhile, Muslim herdsmen disguised as soldiers on Wednesday butchered and then torched around a dozen Christians in Nigeria, near the site of a recent sectarian massacre, officials and witnesses said.
Most of the victims of the raid on Byei and Batem villages in the Riyom region of the central Plateau state were women and children, state radio reported, as locals accused security forces of failing to act quickly to prevent the slaughter.
A reporter at the scene of the carnage in Byei said he had counted 12 bodies that bore deep machete cuts and had been partially burned.
“I can confirm that 13 people have died while six others have been critically injured,” State Information Commissioner Gregory Yenlong said.
A senior government official who visited the village said that two teenagers, a young boy and three women in their 60s were among the victims.
“What I saw in the village was very sad. I saw corpses of some women, some of them very old, one of a child less than five years and that of a woman who was burnt with a baby on her back,” he said.
Half a dozen homes had also been torched by the killers, the reporter said. Surviving residents could be seen crying and wailing in grief.
Seven suspects were arrested after the carnage outside Jos, the capital of Plateau State, a senior army officer said in a statement.
“We have succeeded in arresting seven of the assailants while our men are on the trail of others,” General Donald Orji said in the statement.
“Items recovered from the suspects include three locally-made short guns with cartridges, bows, arrows, machetes, knives and cutlasses. They have been handed over to the police for further investigations,” he said.
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
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