Jonathan uses reshuffle to unite divided party
NIGERIAN President Goodluck Jonathan sacked nine ministers yesterday in his first major cabinet reshuffle, as he looked to rally support in an increasingly divided ruling party.
The dismissals, which did not affect key finance and oil positions, come less than two weeks after seven ruling party governors and a former presidential candidate formed a splinter group opposed to Mr Jonathan.
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 centred around Mr Jonathan’s assumed plan to run again in 2015, although he has not declared his intentions.
Mr Jonathan removed the ministers of foreign affairs, education, science and technology, housing and urban development, national planning, and environment, a presidency spokesman said. The junior “ministers of state” for power, agriculture and defence were also dismissed.
“He said he needed to inject new blood for more service delivery, hence the need to adjust his cabinet,” Information Minister Labaran Maku said.
Other ministers will take on the responsibilities of the vacant positions until Mr Jonathan decides on replacements. “Since these positions are not of huge policy significance, it appears to be more of a political play than a change of economic direction,” said Clement Nwankwo, a political analyst at the Abuja-based Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre.
But Mr Maku denied Mr Jonathan was using the reshuffle to bring more of his core supporters into his cabinet. “It is part of the process of improving service delivery and not with any political undertone,” he said.
Mr Jonathan had held mediation talks with members of the breakaway PDP faction into the early hours of yesterday but they ended without a resolution and experts believe the internal dispute could rumble on for months and possibly until elections.
“It would be suicide for the defectors to come back now, equally Jonathan can’t realistically meet their demands,” said one source close to the negotiations.
Among the demands of the breakaway faction are that Mr Jonathan publicly says he will not run in 2015 and that he sacks the PDP chairman Bamanga Tukur, replacing him with a candidate of the faction’s choosing, three political sources said.
The PDP chairman has strong influence over the voting for the party’s presidential candidate. “Some of the demands are unconstitutional,” Ahmed Gulak, Jonathan’s political adviser, said after the talks. “These demands are not in accordance with the law.” Mr Gulak did not give details of the demands.
The party may lose the next election unless genuine efforts to reconcile the aggrieved members are made
Many northerners say Mr 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.
Wrangling will erode the political will needed to push through reforms, including to Africa’s biggest energy industry. The Petroleum Industry Bill, a longdelayed law that could unlock billions of dollars of oil and gas investment, looks increasingly unlikely to pass before the elections. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries member is already losing about 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of its 2.5-million bpd oil output capacity because of widespread oil theft and pipeline shut-ins.
The open rebellion could mean that Mr Jonathan’s loyalists will use state funds to pay off rivals, draining the Treasury in a pattern that often sees the country’s savings depleted and debt soar around election time. There will be an increased risk of instability as the poll approaches.
Violence, always high at election time, may worsen, as rivals use unemployed youth militia to settle scores.
The combination of internal resistance against Mr Jonathan as well as serious efforts by the country’s main opposition groups to unite have come amid early strategising for 2015 polls.
Whether the ruling PDP can iron out its differences and fend off the opposition will have huge implications for Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer. The 2015 vote will come after years of Islamist attacks in the north and with oil theft in the south estimated to cost about $6bn per year in revenue.
“The party may lose the next election unless genuine efforts to reconcile the aggrieved members are made,” said Laja Odukoya, a political science lecturer at the University of Lagos.
But others remain more optimistic, believing that the PDP remains a behemoth more than capable of righting the ship, flush with cash and with the power of the presidency. Still, the challenges facing the party cannot be underestimated.
The dissidents who walked out at the August 31 meeting have been seeking to publicly make their case. One of the most prominent, Rotimi Amaechi, the governor of Rivers state in the Niger delta who has been in a high-profile feud with the president, met with foreign journalists last Monday in Lagos.
The governor, considered a possible vice-presidential candidate, said the electorate had come to expect more in a country where corruption and mismanagement had long characterised politics. “What we’re doing is to correct the party to ensure that when we present ourselves before the people in 2015, we will be credible enough to get the number of votes that will put us back in power.”
Their strategy is not clear. One option may be to present their own candidate to challenge Mr Jonathan in the party’s primary — though they could eventually fall in line with the president if they are offered enough concessions.
The dissident group is not the ruling party’s only headache.
Nigeria’s main opposition parties moved earlier this year to combine forces, potentially posing a serious threat to the PDP if they can overcome infighting. The new opposition alignment, the All Progressives Congress, includes parties with significant regional clout as well as a number of influential figures.
Mr Odukoya said the combination of internal splits and a unified opposition held the potential for what might have once seemed unthinkable: a PDP defeat in presidential polls. But Debo Adeniran of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders pressure group was cautious over what may come of the ruling party’s bickering.