Nigerian president picks cabinet ministers
ABUJA (AFP) - Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has sent a list of 34 ministers to the Senate for its approval ahead of forming a new government, following his re-election last month, the senate chief said Tuesday.
They include 13 ministers from his outgoing cabinet, including the finance minister Olusegun Aganga, a former Goldman Sachs executive.
Senate President David Mark read out the list to members of the upper house of parliament which resumed sitting on Tuesday after a three-week recess.
"The senate is ready to start the process of screening of ministerial nominees as early as tomorrow," a senior senator, Victor Idoma-Egba, told reporters.
Jonathan is reportedly planning to bring into his government World Bank managing director for Africa, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. She was a finance minister under former president Olusegun Obasanjo and negotiated the cancellation of 18 billion dollars of Nigeria's debt with the Paris Club.
Although Okonjo-Iweala's name was not on the initial list submitted to the Senate, Jonathan is expected to present additional nominees soon.
Jonathan's initial list of 34 does however include Diezani Alison-Madueke, the first woman to head the powerful petroleum ministry in the OPEC member nation when she was appointed by the president last year.
Johathan assumed office on May 29 following April elections deemed the fairest since independence in 1960.
The president has said his priority was to transform Africa's most populous nation, where despite the nation's huge oil wealth, much of the population of 150 million lives in poverty without basics such as water and electricity.
One of the newcomers on the list is Barth Nnaji, who was named last year to head a special presidential task force charged with developing and driving a plan to increase power generation and supply in the country.
© 2011 AFP