Goodluck Jonathan Dissolves Executive Council

The news of the dissolution of the executive cabinet by the Nigerian Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan comes at a time when most in the country have watched with chagrin the nauseating and puerile vaudeville the Nigerian political environment has become. For months, President Yar'Adua was absent from the country and said to be undergoing medical treatment in Saudi Arabia while remaining incommunicado with all of his direct reports in the Nigerian Executive Council including his Vice President to whom he failed to transfer power.

Last month, frustrated by Mr. Yar'Adua's absence and the intrigues carried on by his closest official associates and purportedly his wife, the Nigerian congress decided to apply extraordinary methods to the extraordinary situation to formally transfer power to Jonathan in a yet contentious and arguably unconstitutional resolution. In the penumbra of this flux, Dr. Jonathan's legitimacy has been variously questioned, least of all by Mr. Yar'Adua's scroungers, who have made it difficult for Jonathan to effectively take charge. There have been varied insinuations and innuendos as to how the Acting President should conduct himself lest he transgresses against the powers that be in Northern Nigeria to whom the Presidency belongs for the next six years because of the arcane and asinine logic informing the "zoning of the presidency" by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Yar'Adua's and Jonathan's party.

It is refreshing to see Dr. Jonathan finally take charge. He needs not only to dissolve the Executive Council, he needs also to look at the various government parastatals and agencies which are peopled by Yar'Adua loyalist scroungers who may want to sabotage the efforts of the Acting President.