Information Minister Dora Akunyili announced the decision by Acting President Goodluck Jonathan at the same time that the state-run broadcaster broke the news to citizens long confused about who remained in charge of the oil-rich nation. Akunyili said Jonathan would issue a statement soon on who will now serve in the Cabinet.
"The acting president gives no reason for the dissolution," Akunyili told reporters Wednesday night. "There is no vacuum in the government as permanent secretaries will take charge."
The Cabinet remained stocked with loyalists of President Umaru Yar'Adua, a Muslim from the country's north. Some cabinet members had begun to shift allegiances from Yar'Adua to Jonathan, a Christian from the country's south, as time passed. Akunyili herself had previously circulated a memo to the cabinet calling on it to install Jonathan as acting president — providing a rare public voice for those uncomfortable with Yar'Adua's long absence from the country.
The move is the first major step by Jonathan, a quiet 52-year-old biologist from the Niger Delta who largely remained quiet as a constitutional crisis gripped the nation over Yar'Adua's absence. Yar'Adua left Nigeria in late November for medical treatment at a Saudi Arabian hospital over what his physician described as serious heart condition.
Though the nation's constitution offers clear steps for president to hand over power in his absence, Yar'Adua chose not to implement them. For months, many wondered how Yar'Adua would rule Africa's most populous nation from abroad.
The National Assembly empowered Jonathan to become acting president in a vote Feb. 9. Two weeks later, Yar'Adua's handlers apparently whisked the ill president back to the presidential palace in an ambulance surrounded by a military convoy. However, Yar'Adua still has not been seen publicly since returning.
Jonathan largely shied away from making major decisions since becoming acting president, though he did move some cabinet ministers loyal to Yar'Adua into new positions. While fears of a coup permeated the country, which has a long history of military dictators, top officials in the armed forces promised not to intervene.
Those forces likely will be kept at bay, even with Jonathan asserting more power, said analyst Charles Dokubo of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs.
"I think the Nigerian people have been so quiet and have been allowing things to unfold in an evolutionary manner," Dokubo told The Associated Press. Yar'Adua supporters "might make noise about it, but I don't think it will lead to any other upheaval or anarchy in the country."
Still Jonathan remains largely unknown in Nigeria, a former deputy state governor who rose to the governor's office after his predecessor was indicted on corruption charges. Now, as Yar'Adua remains ill and unseen, Jonathan finds himself at the helm as the West African country faces endemic corruption, simmering militancy in the oil-rich Niger Delta and long-running religious tensions that have led to hundreds of deaths in recent months.
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