The months of political stalemate, however, have fallen away and the public and political mood has swung firmly behind Acting Pres. Jonathan. The PDP has also come out fully behind his new Administration.
The question is whether Dr Jonathan remains Acting President until those elections, or whether Pres. Yar'Adua is to be declared no longer President (which would then confirm Dr Jonathan, the Vice-President, as successor President). Another issue to be faced, then, is who would succeed Dr Jonathan, and would he remain on the next ticket as Vice-President.
In the short-term, however, Dr Jonathan has first to clean the stables, which he began doing with the appointment of a separate advisory council headed by former Defence Minister T. Danjuma; the appointment of Gen. Mohammed as NSA; and the dismissal of the old Cabinet.
The second task, once the stable clearing is under control, will be to actually address the problems of the Niger Delta, the Jos violence (and related issues of communal unrest), and corruption and security. Nigeria must rapidly have itself removed from the US terrorist watch list, which inhibits travel by Nigerians to the US.
Indeed, progress must be seen to be done in all these areas very rapidly if the PDP is to be able to expect to achieve what it has considered its birth-right: an unbeatable position going into the 2011 Presidential elections. Moreover, Nigeria has no time to waste for another reason: other African economies are now discovering large oil and gas reserves, and if they are seen to be more stable than Nigeria then they will benefit from foreign energy sector investment, and Nigeria's position will suffer from investment decline.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
