New cabinet - finally

His Slowness, Umaru Yar'Adua, has finally named a cabinet. I can understand Ojo Maduekwe as Foreign Minister. He has the kind of compelling demagogic oratory one associates with snake-oil sellers; he'll sell well abroad. See the list.

Update:
The full list.

Hold the Front Page!

Yar'Adua is alive. The BBC Hausa service spoke to him at 1403hrs GMT from the hospital in Germany. That's Nigeria for you, we can't even rely on what should be very credible sources.

Yar'Adua dead?

Yar'Adua went to Germany for a "health check" yesterday. The rumours in Nigeria are that he is dead. I've got it from very good sources that he's dead. There hasn't been any official confirmation, which is why nobody is reporting it.

Brooms and Yards

PDP presidential nominee, and possibly president elect, Umaru Yar'Adua, has declared that should he become president, his administration will continue the war on corruption in Nigeria. All well and good. He might want to start sweeping his own yard, with Goodluck Jonathan's wife being investigated for money laundering. I have an mp3 of the interview, but I can't find any youtube or google video type resources to embed it on the page.

Thanks Nilla, but webjay and upload people were all convoluted and annoying. So, I've slapped his picture on a video track and then put the interview on a soundtrack.

A word for the Dukists.

It was inevitable that Duke would not win the PDP nomination. First of all, it was all too good to be true. And when it appears to be so, it invariably is. But Dukists need not despair, worse things could have happened - Babangida could have sought the PDP's nomination. This would have given him a head start, except he's now in a less favourable position should he seek another party's ticket. Best of all though, it means I don't have to go into exile!

If rumours that Duke rejected outright an offer of running mate are true, then he has acted rashly and egotistically. There is the saying about the Labour party in the UK, that they don't actually like being in power because it means they have responsiblities. They'd rather carp on righteously from the sidelines and remain in opposition. But, any politician who claims to care about his people knows that one can only do things with power. Making noise without power, just makes you a... erm... journalist.

What Donald Duke needs is to sign a Granita Pact, or at least one that's worth the paper napkin it's not written on. Granita is of course the name of the restaurant where Messieurs Gordon Brown and Tony Blair apparently signed a deal where Brown lets Blair become Labour leader, in return for substantial power. So Blair became the face of the 'Third Way', and Brown wielded the chequebook as Chancellor. Duke should tell Yar'Adua that he can offer him the South's support come election time. The only problem is the warped reality that Odili is possibly the only person who could deliver the South.

There's the worry in the Yar'Adua camp that a bombastic running mate shouldn't be appointed - of the Odili kind. But, given Yar'Adua's natural "taciturn", "dour", demeanour (just some of the words used to decribe him), it seem inevitable that even a shrinking violet would outshine him. Another key point is his dodgy kidney. If Yar'Adua ends up a sick president, his veep would need to be more prominent in being the face of the presidency and the government.

For Duke to still be in the reckoning when the PDP nomination becomes vacant again, he better start horse-trading. Just my not so humble opinion.