LAGOS, June 24 (Reuters) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is close to finalising his new cabinet, with World Bank managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala being wooed for an expanded role in charge of the economy, sources said on Friday.

Jonathan was sworn in for his first full term almost a month ago and his ministerial choices are being closely watched by Nigerians and foreign investors keen for a team capable of driving much needed reforms in Africa’s most populous nation.

He has spoken with Okonjo-Iweala, a respected former finance minister who helped negotiate debt relief in 2005, about returning to cabinet with additional broad powers over economic management, sources familiar with the negotiations said.

“We’re facing some tough fiscal decisions such as (ending) petroleum subsidies, minimum wage issues. So the idea is to have a strong and robust economic management team,” one source close to the presidency told Reuters.

“You need to bring in somebody who has been there before, who understands both the domestic and the international implications of these issues,” the source said.

Security and government sources said Okonjo-Iweala met Jonathan during his trip to the United States this month and again in Abuja this week. There was no comment from the presidency, while Okonjo-Iweala could not be reached.

Okonjo-Iweala was praised as finance minister for fighting corruption and negotiating the cancellation of nearly two-thirds of Nigeria’s $30 billion Paris Club debt. She was suddenly reassigned by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo to foreign minister in 2006, a move that was never properly explained.

LAGOS, June 24 (Reuters) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan is close to finalising his new cabinet, with World Bank managing director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala being eyed for an expanded role in overall charge of the economy, sources said on Friday.

Jonathan was sworn in for his first full term almost a month ago and his ministerial choices are being closely watched by Nigerians and foreign investors keen for a team capable of driving badly-needed reforms in Africa’s most populous nation.

Okonjo-Iweala, a respected former finance minister who helped negotiate debt relief in 2005, is being considered for finance minister with additional broad powers over economic management, sources familiar with the negotiations said.

“We’re facing some tough fiscal decisions such as (ending) petroleum subsidies, minimum wage issues. So the idea is to have a strong and robust economic management team,” one source close to the presidency told Reuters.

“You need to bring in somebody who has been there before, who understands both the domestic and the international implications of these issues,” the source said.

Security and government sources said Okonjo-Iweala met Jonathan during his trip to the United States earlier this month and again in Abuja this week. There was no comment from the presidency, while Okonjo-Iweala could not be reached.

Okonjo-Iweala was praised as finance minister for fighting corruption and negotiating the cancellation of nearly two-thirds of Nigeria’s $30 billion Paris Club debt. She was suddenly reassigned by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo to foreign minister in 2006, a move that was never properly explained.

LAGOS (Reuters) – Bad governance and poverty fueled the rise of an Islamist sect which claimed the bombing of Nigeria’s police headquarters and politicians need to look closer to home before blaming foreign militants.

Boko Haram, a radical sect from the remote northeast, said it was behind the blast which tore through a car park outside the multi-storey building last Thursday, killing several people and narrowly missing the inspector general of police.

Within hours, emergency workers and the police were calling it a suicide bomb — although subsequent reports have cast doubt on that — and Boko Haram’s claims that some members trained in Somalia raised suspicion that foreign militants were involved.

“The explosion was an act of terror, which has become a global trend,” President Goodluck Jonathan said on Monday, according to a statement from his office, pledging the government was taking “definite steps” to strengthen security.

Intelligence officials have said in the past there is evidence to suggest some Boko Haram members have trained over the border in Niger, where al Qaeda’s north African wing, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is known to have a presence.

A U.S. diplomatic cable from 2009 obtained by Wikileaks and provided to Reuters by a third party said a veteran Chadian extremist with “limited ties to al Qaeda associates” had visited northeastern Nigeria and may be planning an attack.

A letter, claiming to be from Boko Haram, was sent to a local newspaper this month saying members had returned from Somalia after being trained “by brethren who made the interim government ungovernable,” an apparent reference to Somalia’s al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab Islamist insurgents.

LAGOS, June 13 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s central bank has warned that eight lenders rescued in a 2009 bailout are in a “grave situation” as their operating losses mount and that vested interests risk derailing plans to recapitalise them.

The central bank injected $4 billion into the lenders, found to be dangerously undercapitalised, in 2009. A state “bad bank” (AMCON) has brought them back to zero shareholders funds while new investors have been sought to recapitalise them.

Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said court injunctions sought by minority shareholders risked blocking deals between four of the bailed-out lenders and new investors.

“The central bank cannot afford to keep the interbank guarantee in place indefinitely, whereas it is solely by this guarantee that the rescued banks have been able to keep going,” Sanusi said in a statement issued on the central bank Website.

“The cost to the nation, if the banks continue to operate without capital, is incalculable. The risk to the financial system, if these banks fail, cannot be afforded,” he said.

Sanusi said he was committed to protecting depositors and creditors, pointing out that neither had lost savings or loans so far during the bank crisis.

The central bank has given the lenders to the end of September to reach recapitalisation deals with new investors or face liquidation if they refuse to accept funds from AMCON, which would effectively mean nationalisation. [ID:nLDE74U22M]

LAGOS, June 1 (Reuters) – Nigeria enters a crucial period as President Goodluck Jonathan assembles his new administration in the coming weeks, a team which could make or break the nation’s hopes of forging ahead with reforms over the next four years.

Jonathan, who was sworn in for his first full term on May 29 after winning April elections, has said he will form his cabinet within two weeks of taking office. Ministries in Africa’s top oil exporter will be run by civil servants until then.

Nigerians and foreign investors alike are hoping Jonathan, who first came to power last year when his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua died in office, will surround himself with reformers.

The finance and oil ministries will be particularly closely watched, with some analysts hoping that Finance Minister Olusegun Aganga, who has overseen the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund, will be retained. [ID:nLDE74Q1U2]

Jonathan is the first head of state from the minority Ijaw ethnic group in the oil-producing Niger Delta and the new cabinet will also need to balance out regional interests to ensure other parts of the country retain a political voice.

National security is a growing concern. [nLDE74T1LJ]

Hundreds were killed in rioting in the mostly Muslim north in April after Jonathan, a Christian from the south, won the election. Bomb blasts tore through popular drinking spots in three separate locations hours after he was sworn in on May 29.

LAGOS/ABUJA, May 31 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s rescued banks have until the end of September to reach recapitalisation deals with new investors or face liquidation if they refuse to accept funds from state bad bank AMCON, the central bank said on Tuesday.

Nigeria in 2009 injected $4 billion into nine lenders deemed by auditors to have become so weakly capitalised that they posed a risk to the entire banking system in sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest economy.

The AMCON asset management company was set up to restore them to zero shareholders’ funds, while new investors have been sought to bring them up to minimum capital adequacy.

Where lenders fail to reach merger agreements, the central bank has said AMCON could inject funds, effectively nationalising them, but there has been resistance to this from some bank directors and shareholders.

“We can’t keep the process open indefinitely,” Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi told Reuters on Tuesday.

“If there is no agreement (with new investors), clearly option B is AMCON recapitalisation and option C liquidation.”

Four of the banks — Afribank (AFRIBAN.LG: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Finbank (FIRSTIN.LG: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Intercontinental Bank (INTERCO.LG: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Union Bank (UBN.LG: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) — have already signed merger deals.

LAGOS/ABUJA, May 31 (Reuters) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has started appointing his new administration, a team which will be closely watched for its ability to drive badly-needed reform in Africa’s most populous nation.

Jonathan named former Senate president Anyim Pius Anyim as secretary to the federal government late on Monday — a day after being sworn in for his first full term — a powerful post that coordinates between ministries and the presidency.

He also retained General Andrew Azazi, a fellow member of the minority Ijaw ethnic group from the southern oil-producing Niger Delta, as his national security adviser, a key position particularly in the wake of weekend bomb blasts.

Ministers and other senior political advisers from the last administration reached the end of their tenure on May 29, and although Jonathan is expected to retain many of them, he formally dissolved the cabinet.

Jonathan has said he expects to name a new cabinet over the next two weeks. Ministries in Africa’s top oil exporter and third largest economy will be run by civil servants until then.

His choice of ministers and aides will be closely watched. Nigerians and foreign investors alike are hoping Jonathan, who first came to power last year when his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua died in office, will surround himself with reformers.

“Nigeria is on the verge of a takeoff,” Jeffrey Sachs, a leading development economist and adviser to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, wrote in a New York Times column published on Monday after a visit to Nigeria.

LAGOS, May 3 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s government is in talks with parliament over the country’s 2011 budget proposal and expects to agree an amended version with a narrower deficit within weeks, the head of the budget office said on Tuesday.

President Goodluck Jonathan initially proposed a 4.226 trillion naira ($27.32 billion) budget in December but parliament inflated the spending plans, passing a 4.972 trillion naira version three months later.

Government has said the 2011 budget is supposed to mark the beginning of a period of fiscal consolidation in sub-Saharan Africa’s second biggest economy and Finance Minister Olusegun Aganga described the amended version, which would push the deficit to over four percent, as “unimplementable”.

He vowed in March to take the issue up with parliament.

“We are very, very deep in the negotiations, we have gone very far,” Bright Okogu, director general of the budget office, told reporters on the sidelines of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) event in the commercial capital Lagos.

“We have both recognised in all our preliminary discussions that there is a need to come back to a more realistic budget deficit level,” he said.

The original budget plan presented by Jonathan implied a deficit of around 3.6 percent. Okogu said the final version would push the deficit “back in that direction”.

LAGOS, May 3 (Reuters) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s choice of cabinet ministers and top officials will be key to the outlook for reform in Africa’s most populous nation after elections which were deemed the most credible for decades.

Jonathan emerged from last month’s polls with a strong mandate, having won 59 percent of the vote, but with a ruling party (PDP) chastened by a weaker parliamentary majority and the loss of several powerful state governorships.

Reaching out to his opponents — particularly in the mostly Muslim north, where hundreds were killed in rioting after his victory — will be vital if Jonathan, a southern Christian, is to galvanise support for reforms and govern strongly.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Graphic on elections: link.reuters.com/xet78r

More stories, background and analysis: [ID:nLDE68H051]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>