Nigeria’s Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has now taken over as the country’s Interim President, a position he will maintain until (and if) President Umaru Yar-Adua is able to recover from his rather dire health problems and return from Saudi Arabia. Theoretically the country has thus avoided a major political crisis and Jonathan said all of the right things in his acceptance speech. But Jonathan may have to lead for a while, and I get the sense that the North-South divisions, issues with the Movement for Emancipation in the Niger Delta (MEND), and a serious question as to Yar’Adua’s long-term health may make Nigerians politics quite the minefield for the coming months.
