**Nigeria’s senate has named 33 ministerial nominees submitted by acting leader Goodluck Jonathan a week after he sacked the cabinet.**The list contained some surprise names, such as Olusegun Aganga, a banker who works for Goldman Sachs in the UK.
The list, which still needs to be approved by the senate, contained just nine ministers from the former cabinet.
Mr Jonathan has taken over as acting leader while President Umaru Yar’Adua recovers from a serious illness.
Mr Yar’Adua was taken to hospital in Saudi Arabia last November and, although he has since returned to Nigeria, he has not been seen in public since.
Mr Jonathan is battling to fill a power vacuum that has been plaguing Nigerian politics since Mr Yar’Adua fell ill.
The list of nominees, which includes one of Mr Yar’Adua’s nephews, Alhaji Mutallab Yar’Adua, is not expected to be the complete number of ministers in the new cabinet.
Mr Yar’Adua’s cabinet had 42 members, and Mr Jonathan is expected to propose more names later.
Legal wrangling
His choices have to balance the interests of 36 states and a wide range of interest groups, and approval of the new cabinet could take weeks.
Goldman Sachs confirmed that Mr Aganga had accepted an offer to be considered for a ministerial post.
He has served as a managing director of the firm since 2003.
Mr Jonathan was installed as acting president on 9 February after weeks of legal wrangling and widespread street protests by Nigerians demanding clarity on who was running the country.
Since then, he has been faced with an outbreak of communal violence in the central city of Jos and a renewed campaign by militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta.