Isa Yuguda, the
governor of Bauchi State, has expressed optimism that Acting President
Goodluck Jonathan will choose a team that will help to drive the
economy as fast as possible.

Mr. Yuguda, who is
a son-in-law to the ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua, said, “he is fast
recovering.” He told journalists at the Presidential Villa after a
private meeting with Mr. Jonathan, that the country needs a team that
will help to reposition it for vision 2020.

The advice from
Mr. Yuguda is coming despite the belief in some quarters that as a
close confidant of Mr. Yar’Adua, he was not in support of the
dissolution of the cabinet by the Acting President last week.

Ignorant Gaddafi

In reaction to the
Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi’s statement that Nigeria should be split
into two, Mr. Yuguda said he should have studied the country before
making such an outrageous comment.

“That is
unfortunate and I don’t know whether Gaddafi knows Nigeria. I don’t
know whether he knows that Nigeria has close to 500 tribes. I don’t
know whether he knows that adherents of Christianity and Islam are
spread across the 36 states. So for him to suggest that Nigeria should
be sliced into two, I think he must be a big joker.

“We don’t even have
religious crisis in our country. What we have are purely ethnic
clashes, and these clashes are caused by economic hardship and
sometimes envy, and the international community views it as a religious
issue.”

Mr. Gaddaffi had said the solution to the sectarian crisis in
Nigeria was dividing the country into two, the North for the Muslims,
and the South for Christians.