Nigerian Senate postpones vote on new leader

In this story: Senate to reconvene on Thursday National outrage RELATED STORIES, SITES

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Nigeria's Senate postponed voting on Wednesday for a new leader to replace its impeached Senate president, saying leaders needed more time to consider the candidates.

Senate President Chuba Okadigbo was impeached on Tuesday night after a critical parliamentary inquiry into contract awards at the National Assembly. His deputy and another senior Senate leader resigned hours before the vote impeaching Okadigbo.

Sources at caucuses taking place before the vote said the field of candidates had narrowed from five to two senators -- Pius Anyim and Adolphus Wabara. Both are from the country's southeast, where the Senate presidency has been "zoned" under Nigeria's delicate ethnic and regional balancing arrangements.

Top leaders of President Olusegun Obasanjo's Peoples Democratic Party, which has a commanding majority in the National Assembly, were trying to come up with a consensus candidate to head off a split in the party, the sources said.

Senate to reconvene on Thursday

Acting Senate President John Mbata told a brief session of the upper house that members would reconvene on Thursday.

"As you can see there have been some caucus meetings, and we need more time to meet before we reconvene," Mbata said.

Politicians said intense lobbying began on Tuesday night when the 109-seat upper house voted 81 to 14 to remove Okadigbo, who had refused to resign.

Okadigbo is the second Senate president to be impeached since 15 years of military rule ended in the West African country in May 1999. Senator Evan Enwerem, the first Senate president, was kicked out last November amid questions about his integrity.

The Senate president ranks third in Nigeria's political hierarchy after the president and vice president.

National outrage

Analysts blame widespread corruption, especially during the decades of military rule, for hindering economic development in Nigeria, which is Africa's leading oil exporter.

Many ordinary Nigerians had followed public testimonies of inflated contracts and massive financial perks by Senate leaders. They had voiced support for the removal of the Senate's leadership after some of the revelations brought out in the hearings.

The impeachment will bolster President Obasanjo's drive for accountability in Nigerian public life.

The army has cited corruption by politicians in the past to justify taking power.

"The removal of Okadigbo is a healthy development," said Senator Alex Kadiri, an opposition politician from the state of Kogi. "It shows that we have resolved to get rid of corrupt persons among us and work with people of integrity."

The chairman of Obasanjo's Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Barnabas Gemade, appearing on television, had welcomed the earlier resolution of the house as signaling the real start of the anti-corruption drive.

Although Okadigbo is a stalwart of the PDP, which has solid majorities in the Senate and the lower-chamber House of Representatives, his relations with Obasanjo have been rocky in recent months.

Obasanjo's aides accused the flamboyant Okadigbo of tacitly backing a failed bid by an opposition senator earlier this year to impeach the president. Okadigbo in turn charges that the presidency orchestrated moves since then to unseat him.

Students from a university in Okadigbo's southeastern home area on Monday disrupted a visit there by Obasanjo, attacking the presidential convoy and provoking a clash with security forces in which newspapers said one student was killed.

The students carried placards accusing Obasanjo of backing impeachment moves against their kinsman.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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