NGScorecard

Within weeks of taking office, directed the reversal of the outgoing administration's 11th-hour sale of the Port Harcourt refinery to a Blue Star Oil Services-led consortium, citing lack of transparency in how the deal had been conducted, and ordered the deposit refunded to the buyers.

The refinery was returned to full government ownership, seen as a strong early signal of the new administration's rule-of-law rhetoric. However, the refinery itself remained plagued by chronic underperformance for years afterward, with no rehabilitation programme launched to address its underlying operational problems during the term.

Proclaimed an unconditional 60-day amnesty window during which Niger Delta militants could surrender arms in exchange for a pardon, monthly stipends, and enrolment in training and reintegration programmes, in place of a purely military response to the insurgency.

Over 20,000 militants ultimately accepted the amnesty, and oil pipeline attacks and kidnappings fell sharply for the rest of the term, allowing oil production to recover. Long-term reintegration and the underlying environmental and developmental grievances of the Niger Delta remained only partially addressed, but the immediate security effect was substantial and durable for several years.

Directed the removal of Nuhu Ribadu as EFCC chairman, initially reassigning him to a mandatory year-long police training course, a move widely interpreted as sidelining the anti-corruption agency's assertive founding leader.

Ribadu never returned to the EFCC and was eventually dismissed from the police force entirely by 2010. Several high-profile corruption cases he had built against politically connected figures, including former Delta State Governor James Ibori, subsequently stalled or were dismissed in Nigerian courts, and the EFCC's international reputation for independence was significantly diminished for the rest of the term.

Established a 22-member Electoral Reform Committee chaired by former Chief Justice Mohammed Uwais, tasked with reviewing Nigeria's electoral framework and recommending reforms following the widely condemned 2007 general election.

The Committee delivered a comprehensive report in December 2008 with sweeping recommendations, including removing the president's power to appoint the INEC chairman. The National Assembly adopted only a partial set of the recommendations, in legislation signed after Yar'Adua's death, and rejected the core proposal on INEC's institutional independence.

Backed CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi's special audit findings and emergency intervention, which removed the chief executives of eight banks found to be in grave financial condition due to non-performing insider and margin loans, and authorised a roughly ₦620 billion liquidity injection to stabilise the affected institutions.

The intervention averted a systemic banking collapse during the global financial crisis, and several of the removed executives, including Oceanic Bank's Cecilia Ibru, were subsequently prosecuted. The episode is widely regarded as one of the administration's clearest, most decisively executed policy successes.

Directed the revocation of the Transcorp consortium's licence to operate NITEL, the national telecommunications carrier, after the consortium failed to meet the payment and investment obligations attached to its disputed 2006 acquisition of a 51% stake.

Government regained direct control of NITEL, but the company's operational and financial position continued to deteriorate, and no successful replacement privatisation was concluded before the end of the term, leaving its long-term ownership status unresolved.

With Yar'Adua incapacitated in Saudi Arabia and unable to formally transmit the constitutionally required letter transferring power under Section 145, the National Assembly passed a resolution invoking the 'doctrine of necessity' to declare Vice President Goodluck Jonathan Acting President, resolving a months-long constitutional vacuum.

The resolution, while outside the constitution's explicit text, was broadly accepted domestically and internationally as a pragmatic necessity to restore functioning government. Yar'Adua returned to Nigeria later that month but never resumed his duties, and died on 5 May 2010, after which Jonathan was sworn in as substantive president the same day.