Abuja - Nigerian Acting President Goodluck Jonathan will be officially sworn in today as president after the death of President Umaru Yar'Adua.
"This (the swearing-in) will be done at 8am (0700 GMT) on Thursday," said a top government official who asked to remain anonymous. There can be no vacuum in the presidency, the official added.
The Nigerian National Assembly on 9 February empowered Vice President Jonathan to be acting head of state as ailing Yar'Adua was fighting for his life.
According to the source, Jonathan held a meeting early Thursday with some top government officials at the Presidential Villa to perfect plans for Yar'Adua's funeral and the swearing in procedure.
"With Yar'Adua dead now, Jonathan shall fully discharge the functions of the office of president, commander in chief of the armed forces of the federation," the source told Xinhua.
Yar'Adua died at around 9pm (2000 GMT) on Wednesday in his official residence in the Nigerian capital Abuja where he was recuperating from his protracted illness.
Jonathan on Thursday declared seven days of national mourning during which the Nigerian national flag will fly at half mast following the death of Yar'Adua on Wednesday, his office said.
"As a mark of respect for our departed leader, the acting president has canceled all official engagements," the acting president's spokesman Ima Niboro said in a statement.
Yar'Adua had a serious kidney complaint in 2000, and tried to dismiss rumours of continued ill health in 2007 by challenging his critics to a game of squash.
He interrupted his presidential election campaign months later to seek medical care in Germany.
On 23 November 2009, he was flown to Saudi Arabia where he spent three months for the treatment of acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart. Since then, he had not been seen in public.
Born in Katsina in August 1951, Yar'Adua was a devout Muslim who hailed from a distinguished political family. His father was a minister in the first post-independence Cabinet and his elder brother, Shehu, was number two in the military government of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo from 1976 to 1979.
He was educated at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he obtained a B.Sc. in Education/Chemistry in 1975 and M.Sc. in Analytical Chemistry in 1980. Yar'Adua began his professional life as a chemistry teacher before going into business in the 1980s.
He contested and won election as Katsina State governor in 1999 and was re-elected in 2003. Yar'Adua was the first governor to publicly declare his assets and promised to do same again at the end of his tenure.
