Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:02 PM GMT

By Shuaibu Mohammed

Analysts said the removal of Joshua Dariye for corruption, like four earlier impeachments, was legally questionable because the number of state lawmakers voting to remove him did not make up the two-thirds majority required by the constitution.

Dariye's deputy, Michael Botmang, was sworn in to replace him at a ceremony attended by the local head of the police, ruling party and secret police, a sign that the federal government backed the process.

"What has happened today is something that is unexpected, but it has happened. I am a child of necessity," said Botmang at the ceremony where he chanted support for the ruling party.

"I want everybody to go back ... assured that there is special security in the state to take care of any miscreants," he added.

Heavily armed riot police were drafted into the state capital Jos from around northern Nigeria and there was no immediate sign of unrest in the state, which has seen several bouts of ethno-religious bloodshed over the last six years.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission issued a wanted notice for Dariye, who is also a fugitive from justice in Britain having jumped bail for suspected money laundering.

Impeachments in Bayelsa, Oyo, Ekiti and Anambra states over the past 12 months were all similarly controversial.

EMERGENCY RULE

Obasanjo declared a state of emergency last month in southwestern Ekiti after a chaotic impeachment there resulted in three people claiming to be governor.

Many analysts believe the impeachments are part of a plan to cause chaos across Africa's most populous country, giving a pretext for Obasanjo to declare a wider state of emergency and postpone the elections. He has denied this.

"This was a gestapo removal. The government wants to create anarchy and sustain itself in power," said Abubakar Momoh, political science lecturer at Lagos State University.

Nigerians are due to elect their president, state governors and lawmakers next April in polls that should mark the first democratic handover from one government to the next since Africa's top oil producer gained independence in 1960.

Obasanjo has assured that the elections would be free, fair and on schedule but with increasingly fierce power struggles both in the states and at the national level, many Nigerians fear they could be derailed.

Dariye is an ally of Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is locked in a power struggle with Obasanjo. Dariye's supporters decamped to an opposition party last year when the ruling People's Democratic Party suspended him over corruption.

Dariye was impeached at an unannounced sitting of a faction of the state house of assembly at dawn on Monday, which was not attended by any members of the press or public.

Six members of the assembly's 24 had argued that they constituted a two-thirds majority on the grounds that the 14 members who decamped to the opposition had vacated their seats. The issue is being disputed in the courts.