PDP: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 ABUJA 002881 SIPDIS AF/W FOR PARKS, EPSTEIN LONDON FOR GURNEY PARIS FOR NEARY E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/14/2006 TAGS: PGOV PINR KDEM NI SUBJECT: PDP: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH REF: A. (A) ABUJA 2878 ¶B. (B) ABUJA 2832 ¶C. (C) LAGOS 2815 Classified by CDA Timothy Andrews for reasons 1.5 (B) AND (D). ¶1. (U) Introduction: The Peoples' Democratic Party, a hybrid from its inception, has been riven by internal power struggles, weakened by presidential interference, and now faces significant challenges gearing up for its own convention, much less the battery of local (2002) State and Federal (2003) elections that loom on the horizon (Ref. A). The PDP is still the incumbency-protection vehicle of choice, and as such, will command a strong following. Whether the PDP, through what heretofore has been a rather combative process, can evolve into the semblance of a party with an identifiable substantive platform for Nigeria, (beyond retaining power for its members and returning Obasanjo for a second term) is a long stretch. In order to place current events in perspective, we offer the following refresher on the PDP. An analysis of the current PDP conventioneering will be provided by septel. End Introduction. -------------- Beginnings: G-18, G-34 -------------- ¶2. (U) The G-18 was formed in 1997 by prominent Northern politicians who opposed the self-succession bid by military strong-man Sani Abacha. At the time, the G-18 involved significant risks, including imprisonment. Many members were former Abacha ministers, including chairman Chief Solomon Lar, Abubakar Rimi, Adamu Ciroma and Jerry Gana. Other key participants included: Retired Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, the first prominent Northerner to publicly challenge Abacha's self-succession bid, Dr. Suleiman Kumo, Balarabe Musa, Sule Lamido, and Dr. Usman Bugaje. Retired General and former Presidential aspirant Shehu Yar'Adua's political machine, the Peoples' Democratic Movement, was represented by Lawal Kaita and Ango Abdullahi. Of these, only Gana (Minister of Information),Lamido (Minister of Foreign Affairs),Ciroma (Minster of Finance),and Bugaje (Special Advisor to the V.P. on political matters) have retained formal roles in government or the Party. Lar became PDP Chairman for a time but was removed soon after Obasanjo's election. ¶3. (U) The G-18 expanded to the G-34 with the addition of members from the East, Southwest, and South-South. Alex Ekwueme, Vice-President under Shehu Shagari during the Second Republic, represented Igbo interests, while Chief Bola Ige represented Afenifere and the Yoruba. Ekwueme, who later opposed Obasanjo for the PDP presidential nomination, became Chairman of the G-34 with Gana as Secretary. The G-34's platform was simple: free elections, generals not invited. After Abacha's climactic exit from the political scene, the five parties he created to support his self-succession bid, which Bola Ige called the "five fingers of a leprous hand," dissolved, leaving the G-34 as the only significant national political organization. G-34 became the PDP in July 1998, and Ekwueme was elected Chairman. -------------- Transition -------------- ¶4. (U) At the time of Abacha's death, the PDP's conservative wing was led by former members of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN): Ekwueme, Ciroma, Ambassador Jibril Aminu, Chief Sunday Awoniyi (leader of the former All Nigeria Congress),Chief Don Etiebet, Audu Ogbeh, Bamanga Tukur (NRC candidate for president during the Third Republic) and Aminu Wali. Their platform included preserving political stability through traditional rulers and institutions, promoting private sector growth and limiting the role of government. ¶5. (U) The progressives envisaged a more social-democratic role for government: they wanted to limit the role of traditional rulers and institutions in society and increase the role of government in providing essential social services, including education, health-care and physical infrastructure. The progressives, like most of the elite here, gained wealth and prominence in traditional Nigerian fashion: as either contractors to or senior officials in the GON, its ministries and parastatals. Still, the progressives are generally disturbed by the disparities of wealth that exist in Nigeria, and view improving the lot of the common people as key to Nigeria's economic and political growth. Solomon Lar, Abubakar Rimi, Sule Lamido, Jerry Gana, Okwesilieze Nwodo, and Bola Ige led the progressives. The other significant progressive element in the PDP was Yar'Adua's PDM. PDM leaders included current VP Atiku Abubakar, former Senate President Chuba Okadigbo, Lawal Kaita, Yomi Edu, Dapo Sarumi and Sunday Afolabi. -------------- Sani's Boys -------------- ¶6. (C) Abacha-ites, seeing their only opportunity for retaining political relevance--and access to cash-- clambered aboard the increasingly crowded PDP lifeboat. These included Tony Anenih one of the leaders of the YEAA (Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha),currently Minister of Works and Housing and reported to be among the most corrupt of Obasanjo's notoriously rapacious ministers; Barnabas Gemade, current PDP Chairman; Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia and Jim Nwobodo, currently a senator from Enugu State and perennial facilitator of Anenih's political "fixes" in the Senate for Obasanjo. Nwobodo was also the key spoiler employed by former military Head of State Ibrahim Babangida to divide the Igbos and defeat Ekwueme's bid for the Presidential nomination. -------------- The Invisible Hand -------------- ¶7. (C) Not to be forgotten, or excluded, the Generals circled the PDP warily in the beginning. Upon realizing that it would determine the immediate political future of Nigeria, they moved in for the taking. These included Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and most importantly, Obasanjo's NSA, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau. Their interests were simple: protect their assets, prevent serious inquiry into their actions, and retain political power by remaining the "invisible hand" guiding, or at times forcing, political outcomes favorable to their position. More than any other element within the PDP, the Generals were responsible for Obasanjo,s candidacy. -------------- Yoruba Split -------------- ¶8. (C) Bola Ige, leader of the Afenifere and the Southwestern faction within the PDP, exited the Party once Abacha's sidekicks entered. Ige,s departure was perhaps inevitable--Abiola's death shattered Yoruba hopes to resuscitate the 1993 election results; participating in a party that included Abiola's jailers, and possible executioners, was therefore abhorrent to Yoruba leaders. The departing Yoruba eventually created the Alliance for Democracy, arguably the only Fourth Republic party with a reasonably unified identity and platform: that the identity, Yoruba ethnicity, and the platform, promoting Southwestern interests, were regional rather than national heightened the AD's appeal in the Southwest but limited its effectiveness nationwide. Ige's departure from the PDP did, however, prevent the Southwest from determining which Yoruba candidate would get the PDP Presidential nomination. (Comment: Whatever their political affiliation, many Nigerians at that time felt that historical justice demanded the Presidency be zoned to the Southwest in 1999. In any non-military Nigerian government, elections, constitutions, and executive nominations must conform to the ineluctable pressure of the zoning system, which exists to make sure each region gets a bite of the apple. Even now, zoning still appears to trump other considerations. End Comment.) -------------- Why Obasanjo? -------------- ¶9. (C) IBB probably was the most powerful force behind Obasanjo obtaining the PDP presidential nomination. The Generals' arguments, enhanced by financial incentives, won the day. The arguments favoring Obasanjo included: (1) Obasanjo was Yoruba. (2) As one of their own, he would be able to manage the military, yet protect its core interests with an authority that a civilian president might find difficult to muster. (This has proven largely to be the case. Obasanjo has retired nearly two generations of senior military staff during his first two years in office, a move that a civilian president would have found more difficult.) (3) Obasanjo did a fairly good job, comparatively speaking, as military ruler and oversaw the successful transition to the Second Republic. (4) Obasanjo, having "diverted" substantial sums during his tenure as Head of State would ultimately protect the position of his former military colleagues and their political associates, preventing any serious attempt to recover stolen money or try them for human rights abuses. (While he did not prevent the Oputa Human Rights Panel from issuing summonses to IBB, Abubakar and Buhari, Obasanjo's refusal to compel the triumvirate of ex-Generals to appear before the Panel has satisfied this expectation.) (5) Still, the argument that won the day for Obasanjo during the first PDP convention was, by all appearances--cash. ¶10. (C) Arguments within the PDP against Obasanjo included: (1) Obasanjo was not a politician and his allegiance to democratic processes (i.e. power sharing) in government, once elected, was undetermined. (2) He had no constituency to deliver to the Party as the Yoruba had generally rejected him. (3) His nomination would snub Ekwueme, a qualified, experienced politician and PDP founder. (4) As a former military dictator he would lack an understanding of, or sympathy for, democratic institutions and practices. ¶11. (C) During the Jos convention in January 1999, the Generals' arguments, buoyed by significant amounts of their money, secured the nomination of Obasanjo over Ekwueme. Most of the Northern leadership sided with the Generals for Obasanjo. Key elements of the late Yar'Adua's progressive PDM faction, led by Atiku and Okadigbo supported Obasanjo as well. These included Abubakar Rimi, who suspiciously dropped his bid for the nomination at the last minute to support the Obasanjo candidacy. Seeing the need for the Presidency to be zoned to the Southwest after nearly 12 years of military rule by Northern Muslims, and bowing to the political influence of IBB, Northern conservatives and traditional rulers also sided with Obasanjo. Having lost the presidential nomination of the party he was instrumental in founding, Alex Ekwueme solidly delivered Igboland to the PDP, as did his Northern counterparts for the North, and Obasanjo was elected President in February 1999, with the PDP under the leadership of Chief Solomon Lar as Party Chairman. -------------- Obasanjo's PDP -------------- ¶12. (C) Obasanjo assumed the Presidency with tremendous goodwill, except ironically perhaps among his own Yoruba, whose preferred candidate (Olu Falae) he defeated. He also possessed the moral authority of having opposed, and been jailed by, Abacha. However, as many in the party feared, President Obasanjo, once elected, showed little understanding of--or patience for--the give-and-take of democratic politics. Preferring the role of international statesman to domestic consensus builder, Obasanjo expected the Party to be the extension of his will domestically. Former and current PDP leaders have described this, with some frustration, as Obasanjo's tendency to conflate, to his own advantage, the presidential and parliamentary systems of democracy: he considers himself Prime Minister, in that he demands the PDP comply with his wishes, yet has the guaranteed tenure of a President, and need not actually lead the party, since he is not subject to a no-confidence vote. This tendency has been evinced at several junctures during Obasanjo's first term, and has left the PDP--already unwieldly-- significantly weakened. -------------- Ministerial Appointments -------------- ¶13. (C) Obasanjo complied with the unwritten rules of zoning in making his ministerial appointments, but he did not consult with Party leadership, or consider party affiliation in making his choices. Senator Aniete Okon, PDP Publicity Secretary during Solomon Lar's tenure as Party Chairman, SIPDIS commented to Poloff that he was roundly castigated when he questioned the President about the appointment of Bola Ige (AD) as Minister of Power and Steel. The President reportedly stated that he would make his appointments regardless of the Party's wishes. The net effect of this approach was to alienate stronger personalities in the party that might have lent support during his Presidency. Many key figures in the party were passed over, while the Generals' representative, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau was made NSA, and a flock of ex-Abacha officials were given key ministerial positions. In his first round of ministerial appointments, Obasanjo appeared to prefer individuals who were compromised and conditioned by their their political pasts, and who therefore presumably could be controlled. -------------- Party Leadership -------------- ¶14. (C) Obasanjo's first steps in wresting control of the Party came during the November 1999 PDP convention. Chief Sunday Awoniyi, a senior Party founder, was the candidate favored by most members as their new chair. Abacha re-tread Barnabas Gemade was the President's candidate, but was widely opposed because of his close association with Abacha and his reputation as being notoriously corrupt, even by Nigerian standards. Gemade was elected, helped by the generous administration of cash by the President's political fixers, led by Tony Anenih. This practice was so blatant that one candidate, Senator Ahmadu Ali, announced at the podium that the Presidency was supplying delegates with "Ghana-must-go bags" full of cash. (The colorful plastic-weave bags became synonymous with political corruption.) The message from the new President was clear: despite his protestations against corruption, the President would not let principle stand in the way of his objectives. Under this venal cloud, the Gemade era began. Ever attuned to double-messages, Party members, government officials and Nigerians suspected that the new regime, while mouthing words like "transparency," had not divorced itself from old style politicking. Having bought Gemade's chairmanship at the Jos convention, the President was on the road to squandering much of the moral authority he brought into office to oppose corruption in Nigerian politics. ¶15. (C) Indebted to the President, Gemade functioned as the President's spokesperson within the Party. During repeated Party and national crises since being elected Chairman, Gemade did not seek to arbitrate and resolve disputes objectively; instead, he looked to the President for direction. Essentially, Gemade joined Anenih as one of the President's top two political fixers, and the devolution of the PDP into an arm of the Presidency accelerated. -------------- National Assembly Wars -------------- ¶16. (C) The PDP "zoned" the Senate Presidency to the Igbo during the last round of elections. When the Senate first convened, Chuba Okadigbo was the clear choice of his colleagues to be Senate President. Perhaps because his VP was a former PDM leader, but also because of personal animus for Okadigbo--a brash, intemperate and brilliant professor of political science--Obasanjo opposed his candidacy. Obasanjo wanted Evans Enwerem to be Senate President, and refused to be inconvenienced by constitutional niceties like the separation of powers. Enwerem's victory was reportedly orchestrated by Tony Anenih, with the aid of Jim Nwobodo and others in the Senate. In the House, Salisu Buhari, a 29 year-old novice, was elected Speaker with the President's support. To Obasanjo,s embarrassment both Enwerem and Buhari were soon removed by their colleagues for having lied about their credentials. ¶17. (C) Okadigbo was then elected Senate President in November, 1999. The House elected Rep. Ghali Na'abba, the soft-spoken scion of an old Kano political family, as Speaker. Obasanjo disliked Obadigbo and opposed Na'abba as well. The Presidency spent the better part of 2000 working towards their removal. These machinations consumed a great deal of time and energy during Obasanjo's first year in office. The effort seemed driven by a profoundly undemocratic streak in the President: Obasanjo tends to personalize any opposition, and has preferred to change personalities rather than working toward political compromise on a given issue. ¶18. (SBU) After surviving three separate votes to be removed, and an onslaught of Executive cash, the conflict between the President and Okadigbo reached a dramatic stand-off: Okadigbo hid the ceremonial mace to prevent the Senate from meeting without him to evict him out from office. The President sent nearly one hundred mobile police into his residence, ostensibly to retrieve the mace, which was not there. Although Okadigbo survived for a while, his colleagues finally succumbed to repeated financial incentives to remove him. Okadigbo was replaced by Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, an Igbo political ingenue who, it was correctly thought, would be more inclined to do the President's bidding. ¶19. (C) Na'abba proved more resilient at resisting siege. House members who voted to replace Na'abba were reported by multiple sources to have received very healthy payments (up to USD 60,000) for their votes. Payoffs had become regularized into a business arrangement. Predominantly Yoruba AD members were paid 1,000,000 naira (roughly USD 9,500),because they consistently voted with the President. PDP and APP members were paid half that amount. The President's liaison officer in the House, the ubiquitous Esther Uduehi, set up a payment center in the Command Guest House at the Villa. Designated Representatives would then collect payoffs for all the Representatives in their State. ¶20. (C) Unlike Okadigbo, who commanded loyalty and dislike in equal doses among his colleagues, Na'abba was widely respected by House members, excluding AD members. Another significant difference from Okadigbo,s saga was that Northern power brokers viewed attempts to replace Na-abba as an affront. Northern representatives, regardless of party affiliation rallied around him. After all the payouts were made, but before the no-confidence motion came to a vote, House leaders placed a large pile of bound hundred-naira notes on the table supporting the ceremonial mace. By going public with the proceeds of the payoffs, the House leadership sullied both the President and House members, but protected the Speaker. ¶21. (C) Having been only partly successful in replacing the PDP's National Assembly leadership to please the President, Gemade was now called upon to broker a "cease-fire." A commission of Party leadership examined the evidence, which included damning video- and audio tape of key Executive branch officials bribing House members. In the face of this damaging evidence, the President ended his efforts to remove Na'abba. The House leadership has retained the tapes as a deterrent against future attempt to remove the Speaker, but neither side wants the embarrassment of further public acknowledgement of their iniquities. -------------- The "Postwar" PDP -------------- ¶22. (C) The President's protracted effort to remove Okadigbo and Na'abba produced several results. With Okadigbo gone, and a truce in place with Na'abba, the 2001 budget passed within one month of its presentation to the Assembly, which conformed to the Executive's understanding of how the budget process should work. Esther Udeuhi once exclaimed to Poloff: "This is how it works. The President presents a budget. The Assembly passes it, unchanged. Finish!" ¶23. (C) Although the President attained the immediate result he wanted, the effect on the Party was highly detrimental. Some in the Assembly began to view the AD as the de facto party of the President. PDP members were demoralized and began to view the Party as merely an enforcement arm of the Presidency. The PDP remained, however, a vehicle for re-election and fund-raising; PDP members in the Assembly appear loathe at this point to begin forming more cohesive political groupings for fear of losing access to funds and Party support for their own re-elections. In fact, the only legislation of real significance passed by the National Assembly since the 2001 budget has been the Electoral Reform bill, which seeks to compensate for governors' political advantage in filling local government chairman slots with their own supporters by postponing the LGA elections from 2002 to 2003 (Ref. B). -------------- Purges -------------- ¶24. (C) In July 2000, at the height of the President's conflicts with the National Assembly leadership, a group of PDP Trustees and founding members issued a communique criticizing Obasanjo and Gemade of having eviscerated the Party by dictating policy and by their eight-month campaign to replace Okadigbo and Na'abba. Those participating included Abubakar Rimi, Bamanga Tukur, Don Etiebet and Edwin Ume-Ezeoke. Gemade expelled most of the complainants from the Party, including Emmanuel Ibeshi, the PDP Publicity Secretary. Ibeshi was expelled for having publicly opposed SIPDIS Gemade's attempt to extend Party officials' tenure to four years without having to stand for elections during the upcoming Party convention. Expelled members obtained a court-order compelling their re-instatement, but up Gemade refused to comply with the order. -------------- A Real Fixer-Upper -------------- ¶25. As the President and other PDP incumbents look to the 2002/2003 election cycle, the debilitated state of the Party became apparent--for which Obasanjo bears primary responsibility. Obasanjo realized the need to revitalize the Party, and chose an independent-minded reformer, Audu Ogbeh, as the heir-apparent to Gemade. True to his nature, Gemade turned the local and state Party congresses into a street-fight, at one point obtaining a court order suspending the upcoming November 9 convention. Gemade also called a meeting of the National Executive Council of the PDP on October 27 in which he expelled his former partner-in-corruption, Tony Anenih from the Party. Obasanjo called a meeting of the PDP Caucus, including PDP governors, National Assembly leadership and the Party leadership the following day, which was not attended by Gemade or Nwodo. That group voted to re-instate Anenih, and to hold the Convention as scheduled on November 9. The Judge who had issued the injunction withdrew it, reportedly having collected money from both sides. -------------- Current Crisis -------------- ¶26. (C) The ruling party entered its National Convention this past weekend in a divided and weakened state. Party congresses for each level of government were supposed to have occurred on consecutive weekends: ward congresses on October 20; local government on the 27; state congresses on November 3, followed by the National Convention on the 9th. Each level was supposed to elect its own party officials as well as delegates to the next congress, culminating in the Convention. There have been extreme irregularities at each level, with two Governors, Dariye of Plateau and Kalu of Abia, both of who have been at loggerheads with the President, cancelling the results of their states' entire ward congresses (Ref. C). A court injunction obtained after the ward congresses, stopped some higher-level congresses, while others went forward. State congresses were held November 3, but the delegates sent to these congresses were hand-picked by the governors, rather than reflecting the earlier party congress results. Similarly, many of the delegates that converged on Abuja will arrive by other than transparent selection processes. ¶27. (C) Comment: Rather than postponing the Convention until some of the legal, political and interpersonal issues could be straightened out, President Obasanjo insisted that the Convention hold as scheduled. This produced the outcome the President wanted, but it did little for improving the political process in Nigeria's ruling party. End Comment. Andrews