NIGERIA -- FORMER VP EKWUEME SAYS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ABUJA 002539

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL 08/23/12
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PREL NI
SUBJECT: NIGERIA -- FORMER VP EKWUEME SAYS
PDP IN TURMOIL; PRESIDENTIAL RACE UNCLEAR


(U) CLASSIFIED BY AMBASSADOR HOWARD F.JETER;
REASONS 1.5(B) and (D).



1. (C) SUMMARY: During two meetings with
the Ambassador in late July and mid-August,
former civilian Vice President and current
Chairman of the PDP Trustee Board Alex
Ekwueme waxed about the danger of massive
defections from the party due to President
Obasanjo's waning popularity. As a result,
the Trustees established a committee to
assess Obasanjo's electoral chances. Ekwueme
unconvincingly stated that he did not want
to be in the running, but thought former
Head of State Ibrahim Babangida would seek
the UNPP's banner and would present a
formidable challenge. Former Head of State
Buhari, seeking the ANPP nomination, was
popular in the Muslim North but had little
appeal in other regions and had ostracized
the Christian community by intemperate
statements on religion. Perennial also-rans
such as Umaru Shinkafi were not serious
contenders, but were jockeying for Cabinet
positions and other pay-offs. Ekwueme
predicted that after a few more months of
backroom bargaining more serious candidates
would emerge and the real picture of the
presidential contest would unfold. End
Summary.


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IRE IN THE PDP HOUSE
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2. (C) As Chairman of the ruling PDP's
Board of Trustees, Ekwueme should be looking
forward to the upcoming elections. Instead,
Ekwueme, in two separate meetings with the
Ambassador in late July and mid-August
respectively, related his discomfort with
the disunity infecting his party. During
their most recent meetings, the Trustees
decried the internecine battles between the
President and party leadership in the
National Assembly and despaired over the
violence and shameless cheating that
characterized PDP local government primaries
in July. Yet the biggest headache was
President Obasanjo's sagging popularity and
the President's now renowned tendentiousness
which has alienated numbers of party
members. Important people were prepared to
leave the PDP and join other parties,
particularly if Obasanjo attempted to hijack
the nomination, Ekwueme said. Because of
this intra-party power struggle and due to
the growing perception that Obasanjo might
be an electoral liability, the Board was
forming a committee to study the Party's
internal troubles, Ekwueme added.



3. (C) COMMENT: Preferring understatement
and subtlety, the soft-spoken Ekwueme
generally shuns blunt frankness. What he
leaves between the lines is as important as
what he says explicitly. Thus, things may be
even worse than Ekwueme's description of the
PDP misfortune. Clearly, Ekwueme holds
Obasanjo largely responsible for the party's
woes. Because of Obasanjo, the PDP may be
courting a major decline in its electoral
fortunes. With Obasanjo steadily sinking,
Ekwueme and others do not want to be pulled
down by or because of him. Consequently, the
committee will assess damage done to the
party by its self-inflicted internal
conflicts. In reality, we have learned that
the real motivation for the committee's
formation was to gauge Obasanjo's electoral
prospects. The formation of the committee
evinces a diffusion of power within the PDP
and the democratic freedom to challenge the
Head of State, a development unprecedented
in Nigerian politics. However, it also says
legions about the President's diminished
political stature and the growing
disenchantment of the PDP leadership with
Obasanjo. End Comment.



4. (C) Continuing along this line,
Obasanjo's re-nomination was not a fait
accompli, Ekwueme told the Ambassador.
Already there were four other contenders who
had formally announced their bids for the
PDP nomination. Ekwueme expected more people
to contest for the PDP banner, but doubted
the veracity of rumors that Vice President
Atiku would leave the ticket to seek the
nomination in his own right.


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PRESIDENTIAL RACE -- THE PICTURE IS CLOUDY
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5. (C) Looking outside the PDP, Ekwueme
thought former Head of State Babangida was
inching closer to a formal declaration. A
long-term Babangida associate recently told
Ekwueme that Babangida would run, Ekwueme
confided to the Ambassador. Also,
Babangida's men were busy purchasing
vehicles and other equipment and materials
in apparent preparation for mounting a
campaign. He thought IBB would run under the
banner of the UNPP, political home of
numerous retired general officers, including
Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, Babangida's
military Vice-President and subsequent
political front-man.



6. (C) Although IBB would probably run,
Ekwueme believed, the former Head of State
characteristically was keeping his options
open. IBB was also still exploring the
possibility of an Igbo candidate and a
northern Vice Presidential running mate.
Many more late night negotiating sessions
and horse-trading would be required before a
candidate emerged that could appeal to the
different segments of the fragmented Igbo
political elite.



7. (C) Being a former Vice President and a
still widely respected figure, the urbane
Ekwueme would fit the bill; however, he
doubted Babangida would seek him out to
forge common cause. After masterminding the
coup that toppled Shagari and Ekwueme in
1983, and later using his political muscle
and riches to snatch the PDP Presidential
nomination from Ekwueme's grasp to hand it
to Obasanjo in 1999, Babangida saw Ekwueme
as an aggrieved adversary who might seek
vengeance. While professing no ill will
toward the former Head of State, Ekwueme
thought IBB would always be wary of him.
Instead, Babangida was looking at Igbos like
Senator Ike Nwachukwu, a former general and
Babangida's Foreign Minister.



8. (C) In the ANPP, former military strong-
man Muhammadu Buhari currently was the man
to watch. However, Buhari's strident and
divisive religious statements had made most
Christians and many moderate Muslims cringe.
While Buhari was popular with the young,
poor and restive in the Muslim community, he
could not pay one Northern Christian to vote
for him, Ekwueme declared. Obasanjo
benefited the longer Buhari, a regional and
religious lighting rod, remained a serious
candidate. Buhari would split the anti-
Obasanjo vote in the North while forcing the
Northern Christian and Southern vote, both
anti-Christian and Muslim, to unite and
gravitate to Obasanjo. Ekwueme did not
consider other announced candidates such as
perennial also-ran Umaru Shinkafi as
presidential timbre. He thought Shinkafi
and others had entered the race in order to
raise their visibility and leverage that
visibility to gain Cabinet posts and/or
other future pay-offs.



9. (C) While discussion of the relative
strengths of Obasanjo, Babangida and Buhari
was interesting, Ekwueme cautioned that the
list of presidential candidates was not
static. In Nigeria's political culture,
presidential candidates emerge primarily
from the closed door bargaining among the
leaders of the political elite. The one who
announces his candidacy early and publicly
is rarely the one left standing when the
backroom political trade-offs are over. The
most serious candidates usually emerge later
in the game. While Obasanjo and the two
other former military Heads of State are the
most serious names right now, Ekwueme
predicted that the really formidable
contenders among the civilian politicians
would not emerge until December, when all of
the political bartering has been done and
the secret electoral compacts sealed.



10. (C) Although he felt Babangida would
enter the UNPP, Ekwueme felt IBB's hand also
was in the NDP and, to a lesser degree, the
ANPP. He did not see IBB's hand in the APGA
as others thought, but acknowledged that
some of the APGA hierarchy made their
fortunes during IBB's reign. Ekwueme was not
surprised the APGA was registered as a
national party by INEC even though parties
fielded by more widely known politicians
could not fulfill the geographic
requirements of having field offices in 24
states. The APGA's ability to meet this
requirement had little to do with manifest
national character or being a party of
ethnic diversity; instead, the APGA relied
on the wide diffusion of Igbos throughout
Nigeria. Igbos are in every state and you
can find an Igbo trader in almost every
village. Thus, the APGA simply used these
Igbo outposts as the address for their field
offices in the various states.



11. (C) Ekwueme stated that the larger
number of opposition parties generally
favored the PDP and Obasanjo. He predicted
that an integral part of Obasanjo's
political strategy would be to clandestinely
promote minor opposition candidates in order
to prevent a unified opposition around one
candidate.



12. (C) Asked when the PDP convention would
occur, Ekwueme thought it would not take
place in October as originally slated. He
noted that the National Executive Committee
and the Board of Trustees had to finalize
the guidelines for the party primaries for
the state and national offices and for the
election of delegates to the primaries prior
to establishing the date for the convention.
Therefore, it was highly unlikely that the
convention would take place before December.



13. (C) Ekwueme lamented the confused status
of the local government elections, saying
that the machinations that have delayed them
set a discordant, unfortunate precedent for
the state and national polls ahead. He
remembered the PDP trustees had advised
Obasanjo last year that he would rue the
decision to extend the tenure of the local
government councils. However, Obasanjo was
fixated on having his own independent
political constituency by making sure the
PDP could take the local governments in his
home state away from the Yoruba-dominated
Alliance for Democracy (AD). Obasanjo
thought he could accomplish this feat if
given more time, but he was wrong. Now, with
his popularity dramatically declining, the
President is afraid of holding local
elections prior to the party convention. He
does not want to limp into the convention
having again lost his local government area
and with the PDP possibly suffering a net
loss nationwide. That would be the closest
thing to a vote of no confidence that would
make the convention an untidy, and open
affair. Thus, Ekwueme predicted that local
government elections would not hold until a
month after the PDP convention.



14. (C) While he could not completely mask
his ambition, Ekwueme disclaimed any
intention to seek the presidency. He said
that he would be abroad, and thus out of the
picture, most of August and September when
much of the horse-trading would be done.


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COMMENT
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15. (C) The exceptionally intelligent and
experienced Ekwuewe may have been a bit
disingenuous regarding his own ambitions. He
has come close before and clearly he thinks
he can do a better job than the man
currently at the helm. Yet, Ekwueme is
caught in the bind of being in the same
party as Obasanjo. If he openly attacked
Obasanjo, he would be accused of disloyalty
and seeking self-vindication. However,
Ekwueme would not mind too much should
others continue fustigating the President.
By absenting himself during this potential
gathering storm within the PDP, he can watch
on the sidelines as things unfold, thus
averting blame from Obasanjo's friends and
foes. While a longshot, Ekwueme is probably
trying to position himself as an elder
statesman who could reconcile both camps in
the party should Obasanjo's renomination bid
fail. Given the fluidity and
unpredictability of Nigerian politics,
Ekweume could indeed be a political dark
horse; certainly, he would serve, if called.



15. (C) Ekwueme's views on the rest of the
Presidential candidates are insightful.
While Obasanjo, Babangida and Buhari are the
big three now, it is almost inevitable that
other names will emerge who will be serious
contenders. We are hearing this refrain
more and more.
JETER