NIGERIA: LIBYAN CHAIR

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABUJA 000113 SIPDIS FOR IO AND AF E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/17/2013 TAGS: PHUM PREL LY NI UNHRC SUBJECT: NIGERIA: LIBYAN CHAIR REF: (A) State 5849 - (B) 02 Abuja 3310 Classified by DCM Andrews: Reason: 1.5(d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Nigerian President Obasanjo reportedly is making telephone calls in an effort to replace Libya with Mozambique as the Africa Group's candidate to chair the 2003 CHR session. End Summary. ¶2. (U) DCM Andrews delivered ref A demarche by phone to Presidential International Affairs Advisor Ad'Obe Obe the morning of January 17. An appointment had been scheduled, but Obe telephoned to say the President had called him. ¶3. (C) While a poor connection and Obe's short fuse for seeing the President precluded making the entire demarche, all key points got across. DCM put particular emphasis on Libya's violation of the human rights of Nigerian citizens. Obe undertook to raise the issue with Obasanjo. ¶4. (C) Obe contacted us in the this afternoon after talking to Obasanjo. Obe said the President would contact the AU Chairman to see if Mozambique (the next AU Chairman) might replace Libya. Obe hoped to provide us further "feedback" on Obasanjo's efforts later in the day. ¶5. (C) COMENT: We believe that the GON has never been happy with the prospect of a Libyan CHR Chair (see also ref B), but Foreign Minister Sule Lamido attended the Ministerial, and he may not have resisted as strongly as Obasanjo would have liked. Libya's announcement that it planned to execute a Nigerian citizen raised Tripoli's "negatives" in Nigeria this week; Nigerian Deputy FM Onyia called in the Libyan Ambassador to protest. The execution was supposed to take place this morning. Apparently, it has been rescheduled for January 18 (tomorrow). If this sentence is carried out as now scheduled, we can anticipate a reasonably vigorous effort by Obasanjo and the GON to stop Libya from assuming the chair. JETER