NIGERIA: AMBASSADOR ENGAGES POLITICAL ELITES IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ABUJA 000999

SIPDIS


NSC FOR JFRASER
CAIRO FOR JMAXSTADT


E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/05/2013
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PINR NI
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: AMBASSADOR ENGAGES POLITICAL ELITES IN
KANO

Classified by Ambassador Howard F. Jeter. Reason: 1.5(b)
and (d).



1. (U) Summary: On May 19-20, Ambassador Jeter traveled to
the North,s largest city, Kano, for meetings with prominent
community leaders and key political players. Four themes
dominated the discussions: 1) electoral irregularities; 2)
potential for violence after the elections; 3) the
independence of election tribunals; and 4) perceptions that
the USG is pro-Obasanjo. Most interlocutors disparaged the
results of the April 19 Presidential elections and advised
that Obasanjo,s failure to respond to Northern complaints
could lead to violent reactions after the inauguration. End
Summary.


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POSSIBLE VIOLENCE IF GRIEVANCES ARE NOT ADDRESSED
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2. (C) Ado Bayero, Emir of Kano and among the most
influential northern traditional rulers, warned about the
possibility of violence if the Government failed to address
complaints of electoral malpractices. The Emir said he had
met Obasanjo several times to discuss the possibility of
violence, each time stressing the need to reconcile with
opposition groups. &We want peace and stability in Nigeria.
This explains why we urged all aggrieved candidates to
utilize the election tribunals.8 On a parallel track, the
President should attempt to reach a political reconciliation
with the opposition, Bayero stressed.



3. (C) Junaidu Muhammed, a prominent Kano politician,
signaled a possible &northern eruption.8 He cautioned that
the current silence in the North was ¬ an endorsement of
the Presidential elections.8 Northerners felt Buhari won
the elections. Muhammed cited 1966 as an example, noting
that it took the North five months to react to the
assassinations of Northern-based leaders resulting in
Nigeria,s first military coup. When the reaction finally
came, it was massive. The slowness of the reaction does not
augur weakness. &While the North reacts slowly, it also
tends to over-react8, he said. Muhammed stated that calming
the tension depended on how well Obasanjo reached out to his
opposition. He predicted, however, that Obasanjo,s ego and
vindictiveness would prevent him from making politic
concessions.



4. (C) Rabi,u Musa Kwankwaso, outgoing Governor of Kano
State and the only incumbent PDP governor to lose, believed
that Kano would remain calm since the ANPP won the election.
So far, Kwankwaso is right.


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PARTIES WERE GUILTY OF ELECTORAL MALPRACTICES
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5. (C) Muhammed said all political parties committed fraud in
last month,s elections. He claimed that a free election in
Kebbi might not have returned the ANPP governor. He posited,
however, that the ruling PDP was the most prolific culprit,
accusing it of using security agents, pliant electoral
officials and party thugs to guarantee victory at all levels.
While voter vigilance in urban centers minimized fraud,
rural areas were fertile ground for electoral manipulation.
Muhammed told the Ambassador that INEC officers and security
officials approached parties to offer &their services and
cooperation8 with the hope of coaxing the parties into an
escalating bidding war for their services. In Katsina, when
Governor Yar,adua heard that officials were making overtures
to the ANPP, he offered to beat the price, Muhammed asserted.



6. (C) Auwalu Yadudu, Harvard-trained law professor, election
monitor and former legal adviser to former Heads of State
Abacha and Abubakar, gave a graphic account of various forms
of electoral malpractices, including ballot box stuffing by
government officials, voter intimidation, changing of voter
tallies, underage and multiple voting, use of money, and lack
of fairness by the INEC officials. Yadudu opined that
INEC,s shoddy preparations provided an open door for
electoral fraud. He said that most polling stations used two
voters, lists -- the hand-written register and the INEC
computer-generated list. He said some electoral officials
colluded with politicians to divert election materials.
Yadudu cited a particular polling station in Bichi LGA, Kano
State, where voters forcibly recovered ballot papers from a
voting clerk who claimed that all ballots had been used.
Some of the ballot papers were later found in his car and
others were traced to the residence of a government official.



7. (C) Ahmed Jalingo, professor of political science and
labor activist who monitored elections in Bauchi State, also
complained of serious irregularities. Jalingo said a village
chief is now hiding at the residence of a senior official in
Bauchi for fear of reprisal by his own community. The local
chief ordered his men to assault an ANPP agent only to
discover that the ANPP agent was the son of his senior
traditional ruler! Jalingo said that while the actual ballot
count in Gamawa LGA was still being conducted, an INEC radio
announcement reportedly gave a final result for that area.
All those present at the collation center, including the PDP
agents, were stunned by the announcement of something they
had yet to complete.
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AGGRIEVED PARTIES MIGHT NOT GET JUSTICE AT THE TRIBUNALS
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8. (C) Yadudu said election tribunal precedents clearly
showed that the &judicial process is available to the
highest bidder.8 However, he supported the idea of going to
the tribunals &for posterity.8 It was necessary to make a
historical record, he said. The opposition might win some
low-level positions like state and National Assembly seats
but key elections like governors and President would not be
overturned no matter what degree of evidence was presented,
he predicted.



9. (C) Discounting the possibility that the tribunal would be
transparent and follow the rule of law, Jalingo recounted a
bitter personal experience he had with electoral tribunals,
when he ran for governor of Taraba State. Jalingo recalled
members of the election tribunal in Taraba asking him to pay
a higher bribe than his opponent when he petitioned the
results of the 1991 gubernatorial elections, which he
narrowly lost to Governor Jolly Nyame.


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PERCEPTIONS THAT USG SUPPORTS OBASANJO BECAUSE OF HIS
CHRISTIAN BACKGROUND
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10. (C) Jalingo echoed a popular perception among Northern
Muslims that the USG supported Obasanjo despite his disregard
for basic democratic values, like free and fair elections,
because the President was Christian. Jalingo speculated
that, if Obasanjo were Muslim the US would have criticized
him more heavily for &bastardizing democratic norms.8



11. (C) The Ambassador unequivocally denied the assertion,
stating that the United States supported the democratic
process and did not play favorites. The election was for
Nigerians to decide. It was not a decision for Washington
nor was it one Washington sought to make or influence, he
stated.


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OBASANJO, BUHARI COMPARED
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12. (C) Jalingo feared Obasanjo,s &Yoruba-centric8
politics and combative style would further divide Nigerians.
He did not foresee President Obasanjo and Vice President
Atiku meaningfully reaching out to the opposition and to each
of the various regions of the country. While praising Buhari
for a tough stance against corruption, Jalingo complained
that Obasanjo,s opposition to corruption was belied by the
fact that his immediate family and relatives of his wife were
suddenly immersed in and making fortunes from the oil
industry.



13. (C) Muhammed, Jalingo and Yadudu also complained that
Obasanjo, not Buhari, exploited the religious card during the
Presidential elections. They pointed out that Obasanjo was
regularly televised at the Presidential Chapel conducting
religious services. Conversely, Muhammed explained that
Buhari was the first Nigerian leader to limit public funds
for religious trips. In 1984, Buhari reduced the number of
government-funded pilgrims to Saudi Arabia from 150,000 to
20,000, a policy that attracted sharp criticism throughout
the North. Buhari also attempted to limit the growing
influence of the late Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, founder of the
vocal and influential Islamic group Izala.


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ALLEGED PLANS BY THE REGIME TO ARREST BUHARI
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14. (C) Echoing reports from other sources, Muhammed alleged
that the regime had issued orders to arrest Buhari before the
May 3 State Assembly elections. He explained that the main
reason General Ajibade, the recently removed Director of
Military Intelligence, was reassigned to Nigerian Institute
for Policy and Strategic Studies was because Ajibade warned
the regime of dire consequences if Buhari were arrested.
Ajibade reportedly told a security meeting, with President
Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku present, that reports
reaching his office indicated that Buhari carried most of the
polling stations where soldiers were voters. Therefore, a
regime decision to arrest Buhari could lead to unrest in the
military and among the general population.
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INCOMING GOVERNOR OF KANO
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15. (C) Zainab Kabir, professor of sociology and Muslim
female activist, said that the new Kano State Governor,
Ibrahim Shekarau, is a veteran technocrat and probably
honest; however, most of the ANPP officials around him were
as corrupt as other politicians. &He might be the only
sheep among the wolves,8 she said. Kabir cited a recent
incident where some Kano businessmen and politicians offered
new vehicles, expensive clothes and other inducements to the
incoming politicians. Shekarau reportedly rejected the
offers but his deputy Magaji Abdullahi gathered his share of
the loot with unabashed relish.



16. (C) Outgoing Governor Kwankwaso said he feared that the
lack of experience on the part of Shekarau could make him
vulnerable to manipulation by politicians within and outside
Kano. In previous conversations, Kwankwaso had also
described Shekarau as a religious hard-liner who would
strictly impose the Sharia code in Kano.


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COMMENT
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17. (C) Many Northerners are upset about the results of the
April elections. This is not so much that they really
supported Buhari but because they bitterly opposed Obasanjo
and what he represented to them. He represented a tectonic
shift of power from the Northwest to the Southwest, from the
Muslim to the Christian. Northerners are used to being in
the driver,s seat of national politics; their current tenure
in the passenger seat has become very uncomfortable. They
cannot help but believe that since Buhari carried the North,
he should have won the election. Before this election, a
maxim in Nigerian politics was that whoever won the North won
the election. That maxim is no longer valid.



18. (C) Because of these political antecedents, the loudest
hue and cry against electoral misconduct has emanated from
the North. However, the worst electoral injustices were
probably committed in the South-South and Southeast, albeit
in the gubernatorial and National Assembly races. Most
Southerners believe or are willing to accept that Obasanjo
won the Presidency. Yet, because many Northerners viscerally
oppose Obasanjo,s reelection, election-related protests and
violence are more likely to occur in parts of the Northwest
than any other area of the country (with the Southeast coming
in second). This observation begets another. The election
intensified ethnic, regional and religious sentiment and has
exposed unfortunate bigotries on both sides of Nigeria,s
North-South divide. For instance, it was disingenuous for
the Ambassador,s interlocutors in Kano to accuse Obasanjo of
playing the religious card while claiming Buhari preferred a
secular deck. Buhari and his supporters played religion to
the hilt during the election. The claim that Obasanjo has
been Yoruba-centric is partially grounded in fact but it is
also exaggerated, an end-product of the inflated rhetoric of
ethnicity.



19. (C) Essentially, many Northerners are guilty of
reverse-image ethnic and religious biases for which they
blame Obasanjo. Nevertheless, grievances of electoral
shenanigans are warranted to a large extent. The PDP sweep
the elections; the opposition in all parts of the country
feels cheated. Obasanjo and his PDP could lessen tension if
a political settlement could be reached with more of the
opposition. This is probably easier in the Southeast and the
South-South where the readjustment of some National Assembly
seats and some senior level appointments could provide a fix.
However, mollifying the North will be a different ballgame
because the North wants what it once had which is something
Obasanjo will not give up )-Presidential power and control
of Nigeria.
JETER
JETER