NIGERIA: ALIYU MOHAMMED COMES TO DINNER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 001126

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/22/2014
TAGS: NI PGOV PREL US
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: ALIYU MOHAMMED COMES TO DINNER

Classified By: 1. (U) AMBASSADOR JOHN CAMPBELL. REASONS 1.5 (B),(D).


2. (C) Summary: Nigerian National Security Advisor and
putative presidential king-maker Aliyu Mohammed came alone to
the ambassador's residence on June 21 for dinner. He
provided a somber assessment of Nigeria's situation in the
regional African context and at home. Though Nigeria's next
presidential elections are not scheduled until 2007, he sees
the next twelve months of political maneuvering as critical
for the candidate who ultimately will be successful because
it will determine who controls the party machinery. He sees
his candidate, Ibrahim Babangida, as the most likely victor
and the likely next president of Nigeria. In the context of
cooperation with the U.S. on the war on terrorism, he very
much wants to visit USEUCOM in Stuttgart with his
intelligence team. See paragraphs 8 and 9 for comment. End
summary.


3. (C) Aliyu Mohammed signaled to the Regional Affairs
Counselor that he wanted to meet the new U.S. ambassador in a
quiet setting. The three met at the ambassador's residence
June 21. Over a two hour dinner Aliyu Mohammed provided a
tour d'horizon of Nigeria's problems at home and abroad.
Essentially, he delivered a monologue allowing little room
for discussion: clearly, he was delivering a serious message.


4. (C) Gulliver and the Lilliputians

Aliyu Mohammed opened with a tour d'horizon of Nigeria's
involvement with its African neighbors. The tone was that of
the Giant of Africa shouldering of necessity heavy regional
responsibilities that drain on the country's scarce resources
and receive scant appreciation from the rest of the
international community.

--Nigeria's peacekeeping role in Liberia and Sierra Leone:
Aliyu Mohammed said that Nigeria's involvement, and its
ongoing support of ECOWAS, had been very expensive. He said
that Nigeria's involvement in Liberia since 1990 had cost
"billions of dollars."

-- Subsidized petroleum: Nigeria had for years provided
Benin, Niger and Chad with petroleum at under market price.
This only ended with the Obasanjo government's effort to end
petroleum subsidies at home. Aliyu Mohammed commented that
petroleum subsidies abroad became impossible to justify when
they were being ended at home.

--Cote d'Ivoire: Aliyu Mohammed said that he had not been
present at the June 20 Abuja airport meeting organized by
Obasanjo with Ivorian president Gbagbo. Obasanjo's vision
had been a meeting of a large number of African heads of
state, but because of scheduling conflicts only presidents
Kufuor and Eyadema and the ECOWAS secretary General had been
present. He said that Gbagbo had promised to work with his
prime minister. Aliyu Mohammed discounted this promise as
worthless because it was not endorsed by Gabagbo's wife and
others in his inner circle. Aliyu Mohammed viewed the
airport meeting as a failed effort by Nigeria in the context
of ECOWAS to promote stability in Cote d'Ivoire.

--Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Nigeria is
involved in the effort to promote stability in the former
Zaire. He said that the Burundians had tried to justify to
the Nigerians occupation of parts of the eastern DRC as a
"buffer". Kabila would be visiting Abuja in the near future
for ongoing consultations with Obasanjo.

--Darfur: Nigeria is watching the situation carefully.
Aliyu Mohammed said that there were "at least 170,000
refugees," of whom "only 50,000" are being supported by the
international community. He was concerned about the
potential for destabilization of Chad --- and northeastern
Nigeria.

--Zimbabwe: Aliyu Mohammed repeated the Nigerian position
that Mugabe is an old man, that he should be left in place
until he dies. When I objected that the country was on the
verge of collapse, he responded that he hoped it would last
until Mugabe's death.

---Gulf of Guinea and Sao Tome: Aliyu Mohammed asked about
"U.S. intentions" to "base" an aircraft carrier in the Gulf
of Guinea and establish a "base" in Sao Tome. (Both have
been the subject of near-hysterical treatment in the
irresponsible parts of the Nigerian press.) Drawing on
U.S. Navy public affairs guidance, I walked Aliyu Mohammed
through Summer Pulse and described to him our port
improvement assistance to Sao Tome. He expressed
satisfaction with the answer, saying that it was the same as
he had received in Washington.

--Visit to USEUCOM: in the context of the war against
terrorism, Aliyu Mohammed said that he very much wanted to
visit USEUCOM with his intelligence team. He said that the
possibility had been raised on his last visit to Washington.
I said that I would follow up, and noted the upcoming
scheduled visit of DUSEUCOM Gen. Wald to Nigeria July 11-12.


5. (C) Love of Money is the Root of All Evil

Turning to Nigerian internal affairs, Aliyu Mohammed opened
by evoking a late colonial, pastoral idyll of his boyhood.
Then, Nigeria grew all the food it consumed and exported the
surplus. Its people were generally prosperous. Public life
was characterized by honesty. Then came the easy riches of
oil--and corruption. He referred to the bunkering of oil in
the Delta, to the mismanagement of oil revenue by the state
governors (who together receive almost half of the oil
revenue.) The result is that billions of dollars are
diverted abroad for private use. He argued that the U.S.
should do more to help Nigeria recover stolen assets. I
replied that the U.S. Department of Justice has developed a
new initiative to help countries like Nigeria identify and
recover stolen assets that may have been removed by former
corrupt officials and referred to the G-8 transparency
compact with Nigeria and three other states launched at Sea
Island. He said that Nigeria had to do more to diversify its
economy, and rebuild its agricultural sector. I said we
agreed.

He then turned to debt, and rehearsed the usual arguments for
its forgiveness. I in turn noted that little of the debt is
held by the U.S., noted that the London and Paris clubs
operate by consensus, and expressed support for President
Obasanjo's economic team and its reforms. I reiterated that
the international community would want to see concrete
results of the reforms.

Aliyu Mohammed acknowledge the skill and qualifications of
the president's economic team, but then added that in the
short run "they did not serve the best interests of Nigeria's
citizens." In a country where the railroad system has
collapsed, he continued, deregularization of petroleum
increased road transport costs across the board. In a
country where the electrical grid fails regularly, everybody
is dependent on gas-run generators. Deregulating fuel prices
simply drove up the costs of all economic activity, and
further impoverished ordinary citizens. He did acknowledge
that over the long term, Nigeria would probably benefit from
economic reform.


6. (C) Violence is the Consequence of Poverty

When I asked him about violence in the North, Plateau State
and the Delta, he said it was the result of poverty. He said
the state of emergency would continue at least until November
-- maybe longer. It would take that long to restore order.
He said that the Governor of Kano had been "warned" by
President Obasanjo, and Aliyu Mohammed thought the Governor
would take the necessary steps to restore order. He largely
discounted ethnic and religious strife as a cause of
violence. When I raised Sharia, he said that the Federal
government would prevent any amputations or stonings. He had
little to say about the Delta except to link violence to
competition among criminals for oil bunkering.


7. (C) Domestic politics -- the short run

I asked him about Buhari's suit in the Supreme Court seeking
to overturn the 2003 elections. He said that President
Obasanjo has already served a year in his second term, that
to throw out the results of the 2003 elections would be
disastrous for the stability of the country. I commented
that, nevertheless, the courts were the place to resolve
election disputes. He acknowledged that he did not know how
the court would rule -- "that is one of the unknowns of the
future."


8. (C) Domestic politics -- the long run

He identified the three leading candidates for the 2007
presidential elections as Ibrahim Babangida, current Vice
President Atiku, and Buhari. The parties, he continued, have
agreed that 2007 is "zoned" to the North --" there is a
general consensus on this". He dismissed Buhari as
"marginalized"; he is unacceptable to the Christian
community, does not do well in the media. Atiku, he
continued, at present controls the party machinery and has
substantial funds. Babangida is the only one, however, who
commands support throughout the country and is also well
funded. Between now and the summer of 2005, he continued,
Babangida and Atiku would be struggling for control of the
party machinery -- and he predicted that Babangida would win.
He suggested that Atiku, Buhari and perhaps others would put
up a candidate of their own to oppose Babangida in 2007. He
acknowledged that Babangida is widely hated in Yorubaland and
Lagos. Nevertheless, he thought that only Babangida had
enough nation-wide support to win.


9. (C) Comment: Aliyu Mohammed has been a
power-behind-the-throne in Nigeria for a generation. A
product of the Northern, Muslim establishment, he has a
reputation for competency -- and is not associated with
religious bigotry. Though well-known for being close to
Babangida, the conventional wisdom is that Obasanjo kept him
on as National security Advisor (and as such the head of
Nigeria's intelligence apparatus) because of his competency
as the NSA and because he wanted to keep him in the tent
rather than have him on the outside. And Aliyu Mohammed and
Obasanjo appear to have developed a good working
relationship: Aliyu Mohammed travels constantly with the
president, appears to have total access to him. Aliyu
Mohammed is instinctively pro-American, has long been
concerned about Nigeria's vulnerability to international
terrorism, especially in the North. In my view, It would be
in our interests for him to visit USEUCOM, as he so much
wants to do.


10. (C) Comment, continued: Many Nigerians routinely join
Aliyu Mohammed in complaining about the cost of Nigeria's
involvement in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The nine years'
involvement in the two countries is said to have cost Nigeria
$8-12 billion and 800 lives.
Aliyu Mohammad's interest in Darfur is to be expected.
Nigeria participates in the African Union's military observer
group in Darfur, headed by Nigerian Brig. Gen Okwonko.


11. (C) Comment, continued: Aliyu Mohammed spoke with
feeling about the potential destabilizing impact of a Supreme
Court decision invalidating the 2003 elections. He did not,
however, raise the possibility that such a ruling would be
ignored or quashed by the government. He would not be drawn
out on what this mission increasingly sees as a significant
increase in violence in the North, the middle belt and the
Delta. His comments about economic reform reflects his
preoccupation with short-term stability rather than long-term
economic growth--predictable for the head of the security
apparatus. His discussion of Nigerian politics highlights
the importance he places on control of the party machinery
-- and the importance of party elections in the summer of

2005. As for Babangida -- 2007 is a long time away, and
Aliyu Mohammed makes many assumptions that may, or may not,
prove true. His assumption that the presidency will be
"zoned" to the North without serious opposition is but one
example. The central importance of control of the party
machinery is another. Nevertheless, as both a major
political actor and an astute observer of the Nigerian scene,
Aliyu Mohammed clearly believes that Babangida has a good
chance of returning to power in 2007. End comment.
CAMPBELL