RECOMMEND POTUS MEET WITH PRESIDENT OBASANJO

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABUJA 001555

SIPDIS

FOR AF A/S NEWMAN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/06/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV NI
SUBJECT: RECOMMEND POTUS MEET WITH PRESIDENT OBASANJO

REF: ABUJA 1486

Classified By: Ambassador John Campbell for Reasons 1.5 (B & D).


1. (C) U.S. Mission recommends POTUS, or the Secretary, meet
with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo during his
September 21-24 trip to the United States, to thank and
encourage Obasanjo on Darfur, Liberia and Nigeria's domestic
reforms, and to raise the level of our bilateral dialogue on
oil and terrorism. President Obasanjo is also president of
the African Union this year, and is the preeminent leader of
the West African regional organization ECOWAS.


2. (C) U.S. Mission proposes a 3-subject meeting:

-- Thanks for Darfur and Liberia. Hope your NEEDS/SEEDS
economic reform program succeeds in order that Nigeria can
move ahead.

-- Please tell me (POTUS) about your Gulf of Guinea
Initiative, which deals with the political, trade and
security changes affecting this important oil region.

-- I (POTUS) am especially concerned because of the
continuing violence in Nigeria's Delta region, the fifth
largest supplier of oil to the U.S., and because of the
potential for terrorism manifest in Osama Bin Laden's stated
intent to bring Al Qaeda to Nigeria.

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RATIONALE
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3. (C) While we need to sound the right notes with Obasanjo
on Darfur and economic reform, the meeting's overriding
purpose is to raise and broaden our dialogue with Nigeria on
oil and terrorism. As analyzed in Reftel, the violence,
corruption, environmental damage and sheer lawlessness of
Nigeria's energy-rich Delta is becoming a threat to U.S. oil
supplies now and natural gas supplies in the future. The
Delta is the fifth largest source of U.S. oil imports, and
President Obasanjo needs to muster the political will to
re-establish GON control in the region.


4. (C) Also as analyzed elsewhere, Osama Bin Laden has
already publicly named target-rich Nigeria, with its millions
of alienated citizens, as an area for Al Qaeda operations.
There too, the key point is the GON giving priority to
grappling with the problem.


5. (C) President Obasanjo's Gulf of Guinea Initiative, still
nascent, addresses both oil and terrorism, and may well
contain the seeds for U.S. cooperation on those and other
important issues. We need to draw him out farther, and
indicate both U.S. readiness and priority for grappling with
these problems.

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SCHEDULE
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6. (SBU) President Obasanjo expects to arrive in Boston
September 20 for meetings there September 21. He will be at
UNGA in New York September 22-23, where he will have events
as both President of Nigeria and president of the African
Union. His current plan is to leave the U.S. on September 24.
CAMPBELL