MEETINGS WITH PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS KALU AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 000965

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/30/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM NI
SUBJECT: MEETINGS WITH PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS KALU AND
MAKARFI

REF: A. ABUJA 458


B. 04 LAGOS 2592

C. 03 ABUJA 2046

Classified By: Ambassador John Campbell for Reasons 1.4 (B & D).


1. (C) Summary: Governors Kalu of Abia State and Makarfi of
Kaduna State paid separate courtesy calls to the Ambassador
recently amongst their campaigns for Nigeria's presidency in
2007 (Ref A). Both were critical of President Obasanjo,
continuing ideas they had raised with us well before the
National Intelligence Council piece on Nigeria as possible
failed state became front page news here in May. The two
governors differed in stridency; Kalu saying, "If Obasanjo
violates the Constitution by staying past 2007, we will fight
back" compared to Makarfi's "If Obasanjo does not start
consulting about a successor for 2007, there will be a
problem." On a non-presidential issue, the upcoming census
welcomed or feared for what it may say on Nigeria's ethnic
and confessional makeup, the Christian Kalu wanted ethnicity
and religion tabulated so as to prove Christians a majority
and his own Igbos in significant numbers everywhere in
Nigeria. Makarfi, a Muslim from a state often wracked by
ethnic and religious violence, said he had urged dropping
ethnicity and religion from the census across Nigeria to
prevent divisiveness. End Summary.

KALU


2. (C) Abia's Gov. Orji Kalu visited the Ambassador May 25.
He began by telling the Ambassador that Nigeria is in real
trouble and Nigerians' goodwill for Obasanjo is receding.
"Obasanjo's men are stealing everything." Kalu said he was
concerned about the poor, saying that if especially the young
people cannot get jobs, they will get guns. He claimed
empathy because he had become poorer personally over his
tenure as governor, and blamed Obasanjo for revoking the
charters of Kalu's bank, Kalu's airline, and Kalu's oil
service businesses. He had worked on Obasanjo's 2003
election campaign, but had alienated Obasanjo by ensuring a
fair election in Abia instead of the rigged vote collation
totals he said Obasanjo's men preferred.


3. (C) Be that as it may, Kalu said Obasanjo knew several
PDP governors in the Delta (Kalu is from just above the
Delta) were stealing billions of Naira. He also claimed
Nigeria's federal government was taking 1.1 billion Naira
(about 8.4 million USD) from his Abia State's yearly revenues
as collection of "bad debts" from Kalu's predecessors. "If
Obasanjo violates the Constitution by staying past 2007, we
will fight back," Kalu said. (Comment: Kalu has threatened
civil unrest in private before, notably in the Ref B
conversation with ConGen Lagos, if Obasanjo tried for a third
term. End Comment.)


4. (C) Kalu said Obasanjo's plan was to destroy the ruling
PDP, so all Nigerians would have to turn to him again in

2007. Obasanjo was already refusing to implement the budget
that the president had signed after it had been passed by the
National Assembly -- and thus was openly violating the
Constitution. Obasanjo was violating the Constitution in
many way, from A to Z, Kalu exclaimed, so it would not be out
of character for him to violate the Constitution on trying
for a third civilian term.


5. (C) The Ambassador noted that the USG supports economic
reform, good governance, Nigeria's regional stability efforts
across Africa, and improvements to the elections process in

2007. What would be an appropriate role for foreigners to
take concerning the 2007 elections?


6. (C) Kalu responded, "Bring observers who can say an
election is not free and fair, if it happens this time." He
also wanted labor, lawyers, women and other organizations to
be represented in the Independent National Electoral
Commission. "Make sure the INEC Chairman is a credible man."
Kalu said he liked interim Chairman Maurice Iwu, a fellow
Igbo and a friend for many years. (Comment: Iwu is better
known to post (Ref C) as the author, and public champion, of
an proposal to give INEC powers to de-register political
parties. In the context of INEC's being appointed by the
ruling party, the proposal was widely seen as a threat to the
opposition, and was later withdrawn. End Comment.)


7. (C) Kalu said the national census to be done this fall
must count religion and ethnicity. (Note: at present it will
not ask either.) The census needed to show that Christians
are the majority in Nigeria, and that northern Nigeria is not
monolithically Muslim. When PolCouns (notetaker) asked why
this would be useful, Kalu backed off and said asking about
religion would be bad, but ethnicity should be asked because
there was a need to show that Igbos were a substantial
proportion of the population even outside the southeast where
they were a majority (such as in Kalu's Abia State). Kalu
added that counting people by religion might cause trouble,
and even said that counting ethnicity might not be a good
idea.


8. (C) After apparently fishing for what he thought the
Ambassador might consider the "right" answer on religion and
ethnicity in the census, Kalu switched abruptly to say
Nigeria's Code of Conduct Bureau was wrong in taking him to
court for having a foreign bank account in violation of
Nigeria's constitutional ban on such for governors, the VP
and President. He said, and gave the Ambassador a letter
saying, that he did have such an account but had declared it
with his other assets as required by another part of
Nigeria's constitution, and that the Bureau's complaint was
"undemocratic, illegal, and deliberately designed to
intimidate and emasculate me for the simple reason that I
have declared an intention to aspire to the presidency of
Nigeria come 2007."

MAKARFI


9. (C) Kaduna Governor Ahmed Makarfi paid a call on the
Ambassador May 26. Makarfi came alone, unlike Kalu and
entourage, and said he wanted to brief the Ambassador about
the ongoing National Conference. Makarfi said the main
points of contention had become related resource control
issues of north-south rivalry over oil revenues, adding
"regions" as another layer of government (and budget) between
state and national government, and rotation of the presidency
between areas of the country.


10. (C) Makarfi said he had traveled from his native north to
several southern states several times of late, and he thought
southern governors, even of the oil producing states such as
Rivers and Delta, did not have a united front. The confab
probably would push the issue of distribution of oil revenues
to a technical committee after the confab ended, although it
might make a moral commitment to greater revenue for oil
states from the federal government's share. If all revenue
from off-shore oil went to the federal government, then such
a redistribution of the federal share might be acceptable to
all.


11. (C) Whether or not to add a "regions" layer of government
and budget was equally murky, Makarfi thought. A group of
delegates calling itself the "Middle Belt Forum" favored
regions, but middle belt governors were opposed. Lagos and
Ekiti States in the south, like Kaduna in the north, were
opposed to region governments because they were already
getting less budget than they were entitled, having
comparatively few, large Local Government Areas (another
budget/government layer below the states). With opposition
to region governments spread across the regions, Makarfi
thought there would be no new region governments and no new
states either.


12. (C) Makarfi thought rotation of the presidency among the
regions was losing ground. At most the confab would make a
moral commitment to rotating between north and south, not the
present six regions (Northwest, North Central, Northeast,
Southwest, South South and Southeast) usually associated with
things political in Nigeria. More likely, Makarfi said, was
that the rotation issue would be decided within political
parties, and not show up at all in any attempts to amend the
constitutional amendment.


13. (C) Having "stumbled" upon the issue of the 2007
presidential election, Makarfi said that election must be
handled carefully, and he was worried that Obasanjo was
waiting so long to designate a successor. He said, "If
Obasanjo does not start consulting about a successor for
2007, there will be a problem." Where transparency was
needed that Obasanjo was not seeking to succeed himself
again, Makarfi explained, Obasanjo was allowing the issue to
stay unclear. Obasanjo had to start using the goodwill and
diplomatic skills he had built; "if he did not," Makarfi
said, "the (USG) National Intelligence Council's prophesies
(that Nigeria might become a failed state) could come true."


14. (C) Makarfi said Obasanjo needed to start discussing
transition now also to gain his successor's agreement to
continue reforms. He said he understood why Obasanjo did not
want any from the older generation -- Babangida, Atiku and
Buhari -- to succeed him, and Makarfi thought most Nigerians
agreed with Obasanjo on this. But Obasanjo needed to start
building a specific alternative now; otherwise, other
politicians at the ruling PDP's convention later this year
would find unexpected alternatives in ways Obasanjo could not
control.


15. (C) Makarfi digressed to point out that he had publicly
and privately called for the upcoming national census not to
count ethnicity or religion, after 2003 (and likely 2007)
candidate Buhari had said he thought even having a census
would be disruptive. Makarfi said he had pushed hard for
that result and (with the support of the EU providing much of
the census funding) had carried the day. Nigeria needed good
statistics from the census on many things -- occupations,
ages, education, access to health care, etc. -- but not for
religion. Religion would not be used for planning
development, but rather for Muslim and Christian demagogues
to energize hatred for their own political ends. Nigeria, he
thought, needed to get beyond that.
CAMPBELL