AMBASSADOR'S ASSESSMENT OF THE 2007 NIGERIA ELECTIONS

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 ABUJA 000786 SIPDIS SIPDIS DOE FOR CAROLYN GAY E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/24/2017 TAGS: PGOV KDEM NI ELECTIONS SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S ASSESSMENT OF THE 2007 NIGERIA ELECTIONS ABUJA 00000786 001.2 OF 004 Classified by Ambassador John Campbell for Reasons 1.4 b. and D. ¶1. (S) Summary: Nigeria's April 14 (governors and state legislators) and April 21 (the Presidency and the National Assembly) elections were characterized by logistical and procedural shortcomings and by fraud. The announced results of the presidential, gubernatorial and Assembly races cannot be taken as the expression of the political choices of the Nigerian people. The margin of Governor Yar'adua's purported presidential victory is so exaggerated as to be incredible. The elections of 2007 are, therefore, retrograde in comparison with other, positive aspects of Nigeria's democratic development. Over the next year, a resulting Yar'adua presidency is likely to be weak and inward looking, or, less likely, there could be an interim government ostensibly to reform the electoral machinery and conduct new elections. Either way, the post-May 29 Federal government will not enjoy the popular legitimacy that credible elections would have conferred. A military coup remains unlikely, but possible if serious disturbances take place making the country ungovernable. Parallel to the failure of the 2007 elections has been the noticeable growth of other democratic institutions since the restoration of civilian government in 1999: the upper reaches of the judicial system are showing increased independence from the executive, and the National Assembly is developing and asserting its prerogatives. May 29 will mark the transfer of presidential office from one civilian to another for the first time in Nigeria's history. And, in terms of style and approach, President Yar'adua is truly civilian, while President Obasanjo has retained a "military" approach to governance. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) The elections on April 14 and April 21 proved to be as bad as our election partners, European Union long term observers, the media, and the opposition had predicted. The Independent National Electoral Commission's (INEC) logistical preparations for April 14 were poor - polls opened late because of the lack of ballots, but closed on time, thereby disenfranchising those still waiting to vote. Failure to provide facilities for secret balloting was widespread. Voters lists were a shambles. There was little control of underage voting. Voter intimidation, violence and sheer disorganization meant no elections at all in parts of the country. These shortcomings also characterized the voting on April 21 - with the additional wrinkle of the use of a variety of different, uncontrolled presidential ballots. For both elections, the counting and tabulation of the ballots lacked transparency, and there is abundant evidence (and the widespread belief) that the results were manipulated by operatives of the ruling party, to which INEC was beholden. The INEC announced tabulation - Yar'adua with some 24 million, Buhari with some 6 million and Atiku with 2 million - is not credible. ¶3. (U) Low voter turnout, especially for the presidential race, reflected lack of popular confidence in the elections. On April 14, embassy observers estimated participation ranged between thirty and forty percent of those registered; that dropped to an estimated ten to twenty percent on April 21, where polling took place at all. Based on Mission observation in a widespread sample of polling places and subjected to informal analysis, we estimate that no more than a total of 10 Million votes were cast in the presidential election. Although, this figure can only be an estimate, no other observing organization here has claimed a high turnout. A credible domestic organization, The Domestic Election Observation Group, characterizes the April 21 turnout as so low as to be described as a "boycott." INEC's ballot total of some 35 million and the Yar'adua landslide victory is, literally, incredible. ¶4. (C) By the April 14 election day, the political process - from nomination of candidates to the act of voting - was already widely discredited. The major parties had all violated their internal rules with respect to candidate selection. President Obasanjo imposed on the governing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) his own candidates, Katsina Governor Yar'adua for President and Bayelsa Governor Goodluck Jonathan for Vice President, with little consultation and less regard to his party's rules. Especially during his second term as President, nearly all of the party's founding personalities decamped, including (but not exclusively) those who opposed his aspirations for a Presidential third term. Vice President Atiku, in effect, transformed an existing entity into his own party, the Action Congress (AC),after his definitive break with the President led to his expulsion from the PDP. Using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),an Administrative Tribunal he created, and INEC, President Obasanjo sought to remove from the presidential ballot the Vice President, now his bitter enemy, and numerous candidates from other races who had become his political enemies. Only shortly before the April 21 poll did the Supreme Court restore the Vice President's candidacy by finding unconstitutional the method of his exclusion. The resulting need to print and distribute ABUJA 00000786 002.2 OF 004 some 62 million new ballots (the number cited by INEC) contributed significantly to the logistical disarray of the voting on April 21. The Court's ruling also raises serious questions about the exclusion of some gubernatorial and other candidates from the April 14 vote, and, thereby, risks removing any remaining fig leaf of legitimacy from that poll. ¶5. (S) INEC, with responsibility for conducting the elections, emerges with little credibility and much blame. It is likely there will be a serious National Assembly effort to fire wholesale its officials and to restructure it in the coming months. Despite its title, it is not independent: the President appoints its chairman and the commissioners, and it receives most of its funding from National Assembly appropriations to the office of the President. The release of those funds, thus, is at the discretion of the President. INEC also received significant technical and other assistance from the EU and the U.S., working through international NGOs. With respect to voter registration, voter identification, and ballot counting and tabulation, over the past year INEC has pursued technological will 'o' th' wisps at great expense without regard to the realities of Nigeria's poor infrastructure. This fascination with technological possibilities seriously undermined INEC's standing with the National Assembly. The logistical disarray of April 14 and April 21, the direct responsibility of INEC, was widely foreseen; nevertheless, with the persistence of Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss, Chairman Iwu (with the support of the President) insisted that all would be well. In our meetings, when I asked if he needed more assistance from the international community, he always assured me that he had everything he needed. As for the President, he has said repeatedly he would hand over power to a civilian successor on May 29. Privately, according to clandestine reporting, he has also said that he would not under any circumstances hand over power to Gen. Buhari or Vice President Atiku - the only credible rivals to Gov. Yar'adua. Clandestine reporting on the President's own intentions indicate that he remained ambiguous about relinquishing power. ¶6. (S) On the polling days, there is evidence that all of the parties indulged in competitive rigging at the polling station level. Clandestine reporting makes a convincing case that the President's operatives, and perhaps the President himself, manipulated the tabulation of ballots at consolidation centers to the benefit of the PDP, which they could do because they control INEC and because the counting and tabulation procedures established by law were not followed. Moreover, Chairman Iwu told me he thwarted the President's personal efforts to manipulate the April 14 returns from Lagos and Kano to the benefit of the PDP gubernatorial candidates - and that in consequence he now fears for his life. ¶7. (SBU) When INEC announced winners of the April 14 elections that lacked credibility, there was popular violence that appears to have been spontaneous and uncoordinated. Anger was focused at INEC, the PDP and the police. How many died is tough to estimate, especially in a country where non-political levels of violence are high. Official figures, which usually understate casualties, are about sixty; there are media and NGO estimates in the range of 300 and whispers that it could exceed 1,000. We will never know, but the bottom line perception among the Mission's contacts is that the elections of 2007 were at least as bloody as those of 2003 and 1999. In the week between the two 2007 elections, public demonstrations and arson occurred in all six geo-political regions of the country. In addition, there were peripherally related incidents in Kano (where a mysterious Islamic group murdered police and took over the water works) and Yenagoa, where equally obscure "militants" attacked the Bayelsa government house. By week's end, before the April 21 polling, the army and the police had restored order across the country. Perhaps because of the greater public apathy about the polling of April 21, there has been little violence in its immediate aftermath. Buhari and Atiku earlier had both said publicly that they "could not control their supporters" in the event of a rigged election. ¶8. (C) With INEC's announcement of Gov. Yar'adua's election as President, Vice President Atiku says he will file suit in the High Court of Appeals to have the national elections overturned on the basis of prima facie violations of legally mandated electoral polling procedures, such as failure to post the voters lists or failure to provide for secret balloting, as opposed to harder-to-prove charges of rigging. However the High Court rules, the decision would be appealed by the loser to the Supreme Court, where the Vice President anticipates a favorable ruling before May 29. Buhari is now Delphic about what he will do. At times, he has indicated support for challenging the elections through judicial means. More recently, he has said he will not go that route because of his experience with long delayed and ABUJA 00000786 003.2 OF 004 unfavorable court judgments after the elections of 2003, and he hints at some form of mass action. ¶9. (C) Some Senators tell us that the reconvened National Assembly will debate an already-drafted bill that would establish an interim government under the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after the President and Vice President leave office on May 29. An interim government would ostensibly reform INEC and EFCC, and organize new elections. This scenario presumes that the National Assembly is unified enough to act in a way that would challenge the skill of more experienced parliaments. It assigns a major role to the judiciary because it raises so many legal and constitutional questions. Then there is the question of whether such a government would be acceptable to the military. Publicly, Senate President Nnamani has been furiously back peddling from his earlier signals that he would support an interim government. ¶10. (S) More likely than an interim government is that Yar'adua will be sworn in as President on May 29. If he is able to establish his presidential authority in his own right, and if he has sufficient energy to address quickly issues such as Northern alienation or the crisis in the Delta, he may overcome his electoral lack of legitimacy among many Nigerians. The wild card is his health. Clandestine reporting that I find credible indicates he is on dialysis three times a week. Even if Yar'adua's health stabilizes, it is hard to see how he could follow the rigorous travel schedule of his predecessor - which may translate into Nigeria playing a more subdued role on the world stage, unless President Yar'adua is willing to concede conduct of much of Nigeria's foreign relations to the former President. ¶11. (S) For now, the North will grudgingly accept Goodluck Jonathan as Vice President, but not as President, should Yar'adua die soon, according to credible, clandestine reporting. If Yar'adua can hang on for a year or so, and if Jonathan demonstrates hitherto hidden abilities, that might change. Jonathan has had no power base of his own; he was Deputy Governor of Bayelsa state when the elected Governor was jailed for corruption. He has been Governor of Bayelsa for only about a year. The unspoken rule in fourth republic Nigeria is that if the Presidential candidate is a northern Muslim, the Vice Presidential candidate must be a southern Christian. President Obasanjo appeared to want a candidate from the troubled, oil-rich Delta. Ideally such a candidate would be Ijaw, and thereby, constitute outreach to a tribe that believes itself long marginalized. An Ijaw candidate would also discourage tribal support for militant activity that has resulted in taking perhaps a quarter of the country's oil production off line. Jonathan met those criteria, and he was not burdened with the same reputation for spectacular corruption that other Delta governors have, such as Delta state Governor Ibori or Rivers state Governor Odili. Jonathan is close to the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Andrew Azazi, a fellow Ijaw Christian. ¶12. (S) In the short term, the military will likely continue to stand back: bad elections do not meet the necessary threshold for overthrowing a civilian government. Certainly, if Yar'adua fails to establish his authority, if governance deteriorates and violence spins out of control, the army will seize power to ensure that the state does not disintegrate: the army will not allow Nigeria to go the way of Liberia or Somalia. A wild card is the perception of mid-level officers about the state of the nation, about which we know little. Senior officers might move reluctantly to forestall a coup by more junior officers. ¶13. (C) In the aftermath of the flawed elections of 2007, it is important to remember the context. After more than a generation of military rule, Nigeria returned to, ostensibly, civilian government in ¶1999. In fact, the transition from the Abacha dictatorship to President Obasanjo via similarly flawed elections was managed largely by senior military - active duty or retired. Since then, at an accelerating rate, some institutions of governance have moved in the democratic direction. The Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, especially over the past year, have shown new independence from the executive. It was the Supreme Court, over the past few weeks, that issued judgments restoring to the ballot personages excluded by the presidency. During the 2006 national debate over whether President Obasanjo should be allowed to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a third term, an overwhelming, and national, consensus emerged against it. New was that in some parts of the country, constituents held their National Assembly representatives accountable for how they would vote on the relevant bundle of constitutional amendments. And the constitutional changes that would have permitted a third term were defeated. ABUJA 00000786 004.2 OF 004 ¶14. (SBU) For many Nigerians, no matter how bad the elections of 2007 have been, what is significant is that President Obasanjo, a civilian since his retirement from the military, will be succeeded by another civilian, Gov. Yar'adua, who has had no military experience and no military style. So, there is long term progress toward a civilian, democratic government conducted according to the rule of law. The 2007 flawed elections, like those of 2003, are retrograde. The failure of the 2003 elections set the stage for the current unrest in the Delta; the failure in 2007 to have elections in some states may also have serious consequences over the longer term. The challenge for the Nigerian body politic will be to overcome the 2007 failure without compromising the other progress that has been made. CAMPBELL