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

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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

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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

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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.


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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