NIGER DELTA SUMMIT: A VIEW FROM THE

S E C R E T ABUJA 001226

SIPDIS

STATE FOR AF/W, INR/AA
DOE FOR GEORGE PERSON

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/06/2028
TAGS: PGOV NI
SUBJECT: NIGER DELTA SUMMIT: A VIEW FROM THE
VICE-PRESIDENT'S OFFICE

REF: ABUJA 643

Classified By: Political Counselor Walter Pflaumer for reasons 1.4. (b
& d).


1. (S) Summary: On June 18, 2008, Poloff met with Rajakumari
Jandhyala (strictly protect throughout),a United Nations
employee on loan to Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan's office
to aid in the development of a strategy to end unrest in the
Niger Delta. While describing the GON's Niger Delta
initiatives to Poloff, Jandhyala complained that the team in
the Vice-President's office was not up to the challenge of
properly formulating, vetting, and implementing a
comprehensive plan. She also said President Yar'Adua was
unaware of how poorly crafted the process has been to date.
While Jandhyala claimed to be making efforts to fix some of
the process's flaws, she worried that the GON's whole Niger
Delta strategy was moving too fast and in the wrong
direction, and ultimately could end up a failure. End
Summary.


2. (S) Jandhyala described a four-step process by which the
GON plans to address the unrest in the Niger Delta region: 1)
the development of a guiding strategy, a roughly 10-page
document which she helped write; 2) the internal and external
vetting of this strategy by relevant stakeholders, led by an
independent committee to be headed by UN civil servant and
professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari; 3) the long-awaited Niger
Delta Summit; and 4) the implementation of the plans and
decisions that result from the Summit. A management team,
currently consisting of only Jandhyala and a Nigerian
counterpart, is to assist the committee in Step Two to ensure
that the root problems of the marginalization of aggrieved
interest groups, lack of effective investment, and poor
security are addressed. The problem, she says, is that staff
in the Vice-President's office (which currently has the lead
on Niger Delta initiatives for the GON) are incompetent,
inexperienced, and are trying to rush the process, leaping
ahead before each successive planning step has been fully
accomplished. According to Jandhyala, the GON needs an elite
group of strategists to tackle the Niger Delta crisis instead
of the "low-tech team" currently working on the issue. She
noted the Vice-President's aides already want to move on to
Step Three (the Summit) already, though she believes that
Step One (a written strategy for Niger Delta security and
development) has not been fully accomplished. Jandhyala
also noted that in her opinion, the GON's coordinator of its
Niger Delta strategy should be a ministerial-level appointee
(someone with experience and political clout); instead, the
current lead is one of the Vice-President's Special
Assistants, Akachukwu Sullivan, an Igbo with no previous
government experience, or, she says, any apparent
qualifications for his job.


3. (S) The result, Jandhyala said, is that the Vice-President
has received false assurances of the quality of both the
process and the overall Niger Delta strategy. He, in turn,
has briefed the President, who believes everything is on
track, but is unaware that these serious gaps exist. The
whole thing, she said, is moving too fast and in the wrong
direction, and if unchecked the result will be the same as
past attempts to resolve the Delta crisis, i.e. little or no
substantive progress. Going back to the 10-page document
that should contain the President's strategy, Jandhyala
reported she is attempting to rewrite it to compensate for
some of its weaknesses and skipped steps. (Note: World Bank
country representative (strictly protect) told Ambassador
June 12 that the 10-page non-paper on the Delta drafted in
part by some international partners was not well developed,
and in his view was not a strategy at all but a discussion
paper. End note.) In light of the fact that parts of the
document called for the President's input, and she is aware
of no such input from him, she doubts that he has really
studied it on his own. Jandhyala explained that she is
trying to ensure the President has indeed given his approval
of the strategy by writing a six-point decision memo to
forward along with her rewritten Niger Delta policy paper, to
draw attention to the neglected areas. (Note: Jandhyala did
not elaborate as to what the six points in her memo to
Yar'Adua would be. End note.)


4. (S) Respected UN civil servant Ibrahim Agboola Gambari,
she opined, is the wrong man for the job to head the Niger
Delta consultative steering committee. She noted that as a
participant in the Abacha regime (which took a very
heavy-handed approach to the Delta) he has "too much baggage"
to be viewed by stakeholders as neutral party. Indeed, for
this reason, she said the office of the UN's Resident
Representative in Nigeria Alberic Kacou did everything in its
power to dissuade the GON from choosing him, despite his
otherwise strong conflict resolution credentials. (Note: The
VP's Special Assistant Sullivan started off Gambari's hiring
on the wrong foot by sending him a faxed job offer to the UN,
without GON clearance to do so. According to Jandhyala,
Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon angrily contacted the GON and
forced them to approach him properly to request Gambari's
services by sending Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe personally
to New York City. Maduekwe told Ambassador June 4 that he
had to personally appeal to UNSEC-Gen in order to secure
Gambari's release for the job. End note.) Gambari's
appointment has been mired in controversy, as several Delta
ethnic groups -- most notably the Movement for the Survival
of the Ogoni People and the Ijaw Youth Council -- have voiced
strong public opposition to his participation in the
committee. It is too late to retract Gambari's appointment,
Jandhyala said, but in order to appease critics and regain
credibility, a co-chair might be appointed.


5. (S) With the appointment of Gambari, the UN's
behind-the-scenes role helping the GON craft a Niger Delta
strategy has come to light, and Jandhyala fears that the UN
could be discredited by the possible eventual failure of this
strategy. Jandhyala reports directly to Kacou, and she
speculated that Kacou might approach the GON and demand that
it make improvements in the process. (Note: Kacou has asked
to meet with Ambassador and U.K. High Commissioner June 26.
End note.)


6. (S) Jandhyala mentioned that Secretary to the Government
of the Federation Babagana Kingibe has been officially
sidelined from any significant role in the formulation of the
Delta peace strategy due to mistrust between him and Vice
President Jonathan. (Note: Jandhyala reported that she knows
Kingibe well from eight months of working for him as his
special advisor when he was the AU's Special Envoy in Darfur.
End note.) She commented that while he would be a man
capable of taking control of the entire Delta strategy and
shepherding it to a successful conclusion, he is at heart too
self-interested and too political to be considered an honest
broker. She has, in general, avoided meeting with him during
her time here, though he has called her several times.


7. (S) Comment: Poloff has met with Jandhyala repeatedly over
the past three months, and has seen her attitude towards the
GON's nascent Niger Delta strategy turn from guarded
confidence to frustration. With a resume that includes many
years of high-level African conflict resolution, including
playing a key role in recent efforts in Uganda, she says she
is shocked and dismayed at the unprofessionalism on display
on a daily basis in the Vice President's office, and the
GON's overall inability to manage a conflict resolution
process, despite years of efforts. While it is encouraging
that the GON has turned to the good offices of the UN for
help, it appears its greatest obstacle in producing a
worthwhile Niger Delta strategy may be the GON's own lack of
capacity and strong leadership either from the President, his
Vice President, and any other GON interlocutor. End Comment.
SANDERS