US embassy cable - 03ABUJA2215

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 002215 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PINR, KDEM, NI 
SUBJECT: VISIT TO NASARAWA STATE 
 
REF: ABUJA 2080 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED, NOT FOR PUBLICATION ON THE 
INTERNET OR INTRANET. 
 
1. (U) Summary:  Nasarawa has only been a state for seven 
years, and the governor is working to create a state identity 
and legacy for himself.  Poloff traveled to the capital, 
Lafia, to visit the PDP Governor, the Nasarawa ANPP chairman 
and journalists; the meetings all implied that disputes over 
the contested 2003 election are considered moot and everyone 
is looking to the future.  Nasarawa has few real power 
brokers besides the governor, and he maintains a balance by 
insuring that positions are spread among the geographical 
regions and ethnic groups of the state.  Governor Adamu is a 
smooth politician who appears to be maneuvering for a future 
national level position.  End Summary. 
 
Governor Abdullahi Adamu 
------------------------ 
 
2. (SBU) Governor Abdullahi Adamu is 57 years old and started 
out in the civil service.  After his civil engineering degree 
proved useless under successive military regimes not 
concerned with public amenities, Adamu turned to law.  He 
studied in Nigeria and after passing the bar also went into 
politics.  He was Plateau State chairman of the old Social 
Democratic Party (SDP - at one time the ruling party at the 
national level), and he was imprisoned briefly during 
Buhari's military regime.  Adamu was a drafter of both the 
1977/78 and the 1994/95 constitutions.  He is a Muslim and 
was born in Keffi (then in Plateau State, now in the western 
part of Nasarawa). 
 
3. (SBU) Adamu is very polished, and a politician to the 
core.  He is reticent to discuss other individuals in power, 
preferring to discuss general party politics.  He is very 
ambitious; the belief on the street is that he is maneuvering 
for a national-level position.  He thinks highly of himself 
and his skills and is more than happy to discuss his 
qualifications.  Adamu's office is filled with personal 
portraits, pictures and oversized greeting cards.  He is well 
groomed, expensively dressed, and eloquent; he speaks softly 
and to the point. 
 
First four and a half years 
--------------------------- 
 
4. (U) Nasarawa State was created in 1997 by Abacha to reduce 
the size and importance of Plateau State.  The state 
immediately became one of the poorest in the federation, as 
it does not benefit from the quality of soil and climate that 
the more northern Plateau State has for agriculture. 
Infrastructure is very poor, and the capital, Lafia, is 
little more than a small market town.  Faced with numerous 
problems throughout the state, Adamu began many ambitious 
projects to repair roads, build public structures, provide 
rural electricity and water, and improve education.  Most of 
these projects have faltered along the way and run out of 
money.  Governor Adamu's only real success is in the 
education sector, in the creation of a handful of good 
quality secondary schools and universities.  Despite numerous 
complaints that his administration never finished anything, 
Adamu was reelected in April amidst allegations of rigging. 
 
Future Goals 
------------ 
 
5. (U) Adamu believes the way forward lies in manufacturing. 
He stated that Nasarawa cannot compete in agriculture and 
therefore he has pretty much scrapped any state government 
assistance to that sector.  His goal in his second term is to 
attract a few outside investors and try to build a number of 
factories.  He complained that Nasarawa is either last or 
next to last in money received from the Federal Revenue 
Allocation, and therefore is looking for ways to increase 
state government revenue. 
 
Akwanga and the Nomination Process 
---------------------------------- 
 
6. (U) The PDP Governor was reticent about discussing the 
detention of Labor Minister Husseini Akwanga (reftel), whom 
Adamu pushed for the national cabinet.  Poloff asked about 
how the governor groomed proteges and colleagues for state 
and national office.  Apparently, ethnic and regional 
balances play roles not only at the national level, but also 
within the state.  Governor Adamu pointed out that while he 
is from the western part of the state, his new Deputy 
Governor and the Chief Judge are both from the central area, 
and the Speaker of the State House of Assembly is from the 
east.  Adamu stated that he would choose three persons to 
nominate from each of the three senatorial districts for 
national positions, and then ask the President to select one. 
 Adamu appeared to be more concerned with leadership 
qualities in local communities (i.e. amount of votes a person 
can swing) in his selections than with party faithful. 
 
7. (U) Governor Adamu's first deputy governor was offered a 
position in the cabinet, and Adamu replaced him with a 
university professor in the hopes of assisting in the 
state-building process.  As Adamu was already in position, he 
did not have to concern himself with the votes his deputy 
could bring.  For the 2003 election, it was necessary to find 
a running mate who could bring in votes from a different area 
of the state, and therefore the governor dropped his 
incumbent. 
 
National Issues 
--------------- 
 
8. (U) Governor Adamu pointed out that 26 of 36 governors 
will be ineligible to run in 2007, having served the maximum 
two elected terms.  While he believes that there will not be 
a movement to remove term limits, he was concerned about that 
numerous powerful men would soon be looking for something 
else to do.  Adamu believes the term limit issue is the 
driving force behind early campaigning for 2007, as many 
governors are competing for the Vice Presidential ticket. 
Another problem with term limits is a constant need to 
reinvent the wheel in Nigerian governance, Adamu claimed. 
Democracy in Nigeria is too new, he thought, and it will take 
a much longer time period for politicians to better 
understand the process they've created and to deliver 
promised reforms to the populace. 
 
9. (U) Adamu echoed his PDP's party line on Nigeria's 
national politics.  He claimed that if Obasanjo had not been 
reelected in 2003, the experiment in democracy would have 
failed.  Adamu said four years were too short a period in 
this country to address the multitude of things that have to 
be reformed.  Without the continuity provided by Obasanjo, 
the presidency would have devolved into a completely 
ineffectual revolving door.  In reality, according to Adamu, 
the 2007 election will be the real test of democracy in 
Nigeria and will demonstrate whether this country can truly 
sustain a transition.  In addition, Adamu believes that the 
PDP has a responsibility that goes with their overwhelming 
majority to make sweeping reforms in Nigeria (although he did 
not get into specifics) and that the party will not deserve 
the presidency in 2007 if it cannot fix the country now. 
 
Meeting with the ANPP Chairman 
------------------------------ 
 
10. (SBU) Nasarawa ANPP Chairman Umaru was a senator with the 
SDP from 1992 to 1997 in Plateau State, during which time his 
district was the current Nasarawa State.  Then he served in 
the new Nasarawa State Assembly until 1999.  According to 
Umaru, the ANPP in Nasarawa has already given up on the 
current electoral tribunal process and are looking to 2007. 
He stated that the major obstacle today is the apathy of the 
populace; after what he termed the obvious rigging of the 
April 12 National Assembly elections, people no longer cared 
about subsequent elections.  Umaru claimed that Governor 
Adamu did not even campaign for the 2003 election, and was 
even chased out of some villages.  He also claimed that 
Adamu's successes in education would continue to promulgate 
the ruling party as costs for higher education in state have 
become so prohibitive that only persons with access to 
government coffers and contracts will be able to send their 
children to these schools.  He also mentioned problems 
between the ANPP National Secretariat and the state chapters, 
as the National Secretariat still has not yet passed 2003 
election funds to the state chapters. 
 
Meeting with Journalists 
------------------------ 
 
11. (SBU) Poloff met with National Union of Journalists State 
Chairman Musa Abdullahi and the state reporter for Radio 
Nigeria.  While the two men have somewhat opposing views on 
the ruling party, both agreed that Governor Adamu is okay. 
They stated that the has many good ideas for projects to 
improve infrastructure, but that all the projects seem to 
stop midstream.  The major complaint against the Governor is 
that he has not seen any projects through to completion. 
Both journalists were also certain of the Governor's higher 
aspirations.  On the issue of the Akwanga detention (reftel), 
the journalists felt that the situation demonstrated 
President Obasanjo's commitment to fighting corruption.  Even 
though both agreed that the arrests were probably timed to 
impress Obasanjo's Commonwealth Heads of Government peers, 
the main issue was that the GON had finally investigated 
someone at the cabinet level. 
Roberts