US embassy cable - 04ABUJA582

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 000582 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NOFORN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/22/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, KDEM, ASEC, NI 
SUBJECT: THE DYNAMICS OF POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS IN NIGERIA 
 
REF: A. LAGOS 637 
 
     B. ABUJA 572 
 
CLASSIFIED BY CHARGE D'AFFAIRES RICK ROBERTS FOR REASONS 1.5 
(B) AND (D). 
 
1.  (C)  SUMMARY:  While security in general is at its lowest 
point in recent memory, many of the recent wave of killings 
(septel) are attributable to two political trends, one local 
and one national.  The majority of national politics 
incidents appear to stem from internal disputes in Obasanjo's 
ruling PDP, while a few were apparently intended to 
intimidate opposition party leaders whose popular support 
threatened ruling party interests.  The local politics 
pattern follows the pattern of a politician employing a gang 
under one rubric or another -- as bodyguards or militia or 
support group -- and the gangsters pursue his political 
rivalries by rubbing out those he does not like.  The Odua 
Peoples Congress (OPC) are famous as such gangsters for hire 
(Ref A), although there are several other organized 
equivalents around the country generically referred to as 
"Area Boys."  Politics in new democracies can be a blood 
sport, witness Taiwan's election and fistfights thereafter in 
its legislature, but the recently accelerated pace of 
assassinations in Nigeria and the lingering uncertainty over 
the still contested 2003 elections do not bode well for 
curbing political violence.  END SUMMARY. 
 
----------- 
THE SETTING 
----------- 
 
2.  (C)  Nigeria has experienced general sporadic violence 
for many years as ethnic groups wage intermittent war on each 
other, armed robbery has become common, and security forces 
have intervened ostensibly to reduce both while raising their 
income by shaking down passersby with guns in full display. 
Politics too has seen such violence, which has waxed and 
waned as politics have become more and less important under 
civilian and military governments.  Nigeria has become a 
violent society, with more than enough guns and people who 
are willing to use them. 
 
3.  (C)  Political assassinations have been used to eliminate 
challengers both within parties (Dikibo, 2004) and from rival 
parties (Harry, 2003) as well as to silence critics 
(Yar,adua, 1996) and intimidate survivors (Kudirat Abiola, 
1997).  Assassinatons have also been simple revenge killings 
by one member of the political class upon another, at times, 
instead of having deeper motives.  In national level 
politics, assassinations tend to be aimed at the mid-level of 
opponents' factions, to camouflage the conflict in a veneer 
of local violence.  Real local-level assassinations are more 
straight forward, elimination of direct competitors and 
intimidation of potential protesters, with efforts to hide 
the reasons generally limited to verbal denials.  At all 
levels, control of party (government) resources is both cause 
and effect of assassinations. 
 
4.  (C)  Nigerians have exhibited an ingenuity in carrying 
out political assassinations matched only by their well-known 
capacity for election rigging (Ref B) and financial fraud. 
Violent attacks appear to be the method of choice nowadays, 
but historically Nigerian assassins have utilized poison and 
mechanical failures too, in attempts to cover the killers, 
trails.  Yar'adua was poisoned in prison, and Obasanjo 
famously narrowly avoided the needle.  The recent wave of 
killings have mostly been attacks on automobiles passing 
through rural areas or midnight assaults on the victim's home 
in town.  The most recent death, Yauri's, was originally 
attributed to a fire and then to a single-car accident, 
perhaps the work of a more creative and subtle assassin of 
the earlier mold. 
 
------------------ 
THE NATIONAL TREND 
------------------ 
 
5.  (S/NF)  The recent assassination of PDP South-South Zone 
Chairman Dikibo provides an instructive look at the "new 
wave" assassins' methodology.  On February 7, Dikibo was 
assassinated en route from Port Harcourt to Asaba, in Delta 
state.  Police sources told poloff that Dikibo received a 
warning on February 5 from "a phone in the Presidency."  It 
appears that a friend of Dikibo working at the Presidential 
Villa security detail overheard something and attempted to 
warn him.  On the day of his death, the Deputy Governor of 
Rivers state placed two phone calls to Dikibo, urging him to 
travel to Asaba that evening.  Dikibo had planned to leave 
early in the day, but was delayed by the unexplained absence 
of his orderly.  When the orderly returned over two hours 
late, he did so without his motorcycle, which he had 
regularly parked at Dikibo's residence while traveling.  The 
second of the two calls came just ten minutes before Dikibo 
died.  According to an internal police report, the Deputy 
Governor wanted to know the precise location of Dikibo: "the 
village you are in now," according to the transcript of the 
call.  Within minutes, two cars overtook Dikibo who was 
killed with one shot to the head.  Subsequently, Abia 
Governor Orji Kalu as well as Dikibo,s family and friends 
have alleged that Dikibo complained of threats from "the 
party," and his attorney says the threats continue. 
 
6.  (S/NF)  Whether it was the purpose or not, the deaths of 
Dikibo and Northwest Zone Chairman Yauri removed supporters 
of VP Atiku from chairing the PDP in two of Nigeria's six 
zones.  PDP Board of Trustees Chairman Tony Anenih will have 
a free hand to replace them with two of his own men, having 
largely sidelined PDP Chairman Audu Ogbeh politically.  The 
attack on the governor of Benue (also an Atiku supporter) had 
the added bonus of eliminating Agom, an anti-Anenih member of 
the PDP Board of Trustees, putting the pieces in place for 
Anenih to move from chairing the Board to chairing the PDP as 
a whole if, as expected, Ogbeh is dumped during the course of 
the year. 
 
-------------- 
LOCAL DYNAMICS 
-------------- 
 
7.  (C)  Kano, Kogi, Osun, Ondo, Anambra, Imo, Kwara, Enugu, 
and Ogun states have all experienced killings from intra-PDP 
disputes since 1999.  Adamawa, Rivers, Delta, and Plateau, 
among others, have also seen non-fatal attacks among rival 
politicians.  The predominant factor in these incidents has 
been the struggle for control of the local party machinery, 
although political violence in the Delta has always had an 
ethnic flavor and may be in process to become a rivalry of 
cartel leaders for control of illicit oil exporting (septel). 
 
 
8.  (C)  The recent local government elections provided the 
opportunity for governors to ensure that the interim chairs 
they handpicked were given the opportunity to win the full 
terms in office, sometimes even without resigning from their 
civil service jobs to run for the office (Ref B).  Many 
members of the various political parties in power believed 
that party primaries and the general elections should have 
been open to opposing politicians as well as the 
"Caretakers," and this difference of opinion became violent 
in many places.  In most cases the victims were, the 
"Caretaker" local government chairman, his opponent, or an 
election official deemed to be too close to one or the other 
of the sides.  Kogi and Adamawa states typified this simple 
pattern. 
 
9.  (C)  Plateau State showed the pattern at its most 
complex, with economic, ethnic and religious layers added and 
the usual gangs serving politicians upgraded into heavily 
armed militias.  Plateau PDP kingpin Solomon Lar, working 
with the Governor, recruited hundreds of thugs" to terrorize 
largely Muslim Hausa/Fulani herdsmen in Langtang and Shendam 
LGAs into voting PDP.  On the other side, ANPP national 
officer Jeremiah Useni gathered his own gangs to intimidate 
mainly Christian Jukun farmers in an area widely believed to 
have voted for the ANPP in the 2003 elections.  Lar and Useni 
are both Christian.  The ensuing clashes fueled an already 
tense dispute between the herdsmen and farmers, eventually 
killing upwards of 200 people in the past month. 
 
----------------- 
ONE OTHER COMMENT 
----------------- 
 
10.  (S/NF)  While some incidents are surely not related, the 
political violence inside the ruling PDP also paints a 
picture for Nigerians of a government that is unstable.  If 
rivals within the government can intimidate through 
eliminating each other's mid-level supporters, why not 
eliminate the seniors?  Nigeria had a shaky start on the road 
to democracy in 1999.  The flawed contests in 2003 proved 
that rigging and violence were effective ways to maintain 
control of the political process.  With these early lessons, 
preparing for 2007 has become a do or die situation for many 
politicians throughout the Nigerian political class.  Efforts 
at gaining or maintaining control of the PDP in 2004 have 
translated this literally.  The real losers, besides those 
who end up dead, are the Nigerians who continue live in fear 
of what may come next. 
ROBERTS