US embassy cable - 01ABUJA993

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 000993 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECLASS ON 4/25/11 
TAGS: PGOV, MOPS, PINS, PINR, NI 
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: OBASANJO REPLACES SERVICE CHIEFS 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY AMBASSADOR HOWARD F. JETER.  REASON 1.5 (D). 
 
 
Refs: (A) USDAO Abuja 874 (B) USDAO Abuja 877 
-     (C) USDAO Lagos  (D) OFR Difficulties Cable 
 
 
1.  (U)  President Obasanjo on April 24 abruptly retired 
Chief of Army Staff LTG Victor Malu, Chief of Naval Staff 
VADM V.K. Ombu and Chief of Air Staff, AVM Isaac Alfa.  MG 
A.O. Ogomudia will replace Malu, and RADM S.I. Afolayan and 
AVM J.D. Wuyep will replace, respectively, Ombu and Alfa. 
 
 
2.  (C)  Reftels provide background on the reasons for the 
dismissals, as well as biographic information.  The GON is 
offering different reasons for the changes to different 
audiences.  The first public message was that the three men 
voluntarily and simultaneously retired.  The second public 
message was that President Obasanjo had always planned a 
"mid-term" change of Service Chiefs (the traditional term 
of office has been four years; Malu, Ombu and Alfa became 
Service Chiefs shortly after Obasanjo took office in May 
1999).  Indeed, there was talk of changes in January. 
 
 
3.  (C)  The private message to diplomats focuses on 
Administration unhappiness with Malu's public opposition to 
its policies and suggests that Ombu and Alfa lost their 
jobs simultaneously largely in order to make Malu's forced 
retirement look somehow routine.  Clearly, none of the 
affected Service Chiefs was expecting the ax to fall when 
it did.  Toeing the public line in a phone call to the 
Ambassador, LTC M.I. Idris, military assistant to NSA Aliyu 
Mohammed, said the retirements were "normal" and that no 
"backlash" was expected from the Nigerian military.  He 
said that the decision to remove Malu was unrelated to the 
former COAS's well-publicized complaints about Operation 
Focus Relief.  Idris admitted, however, that Malu's recent 
statements to the press (ref D) had influenced the timing 
of the dismissals. 
 
 
4.  (C)  However, Idris also told the Ambassador that Malu 
and his colleagues had created "other problems" of which 
the USG had not been made aware.  Reporting in other 
channels tends to confirm that Alfa and Ombu had their own 
problems with senior Administration civilians. 
 
 
5.  (C)  Reaction to the forced retirements has been mixed. 
For many, the key question is whether the previous regional 
and ethnic balance was maintained.  In that sense, there 
has been a marked shift toward the Southwest.  The Chief of 
Army Staff (COAS) position, by far the most important, has 
slipped from Northern hands for the first time in over 20 
years, going to an officer (Ogomudia) who is from Southern 
Edo State, an area with kinship ties to the Yoruba. 
Officially, however, Edo is part of the South-South 
"geopolitical" region, so Ogomudia's elevation gives this 
region a replacement for Ombu, who we believe may be from a 
northern Bayelsa State minority with kinship ties to the 
Igbo.  News media report that Afolayan is from the North- 
Central region.  His name has a Yoruba ring to it, so we 
think he is probably from Kwara State.  Wuyep is a 
Christian from Plateau State.  His elevation is a more-or- 
less even trade for the removal of Alfa, who is from 
Plateau State, also in the North-Central region. 
 
 
6.  (C)  Thus, the Obasanjo Administration has formally 
maintained the existing regional balance:  Two Chiefs from 
the North-Central region (Wuyep and Afolayan) and one from 
the South-South (Ogomudia).  However, two of the new Chiefs 
will be assumed (at least in the North) to be allied with 
Yoruba interests, where before none was seen as ethnically 
close to the Yoruba.  Moreover, one of those two Chiefs is 
the one who really matters -- the COAS. 
 
 
7. (C)  Northerners, predictably, have reacted negatively 
to the loss of what has traditionally been the top military 
job.  Northern Senators claimed in press interviews the day 
the retirements were announced that the move was a 
"vendetta" against the North, and could be potentially 
destabilizing--a code work that it violated what the North 
views as the proper "zoning" of the position.  They also 
alluded to the possibility that the change was instigated 
by the U.S., whose participation in Nigerian military 
matters Malu opposed.  While this rhetoric is somewhat 
hyperbolic, it does reflect anger in the North that two 
years into a democratic administration it has lost the 
position from which it ruled the country for the better 
part of the past twenty years.  Some Northern members of 
the House of Representatives have indicated plans to 
convoke Defense Minister Danjuma to explain the dismissals, 
as well as the  resence of American troops, ho they 
claimed to have been in Nigeria for over six months. 
(Note: All troops left before the end of 2000.  End Note.) 
 
 
8. (C) It is also believed in some circles that Malu's 
removal may have been precipitated in part because of his 
growing popularity with vocal Northern critics of the GON. 
Malu's complaints about U.S.-Nigerian mil-mil relations had 
struck a resonant chord in certain Northern circles where 
the memories of the Abacha years are not unpleasant.  Malu 
had made a point to assert the moral correctness of his 
service under and loyalty to the Abacha regime when he 
appeared before the Oputa Panel.  Some observers believe 
that Malu's increasing popularity in the North may have 
emboldened him to take actions that bordered on (perhaps 
even crossed the line into) insubordination, forcing the 
President to remove him.  Regardless of the role this may 
have played in the decision to remove Malu, his replacement 
with a Southerner (viewed by many Northerners as Yoruba) 
does appear intended to send a message to Northern elites, 
particularly those advocating for Ibrahim Babangida to run 
for the Presidency in 2003. 
 
 
9. (U)  Comment:  We had anticipated that Nigerian news 
media, always eager to see a foreign conspiracy in the 
national closet, would have quickly picked up on the 
Northern senators' hints that the U.S. instigated the 
Chiefs' removals.  We had a categorical denial ready for 
use when the need arose.  While a few articles have implicitly 
alluded to this theory, no allegation has been so blatant that 
we have had to issue a denial on something that is probably 
a domestic, Nigerian move.  End Comment. 
Jeter