US embassy cable - 04ABUJA1126

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 001126 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/22/2014 
TAGS: NI, PGOV, PREL, US 
SUBJECT: NIGERIA:  ALIYU MOHAMMED COMES TO DINNER 
 
Classified By: 1.  (U) AMBASSADOR JOHN CAMPBELL.  REASONS 1.5 (B), (D). 
 
2.  (C) Summary:  Nigerian National Security Advisor and 
putative presidential king-maker Aliyu Mohammed came alone to 
the ambassador's residence on June 21 for dinner.  He 
provided a somber assessment of Nigeria's situation in the 
regional African context and at home.  Though Nigeria's next 
presidential elections are not scheduled until 2007, he sees 
the next twelve months  of political maneuvering as critical 
for the candidate who ultimately will be successful because 
it will determine who controls the party machinery.  He sees 
his candidate, Ibrahim Babangida, as the most likely victor 
and the likely next president of Nigeria.  In the context of 
cooperation with the U.S. on the war on terrorism, he very 
much wants to visit USEUCOM in Stuttgart with his 
intelligence team.  See paragraphs 8 and 9 for comment. End 
summary. 
 
3.  (C) Aliyu Mohammed signaled to the Regional Affairs 
Counselor that he wanted to meet the new U.S. ambassador in a 
quiet setting.  The three met at the ambassador's residence 
June 21.  Over a two hour dinner Aliyu Mohammed provided a 
tour d'horizon of Nigeria's problems at home and abroad. 
Essentially, he delivered a monologue allowing little room 
for discussion:  clearly, he was delivering a serious message. 
 
4.  (C) Gulliver and the Lilliputians 
 
Aliyu Mohammed opened with a tour d'horizon of Nigeria's 
involvement with its African neighbors.  The tone was that of 
 the Giant of Africa shouldering of necessity heavy regional 
responsibilities that drain on the country's scarce resources 
and receive scant appreciation from the rest of the 
international community. 
 
--Nigeria's peacekeeping role in Liberia and Sierra Leone: 
Aliyu Mohammed said that Nigeria's involvement, and its 
ongoing support of ECOWAS, had been very expensive.  He said 
that Nigeria's involvement in Liberia since 1990 had cost 
"billions of dollars." 
 
-- Subsidized petroleum:  Nigeria had for years provided 
Benin, Niger and Chad with petroleum at under market price. 
This only ended with the Obasanjo government's effort to end 
petroleum subsidies at home.  Aliyu Mohammed commented that 
petroleum subsidies abroad became impossible to justify when 
they were being ended at home. 
 
--Cote d'Ivoire:  Aliyu Mohammed said that he had not been 
present at the June 20 Abuja airport meeting organized by 
Obasanjo with Ivorian president Gbagbo.  Obasanjo's vision 
had been a meeting of a large number of African heads of 
state, but because of scheduling conflicts only presidents 
Kufuor and Eyadema and the ECOWAS secretary General had been 
present.   He said that Gbagbo had promised to work with his 
prime minister.  Aliyu Mohammed discounted this promise as 
worthless because it was not endorsed by Gabagbo's wife and 
others in his inner circle.  Aliyu Mohammed viewed the 
airport meeting as a failed effort by Nigeria in the context 
of ECOWAS to promote stability in Cote d'Ivoire. 
 
--Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC):  Nigeria is 
involved in the effort to promote stability in the former 
Zaire.  He said that the Burundians had tried to justify to 
the Nigerians occupation of parts of the eastern DRC as a 
"buffer". Kabila would be visiting Abuja in the near future 
for ongoing consultations with Obasanjo. 
 
--Darfur:  Nigeria is watching the situation carefully. 
Aliyu Mohammed said that there were "at least 170,000 
refugees," of whom "only 50,000" are being supported by the 
international community.  He was concerned about the 
potential for destabilization of Chad --- and northeastern 
Nigeria. 
 
--Zimbabwe:  Aliyu Mohammed repeated the Nigerian position 
that Mugabe is an old man, that he should be left in place 
until he dies.  When I objected that the country was on the 
verge of collapse, he responded that he hoped it would last 
until Mugabe's death. 
 
---Gulf of Guinea and Sao Tome:  Aliyu Mohammed asked about 
"U.S. intentions" to "base" an aircraft carrier in the Gulf 
of Guinea and establish a "base" in Sao Tome.  (Both have 
been the subject of near-hysterical treatment in the 
irresponsible parts of the Nigerian press.)    Drawing on 
U.S. Navy public affairs guidance, I walked Aliyu Mohammed 
through Summer Pulse and described to him our port 
improvement assistance to Sao Tome.  He expressed 
satisfaction with the answer, saying that it was the same as 
he had received in Washington. 
 
--Visit to USEUCOM:  in the context of the war against 
terrorism, Aliyu Mohammed said that he very much wanted to 
visit USEUCOM with his intelligence team.  He said that the 
possibility had been raised on his last visit to Washington. 
I said that I would follow up, and noted the upcoming 
scheduled visit of DUSEUCOM Gen. Wald to Nigeria July 11-12. 
 
5.  (C) Love of Money is the Root of All Evil 
 
Turning to Nigerian internal affairs, Aliyu Mohammed opened 
by evoking a late colonial, pastoral idyll of his boyhood. 
Then, Nigeria grew all the food it consumed and exported the 
surplus.  Its people were generally prosperous.  Public life 
was characterized by honesty.  Then came the easy riches of 
oil--and corruption.  He referred to the bunkering of oil in 
the Delta, to the mismanagement of oil revenue by the state 
governors (who together receive almost half of the oil 
revenue.)  The result is that billions of dollars are 
diverted abroad for private use.  He argued that the U.S. 
should do more to help Nigeria recover stolen assets.  I 
replied that the U.S. Department of Justice has developed a 
new initiative to help countries like Nigeria identify and 
recover stolen assets that may have been removed by former 
corrupt officials and referred to the G-8 transparency 
compact with Nigeria and three other states launched at Sea 
Island.  He said that Nigeria had to do more to diversify its 
economy, and rebuild its agricultural sector.  I said we 
agreed. 
 
He then turned to debt, and rehearsed the usual arguments for 
its forgiveness.  I in turn noted that little of the debt is 
held by the U.S., noted that the London and Paris clubs 
operate by consensus, and expressed support for President 
Obasanjo's economic team and its reforms.  I reiterated that 
the international community would want to see concrete 
results of the reforms. 
 
Aliyu Mohammed acknowledge the skill and qualifications of 
the president's economic team, but then added that in the 
short run "they did not serve the best interests of Nigeria's 
citizens."   In a country where the railroad system has 
collapsed, he continued, deregularization of petroleum 
increased road transport costs across the board.  In a 
country where the electrical grid fails regularly, everybody 
is dependent on gas-run generators.  Deregulating fuel prices 
simply drove up the costs of all economic activity, and 
further impoverished ordinary citizens.  He did acknowledge 
that over the long term, Nigeria would probably benefit from 
economic reform. 
 
6.  (C) Violence is the Consequence of Poverty 
 
When I asked him about violence in the North, Plateau State 
and the Delta, he said it was the result of poverty.  He said 
the state of emergency would continue at least until November 
-- maybe longer.  It would take that long to restore order. 
He said that the Governor of Kano had been "warned" by 
President Obasanjo, and Aliyu Mohammed thought the Governor 
would take the necessary steps to restore order.  He largely 
discounted ethnic and religious strife as a cause of 
violence.  When I raised Sharia, he said that the Federal 
government would prevent any amputations or stonings.  He had 
little to say about the Delta except to link violence to 
competition among criminals for oil bunkering. 
 
7.  (C) Domestic politics -- the short run 
 
I asked him about Buhari's suit in the Supreme Court seeking 
to overturn the 2003 elections.  He said that President 
Obasanjo has already served a year in his second term, that 
to throw out the results of the 2003 elections would be 
disastrous for the stability of the country.  I commented 
that, nevertheless, the courts were the place to resolve 
election disputes.  He acknowledged that he did not know how 
the court would rule -- "that is one of the unknowns of the 
future." 
 
8.  (C) Domestic politics -- the long run 
 
He identified the three leading candidates for the 2007 
presidential elections as Ibrahim Babangida, current Vice 
President Atiku, and Buhari.  The parties, he continued, have 
agreed that 2007 is "zoned" to the North --" there is a 
general consensus on this".  He dismissed Buhari as 
"marginalized";  he is unacceptable to the Christian 
community, does not do well in the media.  Atiku, he 
continued, at present controls the party machinery and has 
substantial funds.  Babangida is the only one, however, who 
commands support throughout the country and is also well 
funded.  Between now and the summer of 2005, he continued, 
Babangida and Atiku would be struggling for control of the 
party machinery -- and he predicted that Babangida would win. 
 He suggested that Atiku, Buhari and perhaps others would put 
up a candidate of their own to oppose Babangida in 2007.  He 
acknowledged that Babangida is widely hated in Yorubaland and 
Lagos.  Nevertheless, he thought that only Babangida had 
enough nation-wide support to win. 
 
9.  (C) Comment:  Aliyu Mohammed has been a 
power-behind-the-throne in Nigeria for a generation.  A 
product of the Northern, Muslim establishment, he has a 
reputation for competency -- and is not associated with 
religious bigotry.  Though well-known for being close to 
Babangida, the conventional wisdom is that Obasanjo kept him 
on as National security Advisor (and as such the head of 
Nigeria's intelligence apparatus)  because of his competency 
as the NSA and because he wanted to keep him in the tent 
rather than have him on the outside.  And Aliyu Mohammed and 
Obasanjo appear to have developed a good working 
relationship:  Aliyu Mohammed travels constantly with the 
president, appears to have total access to him.  Aliyu 
Mohammed is instinctively pro-American, has long been 
concerned about Nigeria's vulnerability to international 
terrorism, especially in the North.  In my view, It would be 
in our interests for him to visit USEUCOM, as he so much 
wants to do. 
 
10.  (C) Comment, continued:  Many Nigerians routinely join 
Aliyu Mohammed in complaining about the cost of Nigeria's 
involvement in Liberia and Sierra Leone.  The nine years' 
involvement in the two countries is said to have cost Nigeria 
$8-12 billion and 800 lives. 
Aliyu Mohammad's interest in Darfur is to be expected. 
Nigeria participates in the African Union's military observer 
group in Darfur, headed by Nigerian Brig. Gen Okwonko. 
 
11.  (C) Comment, continued:  Aliyu Mohammed spoke with 
feeling about the potential destabilizing impact of a Supreme 
Court decision invalidating the 2003 elections.  He did not, 
however, raise the possibility that such a ruling would be 
ignored or quashed by the government.  He would not be drawn 
out on what this mission increasingly sees as a significant 
increase in violence in the North, the middle belt and the 
Delta.  His comments about economic reform  reflects his 
preoccupation with short-term stability rather than long-term 
economic growth--predictable for the head of the security 
apparatus.  His discussion of Nigerian politics highlights 
the importance he places on control of the  party machinery 
-- and the importance of party elections in the summer of 
2005.  As for Babangida -- 2007 is a long time away, and 
Aliyu Mohammed makes many assumptions that may, or may not, 
prove true.  His assumption that the presidency will be 
"zoned" to the North without serious opposition is but one 
example.    The central importance of control of the party 
machinery is another.   Nevertheless, as both a major 
political actor and an astute observer of the Nigerian scene, 
Aliyu Mohammed clearly believes that Babangida has a good 
chance of returning to power in 2007.  End comment. 
CAMPBELL