US embassy cable - 01ABUJA2881

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 ABUJA 002881 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
AF/W FOR PARKS, EPSTEIN 
LONDON FOR GURNEY 
PARIS FOR NEARY 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/14/2006 
TAGS: PGOV, PINR, KDEM, NI 
SUBJECT: PDP: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 
REF: A. (A) ABUJA 2878 
     B. (B) ABUJA 2832 
     C. (C) LAGOS 2815 
 
 
Classified by CDA Timothy Andrews for reasons 1.5 (B) AND (D). 
 
 
1. (U)  Introduction:  The Peoples' Democratic Party, a 
hybrid from its inception, has been riven by internal power 
struggles, weakened by presidential interference, and now 
faces significant challenges gearing up for its own 
convention, much less the battery of local (2002) State and 
Federal (2003) elections that loom on the horizon (Ref. A). 
The PDP is still the incumbency-protection vehicle of choice, 
and as such, will command a strong following.  Whether the 
PDP, through what heretofore has been a rather combative 
process, can evolve into the semblance of a party with an 
identifiable substantive platform for Nigeria, (beyond 
retaining power for its members and returning Obasanjo for a 
second term) is a long stretch.  In order to place current 
events in perspective, we offer the following refresher on 
the PDP.  An analysis of the current PDP conventioneering 
will be provided by septel.  End Introduction. 
---------------------- 
Beginnings: G-18, G-34 
---------------------- 
2. (U)  The G-18 was formed in 1997 by prominent Northern 
politicians who opposed the self-succession bid by military 
strong-man Sani Abacha.  At the time, the G-18 involved 
significant risks, including imprisonment.  Many members were 
former Abacha ministers, including chairman Chief Solomon 
Lar, Abubakar Rimi, Adamu Ciroma and Jerry Gana.  Other key 
participants included: Retired Colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, 
the first prominent Northerner to publicly challenge Abacha's 
self-succession bid, Dr. Suleiman Kumo, Balarabe Musa, Sule 
Lamido, and Dr. Usman Bugaje.  Retired General and former 
Presidential aspirant Shehu Yar'Adua's political machine, the 
Peoples' Democratic Movement, was represented by Lawal Kaita 
and Ango Abdullahi.  Of these, only Gana (Minister of 
Information), Lamido (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Ciroma 
(Minster of Finance), and Bugaje (Special Advisor to the V.P. 
on political matters) have retained formal roles in 
government or the Party.  Lar became PDP Chairman for a time 
but was removed soon after Obasanjo's election. 
 
 
3. (U)  The G-18 expanded to the G-34 with the addition of 
members from the East, Southwest, and South-South.  Alex 
Ekwueme, Vice-President under Shehu Shagari during the Second 
Republic, represented Igbo interests, while Chief Bola Ige 
represented Afenifere and the Yoruba.  Ekwueme, who later 
opposed Obasanjo for the PDP presidential nomination, became 
Chairman of the G-34 with Gana as Secretary.  The G-34's 
platform was simple: free elections, generals not invited. 
After Abacha's climactic exit from the political scene, the 
five parties he created to support his self-succession bid, 
which Bola Ige called the "five fingers of a leprous hand," 
dissolved, leaving the G-34 as the only significant national 
political organization.  G-34 became the PDP in July 1998, 
and Ekwueme was elected Chairman. 
 
 
---------- 
Transition 
---------- 
 
 
4. (U)  At the time of Abacha's death, the PDP's conservative 
wing was led by former members of the National Party of 
Nigeria (NPN): Ekwueme, Ciroma, Ambassador Jibril Aminu, 
Chief Sunday Awoniyi (leader of the former All Nigeria 
Congress), Chief Don Etiebet, Audu Ogbeh, Bamanga Tukur (NRC 
candidate for president during the Third Republic) and Aminu 
Wali.  Their platform included preserving political stability 
through traditional rulers and institutions, promoting 
private sector growth and limiting the role of government. 
 
 
5. (U)  The progressives envisaged a more social-democratic 
role for government: they wanted to limit the role of 
traditional rulers and institutions in society and increase 
the role of government in providing essential social 
services, including education, health-care and physical 
infrastructure.  The progressives, like most of the elite 
here, gained wealth and prominence in traditional Nigerian 
fashion: as either contractors to or senior officials in the 
GON, its ministries and parastatals.  Still, the progressives 
are generally disturbed by the disparities of wealth that 
exist in Nigeria, and view improving the lot of the common 
people as key to Nigeria's economic and political growth. 
Solomon Lar, Abubakar Rimi, Sule Lamido, Jerry Gana, 
Okwesilieze Nwodo, and Bola Ige led the progressives.  The 
other significant progressive element in the PDP was 
Yar'Adua's PDM.  PDM leaders included current VP Atiku 
Abubakar, former Senate President Chuba Okadigbo, Lawal 
Kaita, Yomi Edu, Dapo Sarumi and Sunday Afolabi. 
 
 
----------- 
Sani's Boys 
----------- 
6. (C)  Abacha-ites, seeing their only opportunity for 
retaining political relevance--and access to cash-- clambered 
aboard the increasingly crowded PDP lifeboat.  These included 
Tony Anenih one of the leaders of the YEAA (Youth Earnestly 
Ask for Abacha), currently Minister of Works and Housing and 
reported to be among the most corrupt of Obasanjo's 
notoriously rapacious ministers; Barnabas Gemade, current PDP 
Chairman; Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia and Jim Nwobodo, currently a 
senator from Enugu State and perennial facilitator of 
Anenih's political "fixes" in the Senate for Obasanjo. 
Nwobodo was also the key spoiler employed by former military 
Head of State Ibrahim Babangida to divide the Igbos and 
defeat Ekwueme's bid for the Presidential nomination. 
 
 
------------------ 
The Invisible Hand 
------------------ 
 
 
7. (C)  Not to be forgotten, or excluded, the Generals 
circled the PDP warily in the beginning.  Upon realizing that 
it would determine the immediate political future of Nigeria, 
they moved in for the taking.  These included Ibrahim 
Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and most importantly, 
Obasanjo's NSA, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau.  Their interests were 
simple: protect their assets, prevent serious inquiry into 
their actions, and retain political power by remaining the 
"invisible hand" guiding, or at times forcing, political 
outcomes favorable to their position.  More than any other 
element within the PDP, the Generals were responsible for 
Obasanjo,s candidacy. 
 
 
------------ 
Yoruba Split 
------------ 
 
 
8. (C)  Bola Ige, leader of the Afenifere and the 
Southwestern faction within the PDP, exited the Party once 
Abacha's sidekicks entered.  Ige,s departure was perhaps 
inevitable--Abiola's death shattered Yoruba hopes to 
resuscitate the 1993 election results; participating in a 
party that included Abiola's jailers, and possible 
executioners, was therefore abhorrent to Yoruba leaders.  The 
departing Yoruba eventually created the Alliance for 
Democracy, arguably the only Fourth Republic party with a 
reasonably unified identity and platform: that the identity, 
Yoruba ethnicity, and the platform, promoting Southwestern 
interests, were regional rather than national heightened the 
AD's appeal in the Southwest but limited its effectiveness 
nationwide.   Ige's departure from the PDP did, however, 
prevent the Southwest from determining which Yoruba candidate 
would get the PDP Presidential nomination.  (Comment: 
Whatever their political affiliation, many Nigerians at that 
time felt that historical justice demanded the Presidency be 
zoned to the Southwest in 1999.   In any non-military 
Nigerian government, elections, constitutions, and executive 
nominations must conform to the ineluctable pressure of the 
zoning system, which exists to make sure each region gets a 
bite of the apple.  Even now, zoning still appears to trump 
other considerations.  End Comment.) 
 
 
------------- 
Why Obasanjo? 
------------- 
 
 
9. (C)  IBB probably was the most powerful force behind 
Obasanjo obtaining the PDP presidential nomination.  The 
Generals' arguments, enhanced by financial incentives, won 
the day.  The arguments favoring Obasanjo included: (1) 
Obasanjo was Yoruba. (2) As one of their own, he would be 
able to manage the military, yet protect its core interests 
with an authority that a civilian president might find 
difficult to muster.  (This has proven largely to be the 
case.   Obasanjo has retired nearly two generations of senior 
military staff during his first two years in office, a move 
that a civilian president would have found more difficult.) 
(3) Obasanjo did a fairly good job, comparatively speaking, 
as military ruler and oversaw the successful transition to 
the Second Republic. (4) Obasanjo, having "diverted" 
substantial sums during his tenure as Head of State would 
ultimately protect the position of his former military 
colleagues and their political associates, preventing any 
serious attempt to recover stolen money or try them for human 
rights abuses.  (While he did not prevent the Oputa Human 
Rights Panel from issuing summonses to IBB, Abubakar and 
Buhari, Obasanjo's refusal to compel the triumvirate of 
ex-Generals to appear before the Panel has satisfied this 
expectation.)  (5) Still, the argument that won the day for 
Obasanjo during the first PDP convention was, by all 
appearances--cash. 
10. (C)  Arguments within the PDP against Obasanjo included: 
(1) Obasanjo was not a politician and his allegiance to 
democratic processes (i.e. power sharing) in government, once 
elected, was undetermined.  (2) He had no constituency to 
deliver to the Party as the Yoruba had generally rejected 
him.  (3) His nomination would snub Ekwueme, a qualified, 
experienced politician and PDP founder.  (4) As a former 
military dictator he would lack an understanding of, or 
sympathy for, democratic institutions and practices. 
 
 
11. (C)  During the Jos convention in January 1999, the 
Generals' arguments, buoyed by significant amounts of their 
money, secured the nomination of Obasanjo over Ekwueme.  Most 
of the Northern leadership sided with the Generals for 
Obasanjo.  Key elements of the late Yar'Adua's progressive 
PDM faction, led by Atiku and Okadigbo supported Obasanjo as 
well.  These included Abubakar Rimi, who suspiciously dropped 
his bid for the nomination at the last minute to support the 
Obasanjo candidacy.  Seeing the need for the Presidency to be 
zoned to the Southwest after nearly 12 years of military rule 
by Northern Muslims, and bowing to the political influence of 
IBB, Northern conservatives and traditional rulers also sided 
with Obasanjo.  Having lost the presidential nomination of 
the party he was instrumental in founding, Alex Ekwueme 
solidly delivered Igboland to the PDP, as did his Northern 
counterparts for the North, and Obasanjo was elected 
President in February 1999, with the PDP under the leadership 
of Chief Solomon Lar as Party Chairman. 
 
 
-------------- 
Obasanjo's PDP 
-------------- 
 
 
12. (C)  Obasanjo assumed the Presidency with tremendous 
goodwill, except ironically perhaps among his own Yoruba, 
whose preferred candidate (Olu Falae) he defeated.  He also 
possessed the moral authority of having opposed, and been 
jailed by, Abacha.  However, as many in the party feared, 
President Obasanjo, once elected, showed little understanding 
of--or patience for--the give-and-take of democratic 
politics.  Preferring the role of international statesman to 
domestic consensus builder, Obasanjo expected the Party to be 
the extension of his will domestically.  Former and current 
PDP leaders have described this, with some frustration, as 
Obasanjo's tendency to conflate, to his own advantage, the 
presidential and parliamentary systems of democracy: he 
considers himself Prime Minister, in that he demands the PDP 
comply with his wishes, yet has the guaranteed tenure of a 
President, and need not actually lead the party, since he is 
not subject to a no-confidence vote.  This tendency has been 
evinced at several junctures during Obasanjo's first term, 
and has left the PDP--already unwieldly-- significantly 
weakened. 
 
 
------------------------ 
Ministerial Appointments 
------------------------ 
 
 
13. (C)  Obasanjo complied with the unwritten rules of zoning 
in making his ministerial appointments, but he did not 
consult with Party leadership, or consider party affiliation 
in making his choices.  Senator Aniete Okon, PDP Publicity 
Secretary during Solomon Lar's tenure as Party Chairman, 
 
SIPDIS 
commented to Poloff that he was roundly castigated when he 
questioned the President about the appointment of Bola Ige 
(AD) as Minister of Power and Steel.  The President 
reportedly stated that he would make his appointments 
regardless of the Party's wishes.  The net effect of this 
approach was to alienate stronger personalities in the party 
that might have lent support during his Presidency.  Many key 
figures in the party were passed over, while the Generals' 
representative, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau was made NSA, and a 
flock of ex-Abacha officials were given key ministerial 
positions.  In his first round of ministerial appointments, 
Obasanjo appeared to prefer individuals who were compromised 
and conditioned by their their political pasts, and who 
therefore presumably could be controlled. 
 
 
---------------- 
Party Leadership 
---------------- 
 
 
14. (C)  Obasanjo's first steps in wresting control of the 
Party came during the November 1999 PDP convention.  Chief 
Sunday Awoniyi, a senior Party founder, was the candidate 
favored by most members as their new chair.  Abacha re-tread 
Barnabas Gemade was the President's candidate, but was widely 
opposed because of his close association with Abacha and his 
reputation as being notoriously corrupt, even by Nigerian 
standards.  Gemade was elected, helped by the generous 
administration of cash by the President's political fixers, 
led by Tony Anenih.  This practice was so blatant that one 
candidate, Senator Ahmadu Ali, announced at the podium that 
the Presidency was supplying delegates with "Ghana-must-go 
bags" full of cash.  (The colorful plastic-weave bags became 
synonymous with political corruption.)  The message from the 
new President was clear: despite his protestations against 
corruption, the President would not let principle stand in 
the way of his objectives.  Under this venal cloud, the 
Gemade era began.  Ever attuned to double-messages, Party 
members, government officials and Nigerians suspected that 
the new regime, while mouthing words like "transparency," had 
not divorced itself from old style politicking.  Having 
bought Gemade's chairmanship at the Jos convention, the 
President was on the road to squandering much of the moral 
authority he brought into office to oppose corruption in 
Nigerian politics. 
 
 
15. (C)  Indebted to the President, Gemade functioned as the 
President's spokesperson within the Party.  During repeated 
Party and national crises since being elected Chairman, 
Gemade did not seek to arbitrate and resolve disputes 
objectively; instead, he looked to the President for 
direction.  Essentially, Gemade joined Anenih as one of the 
President's top two political fixers, and the devolution of 
the PDP into an arm of the Presidency accelerated. 
 
 
---------------------- 
National Assembly Wars 
---------------------- 
 
 
16. (C)  The PDP "zoned" the Senate Presidency to the Igbo 
during the last round of elections.  When the Senate first 
convened, Chuba Okadigbo was the clear choice of his 
colleagues to be Senate President.  Perhaps because his VP 
was a former PDM leader, but also because of personal animus 
for Okadigbo--a brash, intemperate and brilliant professor of 
political science--Obasanjo opposed his candidacy.  Obasanjo 
wanted Evans Enwerem to be Senate President, and refused to 
be inconvenienced by constitutional niceties like the 
separation of powers.  Enwerem's victory was reportedly 
orchestrated by Tony Anenih, with the aid of Jim Nwobodo and 
others in the Senate.  In the House, Salisu Buhari, a 29 
year-old novice, was elected Speaker with the President's 
support.  To Obasanjo,s embarrassment both Enwerem and 
Buhari were soon removed by their colleagues for having lied 
about their credentials. 
 
 
17. (C)  Okadigbo was then elected Senate President in 
November, 1999.  The House elected Rep. Ghali Na'abba, the 
soft-spoken scion of an old Kano political family, as 
Speaker.  Obasanjo disliked Obadigbo and opposed Na'abba as 
well.  The Presidency spent the better part of 2000 working 
towards their removal.  These machinations consumed a great 
deal of time and energy during Obasanjo's first year in 
office.  The effort seemed driven by a profoundly 
undemocratic streak in the President: Obasanjo tends to 
personalize any opposition, and has preferred to change 
personalities rather than working toward political compromise 
on a given issue. 
 
 
18. (SBU)  After surviving three separate votes to be 
removed, and an onslaught of Executive cash, the conflict 
between the President and Okadigbo reached a dramatic 
stand-off: Okadigbo hid the ceremonial mace to prevent the 
Senate from meeting without him to evict him out from office. 
 The President sent nearly one hundred mobile police into his 
residence, ostensibly to retrieve the mace, which was not 
there.  Although Okadigbo survived for a while, his 
colleagues finally succumbed to repeated financial incentives 
to remove him.  Okadigbo was replaced by Senator Anyim Pius 
Anyim, an Igbo political ingenue who, it was correctly 
thought, would be more inclined to do the President's bidding. 
 
 
19. (C)  Na'abba proved more resilient at resisting siege. 
House members who voted to replace Na'abba were reported by 
multiple sources to have received very healthy payments (up 
to USD 60,000) for their votes.  Payoffs had become 
regularized into a business arrangement.  Predominantly 
Yoruba AD members were paid 1,000,000 naira (roughly USD 
9,500), because they consistently voted with the President. 
PDP and APP members were paid half that amount.  The 
President's liaison officer in the House, the ubiquitous 
Esther Uduehi, set up a payment center in the Command Guest 
House at the Villa.  Designated Representatives would then 
collect payoffs for all the Representatives in their State. 
 
 
20. (C)  Unlike Okadigbo, who commanded loyalty and dislike 
in equal doses among his colleagues, Na'abba was widely 
respected by House members, excluding AD members.  Another 
significant difference from Okadigbo,s saga was that 
Northern power brokers viewed attempts to replace Na-abba as 
an affront.  Northern representatives, regardless of party 
affiliation rallied around him.  After all the payouts were 
made, but before the no-confidence motion came to a vote, 
House leaders placed a large pile of bound hundred-naira 
notes on the table supporting the ceremonial mace.  By going 
public with the proceeds of the payoffs, the House leadership 
sullied both the President and House members, but protected 
the Speaker. 
 
 
21. (C)  Having been only partly successful in replacing the 
PDP's National Assembly leadership to please the President, 
Gemade was now called upon to broker a "cease-fire."  A 
commission of Party leadership examined the evidence, which 
included damning video- and audio tape of key Executive 
branch officials bribing House members.  In the face of this 
damaging evidence, the President ended his efforts to remove 
Na'abba.  The House leadership has retained the tapes as a 
deterrent against future attempt to remove the Speaker, but 
neither side wants the embarrassment of further public 
acknowledgement of their iniquities. 
 
 
----------------- 
The "Postwar" PDP 
----------------- 
 
 
22. (C)  The President's protracted effort to remove Okadigbo 
and Na'abba produced several results.  With Okadigbo gone, 
and a truce in place with Na'abba, the 2001 budget passed 
within one month of its presentation to the Assembly, which 
conformed to the Executive's understanding of how the budget 
process should work.  Esther Udeuhi once exclaimed to Poloff: 
"This is how it works.  The President presents a budget.  The 
Assembly passes it, unchanged.  Finish!" 
 
 
23. (C)  Although the President attained the immediate result 
he wanted, the effect on the Party was highly detrimental. 
Some in the Assembly began to view the AD as the de facto 
party of the President.  PDP members were demoralized and 
began to view the Party as merely an enforcement arm of the 
Presidency.  The PDP remained, however, a vehicle for 
re-election and fund-raising; PDP members in the Assembly 
appear loathe at this point to begin forming more cohesive 
political groupings for fear of losing access to funds and 
Party support for their own re-elections.  In fact, the only 
legislation of real significance passed by the National 
Assembly since the 2001 budget has been the Electoral Reform 
bill, which seeks to compensate for governors' political 
advantage in filling local government chairman slots with 
their own supporters by postponing the LGA elections from 
2002 to 2003 (Ref. B). 
 
 
------ 
Purges 
------ 
 
 
24. (C)  In July 2000, at the height of the President's 
conflicts with the National Assembly leadership, a group of 
PDP Trustees and founding members issued a communique 
criticizing Obasanjo and Gemade of having eviscerated the 
Party by dictating policy and by their eight-month campaign 
to replace Okadigbo and Na'abba.  Those participating 
included Abubakar Rimi, Bamanga Tukur, Don Etiebet and Edwin 
Ume-Ezeoke.  Gemade expelled most of the complainants from 
the Party, including Emmanuel Ibeshi, the PDP Publicity 
Secretary.  Ibeshi was expelled for having publicly opposed 
 
SIPDIS 
Gemade's attempt to extend Party officials' tenure to four 
years without having to stand for elections during the 
upcoming Party convention. 
Expelled members obtained a court-order compelling their 
re-instatement, but up Gemade refused to comply with the 
order. 
 
 
------------------ 
A Real Fixer-Upper 
------------------ 
 
 
25.  As the President and other PDP incumbents look to the 
2002/2003 election cycle, the debilitated state of the Party 
became apparent--for which Obasanjo bears primary 
responsibility. Obasanjo realized the need to revitalize the 
Party, and chose an independent-minded reformer, Audu Ogbeh, 
as the heir-apparent to Gemade.  True to his nature, Gemade 
turned the local and state Party congresses into a 
street-fight, at one point obtaining a court order suspending 
the upcoming November 9 convention.  Gemade also called a 
meeting of the National Executive Council of the PDP on 
October 27 in which he expelled his former 
partner-in-corruption, Tony Anenih from the Party.  Obasanjo 
called a meeting of the PDP Caucus, including PDP governors, 
National Assembly leadership and the Party leadership the 
following day, which was not attended by Gemade or Nwodo. 
That group voted to re-instate Anenih, and to hold the 
Convention as scheduled on November 9.  The Judge who had 
issued the injunction withdrew it, reportedly having 
collected money from both sides. 
-------------- 
Current Crisis 
-------------- 
26. (C)  The ruling party entered its National Convention 
this past weekend in a divided and weakened state. Party 
congresses for each level of government were supposed to have 
occurred on consecutive weekends: ward congresses on October 
20; local government on the 27; state congresses on November 
3, followed by the National Convention on the 9th.  Each 
level was supposed to elect its own party officials as well 
as delegates to the next congress, culminating in the 
Convention.  There have been extreme irregularities at each 
level, with two Governors, Dariye of Plateau and Kalu of 
Abia, both of who have been at loggerheads with the 
President, cancelling the results of their states' entire 
ward congresses (Ref. C).  A court injunction obtained after 
the ward congresses, stopped some higher-level congresses, 
while others went forward.  State congresses were held 
November 3, but the delegates sent to these congresses were 
hand-picked by the governors, rather than reflecting the 
earlier party congress results.  Similarly, many of the 
delegates that converged on Abuja will arrive by other than 
transparent selection processes. 
 
 
27. (C)  Comment: Rather than postponing the Convention until 
some of the legal, political and interpersonal issues could 
be straightened out, President Obasanjo insisted that the 
Convention hold as scheduled.  This produced the outcome the 
President wanted, but it did little for improving the 
political process in Nigeria's ruling party.  End Comment. 
Andrews