US embassy cable - 02ABUJA2262

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 002262 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
LONDON FOR GURNEY 
PARIS FOR NEARY 
 
 
E.O.12958: DECL: 07/29/12 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, KDEM, NI 
SUBJECT: NIGERIA: LAGOS GOVERNOR SAYS OBASANJO NEEDS A 
PDP-AD ALLIANCE 
 
 
Classified by Ambassador Howard F. Jeter.  Reason 1.5 
(B) AND (D). 
 
 
1. Summary: (C) During a July 5 meeting with 
Ambassador Jeter, Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu 
stated that President Obasanjo was in deep trouble 
politically. Reelection hinged on a deal with Tinubu's 
Alliance for Democracy (AD). However, Tinubu claimed 
Obasanjo was still trying to assert PDP supremacy in 
the Southwest and was hurting his position within the 
PDP itself by allowing his relationship with VP Atiku 
to drift. Regarding 2003 presidential and 
gubernatorial races, Tinubu claimed the AD would hold 
the Southwest while gaining strong support in populous 
states like Kaduna, Plateau and Benue. Closer to home, 
Tinubu felt he would win reelection handily.  End 
Summary. 
 
 
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OBASANJO IN THE SOUTHWEST - A FIGHT TO AVOID 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
 
2. (C) Surveying the political landscape, Tinubu saw 
Obasanjo wandering into a dense thicket yet failing to 
appreciate the depth of his electoral troubles. For 
example, the Governor declared Obasanjo was unpopular 
in Lagos despite his Yoruba bloodlines. When the 
President visited the city to deliver the University 
of Lagos graduation address, Tinubu was in meetings 
until after 4 a.m. to convince student leaders to 
shelve a mass protest against Obasanjo. Tinubu 
remembered the students were vitriolic; only his 
appeal not to embarrass Lagos and the university 
finally won the day. The student's dislike for the 
President, he added, was echoed throughout Lagos. Few 
people have a good word for Obasanjo. 
 
 
3. (C) Attributing Obasanjo's woes to his inability to 
listen to independent advice and his lack of 
interpersonal skills, Tinubu portrayed the President 
as a myopic bull in a crowded china shop. Despite 
Obasanjo's flaws as a politician and their memberships 
in different parties, Tinubu said they remained 
personal friends. Also, despite Obasanjo's ebbing 
popularity, Tinubu acknowledged the AD had not shut 
the door on cooperating with him. 
 
 
4. (C) Before the AD could cooperate, Obasanjo would 
have to call off the PDP dogs in Southwest. Tinubu 
thought Obasanjo knew the Southwest was vital to his 
reelection.  However, Obasanjo's personal pride was 
obscuring the best tack for securing the region's 
support. Instead, of attempting a frontal assault to 
wrest the Southwest from the AD, Obasanjo should seek 
an AD-PDP alliance.  Obasanjo's reliance on PDP 
National Deputy Chairman for the Southwest Bode George 
was unfortunate. George was telling Obasanjo the PDP 
could win by playing hardball. Tinubu scoffed that 
George was highly unpopular, particularly since many 
suspected his involvement in Justice Minister Bola 
Ige's assassination. The more prominent George and his 
confrontational tactics became, the less Obasanjo had 
a chance of carrying the Southwest as a bloc. 
 
 
 5. (C) Tinubu continued that AD governors would not 
help extend Obasanjo's tenancy in Aso Rock while PDP 
challengers were trying to oust them from the various 
gubernatorial mansions. The AD was so entrenched that 
the PDP would not win many converts in the region 
despite the party's aggressive approach. "The AD could 
run a dog for election in Lagos and still win!" Tinubu 
hyperbolized. Conversely, lack of AD support could 
cause an otherwise credible candidate to lose in the 
region. Thus, while the PDP might win a few local 
government seats, Obasanjo and the PDP were 
essentially barking up the wrong tree by trying to 
oust the AD from its Southwest stronghold. 
 
 
6. (C) Reviewing the state of play in Nigeria's other 
geopolitical zones, Tinubu explained why Obasanjo 
needed an AD alliance. The Northwest and Southeast 
opposed the President. The Supreme Court decision on 
oil resource allocation also has pitted the littoral 
states of the South-South against the Administration, 
particularly since the decision resulted from a case 
instigated by the Federal Government. Unless Obasanjo 
cut a resource allocation deal with those states, he 
would lose them; moreover, Obasanjo is in trouble with 
the populous Tiv of the Middle Belt due to last 
October's massacre of civilians in Benue State. On the 
positive side, Obasanjo only can count on the 
Northeast because Vice President Atiku is from Adamawa 
and on predominately Christian areas in the upper 
reaches of the Middle Belt. 
 
 
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THE AD -- SPREADING BEYOND THE SOUTHWEST 
---------------------------------------- 
 
 
7. (C) For reelection, Tinubu said Obasanjo must 
secure the Southwest as well as regain support in the 
Middle Belt and South-South. A deal with the AD would 
give Obasanjo the first (the Southwest) and place him 
in position to secure the second and third objectives. 
Attempting to show how the AD could help Obasanjo, 
Tinubu stated his party has made headway at the local 
and gubernatorial level beyond the immediate 
Southwest. He claimed well-known businessman Great 
Ogboru could snatch Edo State from the PDP incumbent 
Lucky Igbenidion.  Also many Yoruba were decamping 
from the APP (now ANPP) and the PDP in predominantly- 
Yoruba Kwara State, due primarily to the squabble over 
the enthronement of a Yoruba Oba to counter the 
existence of the Emir of Ilorin. (The Emir belongs to 
the Hausa-Fulani hierarchy; many Kwara Yoruba resent a 
Hausa-Fulani being the preeminent local traditional 
ruler in a majority Yoruba area.) Beyond gaining 
ground in Kwara and Edo, two states on Yoruba-land's 
periphery, Tinubu contended the AD had made advances 
in Plateau State where its popular candidate David 
Sango was in position to topple the embattled Joshua 
Dariye. Tinubu also listed Borno and Nassarawa as 
states that could fall to the AD. He felt that AD 
support in Kaduna was growing, and AD support could 
ensure that pivotal state, in some ways a microcosm of 
Nigeria itself, remained in Obasanjo's camp. 
 
 
8. (C) The collaboration between the Yoruba and Tiv 
which dates back to Olufemi Awolowo and Joseph Tarka, 
respectively, meant a deal with the AD would help 
Obasanjo regain some Tiv support notwithstanding last 
October's massacre of civilians. By making inroads in 
the states mentioned above, the AD could help Obasanjo 
take the Middle Belt as well as the Southwest. 
 
 
9. (C) However, Tinubu stressed AD cooperation would 
not come cheaply. The AD would require important 
Cabinet and sub-Cabinet posts. Moreover, Obasanjo must 
stop behaving autocratically. He would have to show he 
was "willing to get out of his ivory tower and listen 
sometimes."  With such a deal Obasanjo could spend his 
time globetrotting and acting like an "international 
statesman while letting others run things," Tinubu 
said half-jokingly. He added that any deal on oil 
revenue allocation with the South-South must include 
both Ondo and Lagos because these AD-controlled States 
had off-shore oil reserves, albeit much smaller than 
those of the Delta states. 
 
 
10. (C) Tinubu questioned whether Obasanjo had the 
sagacity to cut a deal with the AD. Obasanjo was ill 
served by his top campaign advisors, the Governor 
maintained. For reasons that remain unclear, Obasanjo 
reposed great confidence in Works and Housing Minister 
Tony Anenih, the de facto campaign manager. Having 
Anenih as a key advisor was like inviting "an 
unfriendly cobra into the bedroom."  The Governor 
recounted how Anenih as Chairman of the SDP, after 
receiving a pay-off from Head of State Babangida, 
supported the annulment of the 1993 election even 
though the SDP's Moshood Abiola had won. Anenih was 
now advising Obasanjo that he could deliver most of 
the Governors if the President let him apply the 
screws to the state executives. However, the 
assumption that support of the Governors, especially 
coerced support, would carry a state's electorate was 
a tenuous leap in logic. For instance, Tinubu 
forecasted Katsina Governor Yar a'dua (PDP) would be 
reelected by a handsome margin but Obasanjo would be 
rejected in Katsina. Kano Governor Kwankwaso might eke 
by, but Obasanjo's chances in Kano were dismal. Tinubu 
expressed the same reservations about Kebbi State and 
purported Obasanjo supporter Governor Aliero. 
 
 
-------------------- 
OBASANJO NEEDS ATIKU 
-------------------- 
 
 
11. (C) Tinubu claimed Anenih's efforts to hitch 
Obasanjo to the coattails of the governors while 
ignoring Vice President Atiku was bad strategy since 
Atiku was more popular with party faithful than 
Obasanjo. Tinubu mischievously hoped Obasanjo would 
ditch Atiku. This move would place the President under 
heavy attack at the PDP convention. Given his flinty 
disposition, the President would just say, "To hell 
with it and all of you," then stomp back to his 
"chicken farm in Ogun State where he belongs." An 
incumbent President failing to win his party's 
nomination would be a good tonic for Nigerian 
democracy, Tinubu thought. 
 
 
12. (C) Because of his control of the PDP grassroots 
machine, Atiku was Obasanjo's greatest asset within 
the PDP, according to Tinubu. The Governor previously 
had advised Obasanjo that Atiku was loyal and that he 
should maintain a close relationship with his Vice 
President. However, attentive to the whispers of 
Anenih and NSA Aliyu Mohammed, Obasanjo had allowed 
his relationship with Atiku to atrophy. Now, Obasanjo 
was treating the individual he needed most like an 
unwanted stepchild. Ditch Atiku, lose the nomination, 
Tinubu iterated. 
 
 
13. (C) Closer to home, Tinubu was confident he would 
win reelection in Lagos State despite the defection 
and open hostility of his Deputy Governor. He believed 
his performance has been sufficiently credible and 
that AD would remain preeminent in Lagos State. He 
predicted Deputy Governor Bucknor would decamp to the 
ANPP, a party where she had her political home before, 
to run against him.  He discounted her threat and felt 
the PDP opposition would also be minimal; no eminent 
Lagosian wanted to contest against the AD in what 
would be a very steep uphill battle. 
 
 
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Comment 
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14. (C) While his view probably overestimated AD 
strength in the Southwest and its inroads in other 
parts of the country, Tinubu offered a rational, 
insightful analysis of presidential electoral 
politics. Like Tinubu, we believe significant 
opposition awaits Obasanjo in the Southeast and 
Northwest. The Middle Belt and South-South will be the 
decisive battlegrounds but only if Obasanjo first has 
the Southwest in his grasp. Unlike 1999, it is 
difficult to imagine a scenario where Obasanjo is 
reelected without carrying his home region. While 
Obasanjo needs the Southwest, some Yoruba politicians 
seem to be drawing the pragmatic conclusion that they 
also need him. They may need to hitch themselves to 
him to prevent the Southwest from being shut out of 
national politics by the potential North-Southeastern 
axis that might emerge from among the other opposition 
parties. In Nigerian politics, blood still appears to 
be thicker than water it seems. Thus, a flawed 
Obasanjo may be better than no Yoruba at all. This is 
the unspoken subtext of Tinubu's exposition. In short, 
Obasanjo and the Yoruba-dominated AD are natural 
allies in an electoral milieu heavily influenced by 
ethnic, regional and historical factors. 
 
 
JETER