US embassy cable - 03ABUJA27

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABUJA 000027 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:12/31/2012 
TAGS: PGOV, PINS, KDEM, NI 
SUBJECT:  Why Nigeria's PDP Governors Could Not Lose 
 
 
REF:  Abuja 0012 
      01 Abuja 2878 
      Abuja 0016 
      Abuja 0015 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY DCM TIMOTHY D. ANDREWS.  REASON: 1.5 (D). 
 
 
1.  (C) SUMMARY:  The PDP's national convention (Refs C and D) 
was more competitive than caucuses that renominated every PDP 
governor regardless of his popularity or lack of it.  However, 
this praise is faint indeed, as the gubernatorial caucuses were 
blatantly rigged while the national convention was more subtly 
manipulated.  Each iteration of intrigue and manipulation helps 
establish the context for the next one, and mutual knowledge of 
one another's compromising behavior (not love of democracy) is 
the tie that binds many senior political figures.  END SUMMARY. 
 
 
2.  (C) While predicting a first-round victory for President 
Olusegun Obasanjo at the January 3-5 national convention of the 
ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), Deputy Senate President 
Ibrahim Mantu January 3 told DCM that the vote would not be as 
lopsided as it was in late December's gubernatorial primaries. 
Mantu commented that over 3,000 delegates had cast ballots in 
the "primary" (caucus) that returned him as the PDP nominee for 
the Plateau Central Senatorial District.  Since each senator 
represented about one-third of the state, Mantu continued, it 
would have been proportionate for the gubernatorial "primary" 
to feature approximately 9,000 delegates.  Instead, Governor 
Joshua Dariye was returned as the PDP nominee with only 212 
delegates participating in the caucus, most of whom were party 
or state government officials beholden to him.  PDP members in 
Plateau had directly elected just 51 delegates (three from each 
of the 17 local government areas), and Dariye had a strong hold 
on most of them also. 
 
 
3.  (C) Mantu expressed disgust at the lack of fairness, 
transparency and public accountability embedded in the 
structure of the gubernatorial caucuses.  The "non-incumbent 
aspirants who went to court to challenge the procedure were 
right," Mantu said.  Never in his 23 years in politics had he 
seen such a blatantly rigged nomination process.  The party's 
national convention would be open and transparent, however, 
Mantu averred. 
 
 
4.  (C) He traced the origins of the gubernatorial nominating 
process to the PDP convention of November 2001 that ousted 
Barnabas Gemade as party chairman, replacing him with Audu 
Ogbeh.  It was during the course of that convention that 
amendments to the PDP constitution were adopted that reduced 
the elected delegates to gubernatorial primaries from one per 
ward to three per Local Government Area and increased the 
number of ex-officio delegates.  The amendments were adopted by 
voice vote with virtually none of the delegates ever having 
seen the text, to say nothing of appreciating its implications, 
said Mantu. 
 
 
5.  (C) COMMENT: Each LGA consists of least 20 wards, and the 
average is about 24, so the new amendment cut popularly-elected 
delegates by a factor of eight while increasing sharply those 
likely to be beholden to incumbent governors.  This was part of 
the price the Presidency paid to gain incumbent governors' 
support for dumping Gemade.  They knew (Ref B) that Gemade 
would help them return to power and feared Ogbeh's reputation 
for integrity, so they insisted on rules that would make it 
difficult for any challenger to unseat them.  These changes 
also gave the governors increased power over their delegations 
to the national convention, creating the circumstances that 
convinced aggrieved governors that they could successfully 
challenge the President (Ref D).  END COMMENT. 
 
 
6.  (C) While lauding Ogbeh as "honest" and "principled," Mantu 
commented that his accession nonetheless was regrettably marred 
by the same sort manipulation that had brought Gemade to power 
before him (when the Presidency had wanted to prevent Sunday 
Awoniyi from gaining the chairmanship).  When one gains office 
through intrigue, Mantu continued, the victory is tarnished, 
and one lacks the authority to act forcefully.  One may also be 
forced to compromise one's principles in support of one's 
patron, Mantu suggested. 
 
 
7.  (C) COMMENT: Mantu makes a trenchant point; only those 
genuinely elected in an open and transparent process possess 
clear moral authority (mandate) to govern.  Everyone else is 
diminished.  Public corruption plays a critical role also. 
Many senior politicians have indulged in activities that they 
would not want publicized and are thus compromised.  Mutual 
knowledge of this compromise establishes limits on what 
politicians can do: Politician A exposes Politician B's 
acceptance of bribes at the risk of B telling the story of A's 
contract over-invoicing scheme.  Since money drives the wheels 
of politics and public corruption is a faster and easier route 
to wealth than legitimate business, relatively "clean" 
politicians tend to be a small minority and thus unable to 
effect systemic change.  Meanwhile, many elites work within 
this framework of mutual compromise; knowledge that everyone 
else has a skeleton in the closet makes one less worried about 
one's own secret shame.  Corruption surprises no one and, as 
long as it is not too blatant, arouses little indignation.  The 
Lagos-based "Guardian" January 6 carried a photo of a policeman 
helping someone carry a heavily-laden "Ghana-Must-Go" bag.  The 
woven plastic "Ghana-Must-Go" Bag is used to carry large sums 
of cash and has become the symbol of money's role in politics. 
The image of an officer of the law helping to enable corruption 
may strike the Western observer as ironic or amusing, but most 
Nigerian elites find it utterly mundane and normal. 
 
 
8.  (C) COMMENT CONTINUED:  President Obasanjo may or may not 
be personally free of corruption.  Views on that subject vary, 
and we've seen nothing that would indict him.  However, his 
acquiescence to associates' use of monetary blandishments and 
his own penchant for undermining the position of fellow PDP 
members with whom he disagrees do nothing to build a stronger 
base for genuine participatory democracy here.  The allegation 
of Obasanjo's intent to stop the candidacies of some incumbent 
governors (Ref D) that sparked the governors' insurrection at 
the national convention quite likely was a fabrication by an 
Obasanjo antagonist at State House itself.  But the governors 
believed the story because of Obasanjo's previous efforts to 
unseat (or prevent the otherwise probable election of) fellow 
party leaders with whom he was in conflict. 
 
 
9.  (C) COMMENT CONCLUDED:  The PDP's national convention was 
more competitive than the gubernatorial nomination process that 
Mantu derided, but that is vanishingly faint praise.  Balloting 
and vote-counting were transparent and open, but not much else 
related to the convention was.  The critical accreditation 
process was obviously manipulated, with respect both to its 
timing and the acceptance of approximately 250 delegates (who 
were in no original delegate count we ever saw and whose votes 
ultimately were superfluous, Ref C).  Moreover, a requirement 
that each delegate thumbprint his/her ballot made the secret 
ballot far less so.  In November of 2001, we said (ref B) that 
it was "now up to the President and the new party hierarchy to 
continue to mend today's wounds and, perhaps, shift the party 
to a more transparent and democratic tomorrow."  It still is. 
JETER