US embassy cable - 03ABUJA727

UNCLAS ABUJA 000727 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
CAIRO FOR MAXSTADT 
 
 
E.O.12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, SOCI, NI 
SUBJECT:  NIGERIA ELECTIONS -- THE VIEW FROM THE QUEUE 
 
1.  Winding down Shehu Shagari Way in Abuja to an AP 
station opposite the Hilton is a fuel queue that 
varies between 300 and 1700 meters.  Motorists favor 
this queue because the AP station often has fuel and 
because the gentle slope of the final 900 meters means 
no need to start engines.  On Monday evening, the 
queue was just under one kilometer. 
 
 
2.  DCM stopped at every fourth vehicle where the 
driver was outside to solicit views on the April 19 
elections.  Of 43 persons polled, just five preferred 
not to comment.  The other 38 overwhelmingly commended 
the peaceful conduct of voting, in some cases 
expressing relief that things had gone as well as they 
had.  Relatively few (about a dozen) volunteered 
unease or unhappiness about electoral malfeasance. 
These included the most voluble interlocutors; just 
four called the process "bad," however.  Only one 
person mentioned the name of any of the major 
candidates, and that was to call President Obasanjo by 
his nickname, Baba.  Another said he would have voted 
ANPP if Rochas Okorocha had been that party's 
candidate, but he had voted PDP since Rochas was not a 
candidate. 
 
 
3.  A plurality of those interviewed offered that God 
decided who would govern Nigeria.  God did not make 
mistakes, and so the person declared the winner was 
God's choice.  They would now pray that the chosen 
leader would do the right thing.  A major (if obvious) 
concern for those in the queue was that the leader 
address fuel shortages. 
 
 
4.  COMMENT: The people in the fuel queue represent a 
cross-section of "ordinary Nigerians" living in Abuja. 
They do not have access to special fuel supplies and 
are not rich enough to hire someone else to stand in 
for them (however, a number were drivers for people 
wealthy enough to hire them).  The almost overwhelming 
emphasis on the importance of peaceful elections 
(virtually everyone willing to talk mentioned it) was 
remarkable, and it suggests that calls for "mass 
action" to protest questionable results that heavily 
favor the PDP may not resonate to the extent that some 
in the opposition would like.  The conviction that God 
would make the right choice for Nigeria should 
surprise no one familiar with the centrality of faith 
to Nigerian society.  For them, whether the elections 
represent the "will of the Nigerian people" matters 
little, for the will of God is self-evident. 
 
 
5.  COMMENT CONTINUED: Those most inclined to voice 
detailed objections to the conduct or results of the 
elections were from the Southeast.  Northern Muslims 
particularly tended to express faith in God and 
submission to His will, though one said several times 
that the elections were "bad" but declined to say much 
more.  Two people from the Southwest expressed at 
least a measure of unhappiness with the AD's downfall, 
but the rest appeared not to care.  END COMMENT. 
 
 
6.  NOTE:  The percentage of Muslims among those 
sampled may have been reduced somewhat by the timing 
of the survey, which took place during a period that 
included two prayer times; DCM did not address those 
who were praying or preparing to do so. 
JETER