AC Vol 44 No 5
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www.africa-confidential.com 7 March 2003 Vol 44 No 5 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL NIGERIA II 3 NIGERIA I The battle in the states Outgunning the opposition Shaky administration and growing political violence threaten the The 36 state governors have proved a durable crowd. All but credibility of April’s national elections two of those elected in 1999 are to The political scene has been ominously quiet as several constitutional issues rumble. The most serious stand again for the same party in is whether the 18 April presidential election can be held within President Olusegun Obasanjo’s April’s elections. This continuity mandate. The defeated aspirant for the ruling party’s nomination, Alex Ekwueme, has launched a series doesn’t imply stability. Few of the governors expect an easy ride back of legal challenges to Obasanjo’s candidacy; the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) has to power. Some of the political approved only a fraction of the candidates for elections at local, state and national level (AC Vol 44 No 3). struggles are turning violent with Perhaps most damning, diplomatic sources described the electoral register compiled last September as the worst flashpoints in the Niger ‘about 50 per cent accurate’. The latest register, revamped in January, is said to be an improvement but Delta, Kwara and Niger in the has just under 67 million names on it. Given a median age of 15, that would give Nigeria a population Middle Belt and Kano in the north. of well over 140 mn., compared to United Nations and World Bank calculations of under 130 mn. Expect to hear accusations of millions of missing names and millions more inserted to favour the ruling People’s NIGERIA III 3 Democratic Party (PDP). Obasanjo is set against tampering with the election schedule although his die-hard opponents believe Governorship race they can force the case through a combination of legal argument and political disruption on the ground. Our analysts reckon that 14 of the Much depends on the next two weeks. The electoral roll is open for verification for the next two weeks. 36 governors stand a strong Adjudicating on complaints about the roll and the candidates’ eligibility will sorely test the dour chance of re-election, with the Ambassador Abel Guobadia, who chairs INEC. His success may determine the credibility of the south-western AD keeping almost election. The Commission has been inadequately funded, and so is administratively chaotic, has poor all its states but with the PDP emerging as overall winner again. relations with the autonomous state electoral commissions and is liable to government pressure. Guobadia has had a bad press (Nigerian electoral commissioners always do) but he shows occasional sparks of independence, although it is not encouraging that he drives a government car. FRANCE/AFRICA 5 The killing of Harry Jacques is back The other big threat is communal violence, which has worsened sharply under Obasanjo’s presidency, The African summit was leaving more than 10,000 people dead since 1999. More targeted political violence is growing, also. The overshadowed by war talk: the hot latest victim, Marshall Harry, a veteran politician from oil-rich Rivers State who had fallen out with war in Côte d’Ivoire and war plans State Governor Peter Odili, was shot dead at his Abuja home in the early hours of 5 March. Harry had for Iraq. President Chirac’s triumphal diplomacy seemed to been organising an election rally for the opposition presidential candidate, General Muhammadu secure the summit’s support for Buhari, in Rivers State on 8 March. The killing was carried out by a team of gunmen who injured nobody the Paris line on both issues – but else and took nothing from the premises. for how long? Last year, Obasanjo tried unsuccessfully to get a political violence bill through the National Assembly. It included the banning of private militias such as the Oodua People’s Congress in the south-west, or the ZAMBIA 6 Bakassi Boys in eastern states such as Abia, where they started, and Anambra, where they have a stranglehold. The Bakassi Boys’ alleged connection with the murder last September of Barnabas Igwe, Poison and Chairman of the Onitsha branch of the Nigerian Bar Association, caused outrage. Police either connive with the groups or are overwhelmed by them. Out-of-control militias carrying out political vendettas bankruptcy amid rising communal tensions are poisoning the climate for the elections. Yet there is no sign that the The arrest of ex-President Chiluba government plans to address the issue with the sort of anti-violence summit and monitoring system that on 66 counts of corruption will make helped to dampen tension ahead of South Africa’s elections in 1994. many African leaders keener to hold on to their jobs. It might also Meanwhile, the election bandwagon rolls forward. The two generals and leading presidential split the ruling MMD which is candidates, Obasanjo and Buhari (AC Vol 44 No 3), have launched their campaigns to an apparently stumbling under President indifferent public. Last weekend, Buhari was in Enugu, the Catholic heartland, trying to persuade Igbos Mwanawasa’s leadership. that he was not the Islamist ogre that his opponents claimed. Obasanjo was in the mainly Muslim north- eastern city of Maiduguri, trying to shore up his failing support in the region. POINTERS 8 Obasanjo has had a spring in his step since winning re-nomination at the 3-5 January PDP convention (AC Vol 44 No 1). This came as a surprise after several challenges to his power last year that undermined Somalia, Sudan/ his standing, presumably a bid to persuade his party that he would be an electoral liability and that the winning candidate should come from elsewhere. Obasanjo’s fightback at the presidential primaries Iraq, Algeria & (unexpectedly boosted by his Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar) was the riposte to the party campaign Ethiopia against him. 7 March 2003 Africa Confidential Vol 44 No 5 Steadily worsening relations between Obasanjo’s presidency and ever. Civilian politics hasn’t produced the hoped-for improvements. the National Assembly culminated in the impeachment crisis last year, Its practitioners have proved in some cases to be as brutal and corrupt the ashes of which are still smouldering. There had been rumours of as their military predecessors. Many of the good things that the an impeachment bid launched from the Senate last June but the main Obasanjo government has done – on human rights, accountability and explosion came in August, when substantial majorities in both houses military reform – have been overshadowed and compromised by the came up with a long list of impeachable charges. It was a sobering lack of material improvement in the grinding poverty faced by most experience for Obasanjo. Even his street-wise handlers in the presidency Nigerians. The ostentatious luxury enjoyed by civilian politicians and at Aso Rock hadn’t understood how much he had alienated legislators, their apparatchiks reinforces popular distaste for them. to the extent that most of his own party was ready to vote against him. Voters, and defeated politicians, will be far less tolerant of the type Initially, Obasanjo’s office dismissed the impeachment lobby as of electoral irregularities seen in the 1999 polls. Prospects for a free jokers. Then it quickly realised that a hard core of legislators had smelt and fair election do not look good. The biggest worry is that the abuses blood and would not be amenable to the usual mixture of inducement, will be so egregious that they spark widespread political violence – cajoling and threats. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, especially in the north. Omar Ghali Na’Abba, an ambitious young Kano politician and The last comparable elections were the federal and state elections of friend of former military leader Gen. Sani Abacha, had been the prime August 1983. These were also a return match after the transition to mover in the impeachment and staked his career on its success. The civilian rule and polls in 1979. The issues raised then are familiar Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, once regarded as an Obasanjo today: the use of incumbency to ensure re-election by hook or by stooge, then joined the campaign. crook; the shamelessness of the political class’s use of politics as a The impeachment motion charged Obasanjo with autocracy, gravy train; growing public horror at the arrogance and venality of incompetence and waste. The indictment was so comprehensive that many national and regional politicians. It took just four years of even if it didn’t win the necessary majorities in the House and Senate, civilian politics for Nigerians to rejoice when the military overthrew the process would have left him irretrievably damaged. Time was the Second Republic on 31 December 1983. pressing and the impeachment campaign was threatening to spill over That will not happen again. Few would rejoice if the military into preparations for the elections. returned to power and few believe it’s possible. That’s partly because of the discrediting of military rule under Gen. Sani Abacha and partly Republic under threat because international opinion has turned against military regimes and A compromise worked out by two former heads of state, Alhaji Shehu in 1999, the Organisation of African Unity resolved to exclude them. Shagari and Yakubu Gowon, was drafted out of concern that the Those factors may not, though, be decisive in extremis. Some Nigerians impeachment threatened the republic. This reportedly included cite Pakistan’s military leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has concessions on privatisation and revenue allocation. The 21 state skillfully used his country’s strategic position to win international, if governors from Obasanjo’s PDP, who had acted in concert and not national, legitimacy.