This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABUJA 002975 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958:  DECL:  10/27/12 
TAGS: PGOV PINR NI
SUBJECT:  GEMADE PLANS TO CONTEST FOR NIGERIA'S 
PRESIDENCY 
 
 
REFS:  A) 01 Abuja 2938, B) 01 Abuja 2881, 
       C) 01 Abuja 2878, d) 01 Abuja 2832 
 
 
Classified by Ambassador Howard F. Jeter.  Reason: 
1.5(d). 
 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary:  Barnabas Gemade October 28 informed 
the Ambassador of his plans to run against President 
Obasanjo.  The former PDP Chairman accused his 
President of fostering corruption, non-performance and 
heavy-handedness.  Gemade offered useful information 
on the timing of the PDP primaries and its convention. 
While Gemade's allegations cannot be dismissed, he 
failed to mention that, as an insider, he had enriched 
himself from corruption and lack of transparency that 
he now complains about as a relative outsider and a 
disappointed and wounded suitor for the PDP 
Chairmanship.  End Summary. 
 
 
¶2.  (U) Former People's Democratic Party Chairman 
Chief Barnabas Gemade October 28 called on Ambassador 
Jeter to inform the USG of his Presidential 
aspirations and to invite the Ambassador to attend his 
formal announcement the next day.  The Ambassador 
declined the invitation, commenting that he had not 
attended any other Presidential campaign announcement. 
Providing some documentation on his platform, Gemade 
said he understood the Ambassador had a tight schedule 
but hoped  an Embassy officer might attend.  (NOTE: 
None did.  End Note)  The former ruling party Chairman 
was accompanied by two aides; DCM (notetaker) also sat 
in. 
 
 
¶3.  (C) Gemade recounted President Obasanjo's alleged 
sins, including fostering corruption, non-performance 
on issues of concern to Nigerians and heavy-handedness 
in his dealings with the PDP and its leading members. 
Obasanjo condoned and had full knowledge of Works and 
Housing Minister Chief Tony Anenih's practice of using 
money skimmed from road-building contracts to grease 
political wheels.  Over 200 billion Naira had been 
spent on road-building contracts since May of 1999, 
Gemade charged, but the actual construction completed 
could have been done with only   "one-tenth of that." 
Anenih was so intent on getting money for Obasanjo's 
re-election that no performance under a contract now 
took place once the "mobilization fee" was paid to the 
contractor and the contractor had kicked back the 
agreed political pay-off.  Gemade estimated that 
Anenih had skimmed at least 30 billion Naira (USD 236 
million) for Obasanjo's campaign and other political 
purposes from contracts awarded by his Ministry. 
Gemade offered that, as a former Minister of Works and 
Housing, he understood how the system could be 
exploited.  (Comment: By reputation, Gemade not only 
understood the loopholes, he also exploited them.  End 
Comment.) 
 
 
¶4.  (C) Gemade charged that Obasanjo was insensitive 
to  other members and elected officials in the PDP, 
including Governors and National Assembly members. 
Because he (Gemade) would not support the continuing 
manipulation of the legislative branch and the 
sequencing of party primaries in Obasanjo's favor, 
Obasanjo had decided to replace him, Gemade averred. 
Eighteen of the 21 PDP Governors had told Vice 
President Atiku Abubakar, dispatched by Obasanjo to 
plead for their support in ousting Gemade, that they 
wanted Gemade to stay.  However, Gemade said, Atiku 
had offered  Presidential support in allowing the 
Governors to appoint state-level PDP chairmen in 
exchange for helping  ditch Gemade.  The Governors 
were won over by the  offer.  However, Gemade 
asserted, everyone knew he had been running the party 
well and that there was no basis for his dismissal. 
 
 
¶5.  (C) Gemade also claimed that "everyone" in Nigeria 
could see that the Obasanjo government had not 
delivered on its early promise.  If a free and fair 
election were held today, the President would lose 
badly.  Even in the Southwest, Obasanjo had at best 
50% support, and he was doing much worse in the other 
five geo-political regions. 
 
 
¶6.  (C) Gemade suggested that Obasanjo's control of 
the PDP Central Working Committee might be blinding 
the President to his thin support in the National 
Executive Committee.  He predicted the NEC would 
reject Obasanjo's preferred sequencing (Presidential 
nomination December 6, followed by State-level and 
National Assembly positions December 13, and local 
government slots December 18) in favor of a bottom-up 
sequence (starting with local government and finishing 
with the Presidential nomination) that would take 
place during January.  Obasanjo could not get the 
nomination if this sequencing were employed because he 
was deeply unpopular in the states and LGAs, Gemade 
claimed.  By putting his office first in the series 
for which nominations would be decided, Obasanjo hoped 
to pre-empt his intra-party opposition and preclude 
development of a grassroots consensus around any other 
possible candidates. 
 
 
¶7.  (C) Gemade admitted that, within the PDP, Vice 
President Atiku Abubakar was the strongest contender, 
but the VP was not yet a candidate (Note:  The four 
PDP aspirants facing Obasanjo are Senator Ike 
Nwachukwu and former Senate President Chuba Okadigbo; 
the Second Republic Governor of Kano State, Abubakar 
Rimi; and Gemade.  End Note.).  Gemade offered that 
the requirement for an aspirant to purchase a form for 
5000 Naira in order to "express interest" was created 
by the Obasanjo-controlled Central Working Committee 
as a device to smoke out Atiku; it was not a legal or 
Constitutional necessity, and Atiku's supporters in 
the NEC would probably hand Obasanjo a defeat by 
throwing out the requirement.  Moreover, he said the 
spectacle of the President going to a bank to purchase 
an electoral form had demeaned the Office of the 
President. 
 
 
¶8.  (C) Most in the party wanted the primaries (really 
more like caucuses) to take place during January, 
starting with decisions on local government and 
proceeding upward from there, Gemade stated.  There 
was concern among Obasanjo's opponents that a section 
of the PDP constitution allowing all Special 
Assistants and Special Advisors to the President a 
voting seat at the party's Presidential convention 
would invite abuse by Obasanjo's backers.  Gemade 
claimed that section had been mysteriously inserted 
"by the printer."  Already, Gemade stated, there were 
180 persons in such positions, and Anenih was 
continuing to hand out appointment letters to 
political hacks certain to support the President. 
 
 
¶9.  (C) (Comment:  Gemade should not get away with 
ascribing this clause to scrivener's error.  Most 
accounts date the clause to a meeting which Gemade 
chaired when he was still in the President's camp. 
Perhaps Gemade thought it was bad enough to feel the 
sting of his own machinations without having to admit 
them to us now.  End Comment.) 
 
 
¶10.  (C) Comment:  The National Executive Committee is 
slated to meet on Thursday, October 31.  If Gemade and 
Atiku are reading the tea leaves right, Obasanjo is in 
for a fright.  However, the importance of money in 
Nigerian politics should not be underestimated, and, 
by all accounts, Anenih has been spreading it 
liberally.  The decision on how to sequence the 
primaries, assuming it is definitively taken, will 
give an early sense of the balance of forces in the 
ruling party. 
 
 
¶11.  (C) Comment continued:  When speaking with us, 
Gemade knew his audience.  He asserted a strong 
commitment to democratic principles, claiming to be 
working with other politicians to fight the scourge of 
political violence.  He spoke, more in sadness than in 
anger, about blandishments offered to dethrone him 
from his position as PDP Chairman and asserted that it 
was common knowledge that he was doing a fine job at 
the helm.  He claimed he lost favor with the President 
because he objected to automatic self-succession.  In 
other words, Gemade said many of the right things, and 
painted himself as an angel, which he is not. 
 
 
¶12.  (C) Comment continued: The Barnabas Gemade who 
met the Ambassador, however, bore scant resemblance to 
the Barnabas Gemade the Mission has known in the past. 
That Gemade was an Abacha-era Minister who later led 
one of the parties that the late Bola Ige 
devastatingly lampooned as "five fingers of a leprous 
hand."  This week's Barnabas Gemade said he had tried 
to convince Abacha not to have each of those parties 
nominate him as its standard-bearer, but the 1994-98 
version never voiced such qualms.  One Barnabas Gemade 
told the Ambassador that Obasanjo was failing on the 
economy and tut-tutted about deepening regional and 
ethnic divisions, even as another Barnabas Gemade 
works behind the scenes to reverse the privatization 
of Benue Cement Company, one of the more promising 
transfers of state assets to private hands.  Gemade 
and other indigenes of Benue object to the company 
being turned over to Aliko Dangote, a Northern 
businessman who has proved his competence in the 
cement industry.  Instead, Gemade and his friends want 
Benue Cement given to people like...Barnabas Gemade, 
someone reputed to be deeply corrupt (Refs C and D). 
Gemade's claims that he rejects violence run at odds 
to those of Benue Governor George Akume (Ref A), but 
pots often call kettles black in Nigerian politics. 
¶13.  (C) Comment continued:  Also, if Gemade lost his 
post at the PDP helm for standing up to Obasanjo, that 
certainly was not how things were seen at the time. 
Ref B reports that Gemade was faulted for being overly 
deferential to Obasanjo and for failing to carve an 
identity for the party separate from the Presidency 
and that Gemade actively worked to isolate and even 
expel from the party those who did not toe Obasanjo's 
line.  The Ambassador has seen the overly differential 
Gemade in private and in civil meetings with Obasanjo. 
Finally, Anenih may be greasing the political skids 
with large sums of cash, but Gemade seems to forget 
that it was Anenih and others who purchased the PDP 
Chairmanship for him in order to prevent independent- 
minded Sunday Awoniyi from taking the top party job. 
 
 
¶14.  (C) Comment concluded:  Anenih and other 
Presidency political operatives made Gemade PDP 
Chairman, and he seems to forget that those who make 
you can also break you.  He was dropped not for 
opposing Obasanjo but for his failure to manage the 
ruling party effectively -- certainly a Herculean 
task.  Gemade was offered a senior Ministerial 
position in exchange for departing quietly. 
Overestimating his support in the party, he tried to 
fight.  So he was forced into retirement.  Now 
embittered, he wants to exact his pound of flesh, and 
Tiv anger at the President over the October 2001 Zaki 
Biam massacre guarantees Favorite Son votes for 
Gemade.  This venal former boss of a government 
parastatal cannot win, but he can help reduce 
Obasanjo's chances of succeeding himself.  The Gemade 
we met was simply not believable. 
 
 
JETER