Focus on Obasanjo's re-election bid

When Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo won 1999 elections that ended a decade and half of military rule, he created an unusual political record. He scored the least votes among his Yoruba kin in the country's southwest, even failing to win in his ward at his hometown, Abeokuta. But he swept the rest of the country, winning most votes in the northern Hausa-Fulani Muslim heartland, in the southeast dominated by Igbos as well as the central region and the southern Niger Delta populated mainly by ethnic minorities. With his first four year term due to end in May next year, Obasanjo on 25 April declared his intention to seek re-election. However, the political consensus that brought him to office, has evaporated and how to retain power has become one big challenge for him and his political strategists. "To win a presidential election in Nigeria, a candidate must win the majority votes from at least two of the country's three main ethnic groups, namely the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the Igbo," Tekena Dokubo, a university teacher and political analyst, told IRIN. "So far Obasanjo does not appear to have the firm support of any of the blocs. He might still get it but time is not on his side," he added. Top political leaders in the north, whose support was crucial to Obasanjo's victory, have since denounced him, accusing him of not keeping to the political bargain for which they backed him. The juiciest appointments in government as well as in the armed and security forces have gone to his Yoruba kin, they allege. Among the Igbos of the southeast, the president is accused of furthering the marginalisation they claim the region suffered following its failed attempt to secede as Republic of Biafra in the late 1960s. Obasanjo's critics point to the region's bad roads and failure to award significant political appointments to people from the area as evidence of the raw deal they have suffered. Inhabitants of the Niger Delta, the region which produces most of the crude oil that is the backbone of the Nigerian economy, charge that Obasanjo's administration has failed to redress the decades of neglect and deepening impoverishment that made it the most restive part of the country in the past decade. Widespread anger in the area has been further inflamed by a recent Supreme Court ruling - on Obasanjo's prompting - that awarded control of all offshore (and 77 percent of onshore) oil and gas resources to the central government. While much of the central region remains fair political game for the president, significant damage was done to his political standing in the area by soldiers who ransacked several communities of the Tiv ethnic group last year in reprisal for the killing of 19 soldiers by a local militia. More than 200 villagers were massacred and scores of buildings destroyed in the action that had apparent presidential approval. Ominously for Obasanjo, on the same day he announced his intention to seek re-election, Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler like him, joined the opposition All People's Party (APP) to pursue his presidential ambitions. Buhari has gained significant popularity in northern Nigeria with his strong support of the introduction of the strict Islamic legal code, Sharia, by several state governments in the region. While he may not win a national election, Buhari is in good stead to win a majority of northern votes, thereby narrowing Obasanjo's electoral chances. At a recent public function in the northern city of Kano at which both he and Vice President Atiku Abubakar were guests, he was hailed while Obasanjo's running mate was booed and stoned by the crowd. This incident has become a commonly used measure of Buhari's popularity and the incumbent's unpopularity in the politically important north. Early in the week (Monday, 20 May), two federal legislators, Abdullahi Musa of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and Ahmed Lawan of APP, addressed a news conference in the capital, Abuja, on behalf of a caucus of 180 national assembly members from the north. They read a statement asking Obasanjo to drop his bid for re-election in favour of candidates from the southeast or the Niger Delta. "We call on our peace-loving citizens to allow power rotate to either South-East or South-South (Niger Delta) in 2003 for the simple reason that the South-West has had its fair share and these other zones of the South have had the least representation in the nation's top leadership, whether under civil or military dispensation since independence," the statement said. The ethnic origins of whoever is at the helm in Nigeria became an issue because northern Muslims produced most of the country's civilian and military rulers since independence. Elections held in 1993, which Yoruba businessman, Mashood Abiola was poised to win, were annulled by a northern-dominated military leadership, plunging the country into its worst crisis since civil war ended in 1970. In 1999, northern power brokers withdrew from the presidential race to pave way for Obasanjo's emergence on the assumption he would protect their interests. While his home region rejected him for this very reason, he won in the rest of the country. Since then Obasanjo has made overtures to his kinsmen in a bid to build a political base for himself, to the disappointment of his former backers. But the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the dominant party in the southwest, said recently it would only support Obasanjo's re-election if he accepts its political programme. The key element of this programme is the demand for a "sovereign national conference" to work out a new political structure for Nigeria that would give more power to the regions and leave a weak centre. It is a demand shared by all other regions except the north. But it goes against Obasanjo's political grain. Since his days as military ruler in the 1970s he has sought to build a Nigeria with a strong central government and weak regions. "What all this means is that Obasanjo will need to be politically born again to be able to create a new consensus that will return him to power," analyst Soji Adewunmi told IRIN. "Devolution of powers will certainly please the oil region states, win over the southeast, the southwest and minorities suffocating under the weight of the big ethnic groups." He said the north may feel alienated by such a move, but will be too weakened, once Obasanjo wins on those terms, to be of much effect. Adewunmi believes that without such a "new deal" Obasanjo's chances of re-election in 2003 will fade away in the coming months.