20100122
africa-confidential


After President Yar’Adua’s two-month health crisis in Saudi Arabia, Vice-President Jonathan’s supporters urge him to seize the day

On 16 January, the Vice-President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, began to sound like a Nigerian President. His many supporters across the country say it's not before time: they are frustrated by the refusal of ailing President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and his aides to transfer full executive powers to Jonathan during the President's prolonged medical treatment. The usually affable Vice-President has been showing his irritation with press reports lampooning his apparent lack of political muscle as the power crisis in Abuja unfolds (AC Vol 50 No 25 & Vol 51 No 1).

A day after Jonathan laid the wreath to mark Armed Forces Rememberance Day, his office issued a press release denouncing 'mischief-makers' who try 'to create mischievous scenarios of indecisiveness on the part of the VP'. This was in response to a story that he was awaiting directives from Turai Yar'Adua, the President's wife, to act on the High Court's ruling that he could assume presidential duties, in line with section 5(1) of the 1999 constitution.

Other reports suggested that beneath Jonathan's bulky attire at the memorial ceremony was body armour to protect him from the attentions of any rogue soldier who might object to him taking over the presidency. Earlier, he had prudently proposed that military salaries be raised and conditions improved. Jonathan needed that military backing this week when he sent troops to quell Christian-Muslim clashes which had killed over 400 people in the Middle Belt city of Jos, according to local human rights groups. Some link the recent spate of communal clashes to attempts by politicians to influence the tussle for power in Abuja.

Since 23 November, when Yar'Adua was airlifted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia, Jonathan has been watching patiently from the sidelines. His unassuming personality may have served him well. He has been determined not to seem greedy for power while the President is fighting for life. Jonathan understands that northern Nigeria's power elite, which was generally prospering under Yar'Adua, is in a bind.

If northern leaders admit that Yar'Adua is too sick to return to power and concede the presidency to Jonathan, they will lose their grip on the patronage machine, even if they were able to build a special relationship with the Niger Delta. Yet, if some hardline northern politicians try to force Jonathan aside, they risk igniting the oil region on which more than 90% of export earnings depend. Recent soundings in Abuja suggest the northern elite has been growing more positive about Jonathan.

Beware of false promises
That possibility may be premised on a possible arrangement whereby Jonathan takes over the presidency but guarantees not to stand in 2011. Some are sceptical that such a deal could work, given the wide executive powers that a Nigerian President enjoys and the volubility of opinion within the governing People's Democratic Party.

In 1999, Jonathan was picked as running mate to Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the PDP candidate for Bayelsa State Governor. In September 2005, Alamieyeseigha was arrested in London for money laundering (AC Vol 46 No 23). Until then, his cousin, Abel Ebifemowei, had been regarded as de facto Deputy Governor. Jonathan, one year into his second term as Deputy, became Governor in 2005, while Alamieyeseigha jumped bail in London and was impeached by the State Assembly. Established in Bayelsa as a safe pair of hands, outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo and his putative successor, Yar'Adua, picked him as the party's vice-presidential candidate in 2007.

Jonathan is 53, the son of a canoe-carver, and his friends say he is a humble, deeply Christian family man with two small children. Alamieyeseigha once described him as calm, consistent and dedicated. He was in the first batch of undergraduates at the University of Port Harcourt, emerging with a bachelor's degree in 1981, a master's degree in 1985 and a doctorate in hydrobiology and fisheries in 1995, when serving as Assistant Director for Ecology at what is now the Niger Delta Development Commission.

Soft-spoken and ever smiling, Jonathan likes to avoid controversy. This mildness will be tested if he takes over the presidency. Patience, his wife, is quite different. In September 2006, she was named by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in a 104 million naira (US$692,000) money-laundering case, which was not pursued. Abuja-watchers suggest that officials will advise Jonathan to keep Patience in the background.

Much of Jonathan's new-found support derives from his stated commitment to Yar'Adua's reform programme. Like his boss, he insists the government's priority is resolving the Delta crisis. He worked with Yar'Adua to strike an amnesty with the militants; after that attacks declined and oil production recovered. Yet now, commanders and foot soldiers say the promises of cash and jobs that persuaded them to lay down their arms have been broken.

This month, militants bombed a pipeline and kidnapped foreign oil workers, suggesting that last year's peace is fraying. Delta opportunists may also seek to boost their bidding power as the political competition in Abuja gets messier. The obsession with tackling the political and economic crisis in the South-South goes beyond Jonathan fighting for the rights of his fellow Deltans; he backs restructuring the oil and gas industry to raise production, and therefore revenue and national income, as well as fuelling the malfunctioning electricity sector.

In his New Year address, Jonathan mentioned the government's failure to meet its promised target of generating 6,000 megawatts of power by the end of 2009, although he did not explain how he was going to fight the vested interests holding back reform. One way would be to enlist the determined Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, who after purging the banks and prompting the arrest of five chief executives, is looking at the multitude of corrupt power sector contracts. The government has spent an average of $1 billion a year since the mid-2000s on contracts to resuscitate defunct power stations, without noticeable effect. Sanusi and his team may call in some of the fraudulent loans that bogus power contractors have set up with banks.

Most controversially, Jonathan would have to turn his attention to the electoral reforms proposed by Justice Mohammed Uwais's panel, such as making the Electoral Commission statutorily and financially independent of the executive. Given the weight of opinion in the PDP, Jonathan is unlikely to make any commitments on the Uwais recommendations just yet.

The days of reckoning
First must come a shake-up of aides and ministers. Reformers in exile - Nasir El-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu - are tipped for positions. Government appointees likely to lose out under Jonathan include Electoral Commission Chairman Maurice Iwu. Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa may be next. In late 2009, Aondoakaa sent Jonathan an unsigned letter, ostensibly vetted by Yar'Adua's inner circle, giving Jonathan the power to act on the President's behalf; until then, Jonathan had refused to sign the N353.6 bn. supplementary budget, reportedly signed by Yar'Adua on his sickbed in Jeddah.

Aondoakaa followed this up with a stage-managed court ruling on 13 January, delivered only a week after the case was filed, in which Daniel Abutu, Chief Judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, ruled that the Vice-President could perform the duties delegated to him by the President. Femi Falana, a lawyer and civil rights activist, called the ruling 'meaningless' and asked the Court to annul all executive branch meetings and their decisions since 24 November; the case was adjourned until 22 January.

Jonathan needs constitutional backing for the transition, amid a growing clamour for civil disobedience and a rally led by Wole Soyinka in Abuja. Business voices, especially those which want no more interruption to reform of the financial sector, are pressing for an orderly handover. Two leading bankers, Atedo Peterside, Chairman of Stanbic IBTC Bank, and Fola Adeola, former Chief Executive Officer of Guaranty Trust Bank, have urged the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to respect the constitution. Several banks are trying to merge or bring in foreign partners; amid the political uncertainty, GT Bank's N50 bn. five-year tenured corporate bond offering raised only N13.6 bn.

An article in the Lagos daily Next, published by Pulitzer Prize-winner Dele Olojede, claimed that Yar'Adua was brain-damaged, prompting a new round of negative reports. That pushed the President's men to respond, so Yar'Adua gave a reedy-voiced BBC interview on 12 January, the same day that civic activists were marching on the National Assembly demanding that he resign.
Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, representing the opposition, have presented to Senate President David Mark a request for a 15-member committee to locate Yar'Adua, determine his health status and advise him to comply with the constitution.

Neither the legislature nor the FEC is willing to resolve the impasse. Lawmakers are anxious to keep their jobs come the next general elections and the PDP is in disarray. Most of Yar'Adua's ministers are wary of losing their portfolios. Conflicting interests bog down governance. The Katsina power elite uses its access to Yar'Adua to stall the handover to Jonathan. They, and others in the PDP, plan an early party convention in May or June to block Jonathan's run for the presidency.

Personal interest and horse-trading prolong the power vacuum. Commentators denounce a web of intrigue and deception orchestrated by Yar'Adua's wife and his Economic Advisor, Tanimu Yakubu, with Agriculture Minister Sayyadi Abba Ruma, James Ibori and David Edevbie, the President's Principal Secretary. The Chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, Balarabe Musa, reckons there is a cabal that will lose out the moment Jonathan takes over.

When the constitution at last prevails, Jonathan will either be Acting President or be sworn in as President. His aides say he plans a unity government like that formed by General Yakubu Gowon when the civil war ended in 1970. The PDP is badly divided. Ex-President Obasanjo's tenure as Chairman of its Board of Trustees ends in March; he was absent when the Trustees met on 14 January. Previously, when he proposed a solution to the political crisis, he had a shouting match with Ibrahim Babagida, MD Yusuf and Abdusalam Abubakar. Unperturbed by all the wrangling, Jonathan is more concerned about a smooth succession.