Corruption

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. Northeastern Nigeria increasingly resembles the world depicted in the 1985 film, To Live and Die in LA. Directed by William Friedkin, the story is about Secret Service agents’ pursuit of a counterfeiter. In the process, differences between criminals and law enforcement personnel nearly disappear. A reviewer observes that the criminals have more of an inner life than the law enforcers, whose actions are “endlessly self-consuming,” leading to “meaningless death and brutality.” A “contradictory moral universe” emerges “where the wrong people die and redemption is an illusion.” So, too, in Maiduguri, Nigeria. According to IRIN, the lines between soldiers and Boko Haram attackers are increasingly blurred. Soldiers sent to help civilians are accused of human rights violations, even torture. A New York Times’ report on the recent killings at Giwa Barracks on March 14, suggests that what occurred was a slaughter of the innocents; the majority of the 500 killed were “not proven insurgents.” Nor does it seem likely that the increasingly horrific realities on the ground will change soon. IRIN notes the difficulty in gaining access to areas in need and states where, “very few local NGOs or civil society organizations are responding to needs in the north.” Such horror in Nigeria parallels that in Central African Republic. Nihilism in the northeast looms as an outgrowth of corruption in the heart of Nigeria’s political system. Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi was “removed just as he was shifting his inquiry to where the money [the missing $20bn] has allegedly gone,” the Financial Times revealed last week. Vested interests, it appears, moved to protect themselves from exposure. A central theme in Friedkin’s work is that, “nothing can be relied upon in this world. Women turn out to be men, good guys behave like bad guys, people are not who they claim to be, partners betray each other, money could be real or fake, and death comes when you least expect it.” These are conditions Nigerian writer Ben Okri may have anticipated when a character in his novel The Famished Road exclaims, “the sun bared the reality of our lives and everything was so harsh it was a mystery that we could understand and care for one another or for anything at all.”

On March 18, governors from Nigeria’s north and Middle Belt met with U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice and other U.S. officials at the White House. The governors come from states where economic development is slow or non-existent and includes those where the radical, Islamist insurgency “Boko Haram” is active. Following the meeting, the White House issued a typically bland statement: “Rice and the governors discussed the need to bring an end to the violence and insurgency in northern Nigeria; create broad-based economic opportunity in the north and throughout Nigeria; protect and respect human rights; strengthen democratic governance; and ensure that the 2015 election in Nigeria are free and fair.” The Guardian (Nigeria) published a read-out of the meeting on March 23 with a different flavor. It cites “authoritative sources,” who almost certainly were Nigerian. The Guardian states that Governors Murtala Nyako (Adamawa state), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano state-the largest state in Nigeria by population), and Kashim Shettima (Borno state-a major center of Boko Haram), perhaps among others, were highly critical of President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration. The Guardian devotes the most space to Governor Nyako’s remarks. It reports that the governor accused federal security agencies of colluding with the backers of Boko Haram to perpetuate the conflict. He said the security services facilitated the flow of arms and information to Boko Haram. The real kicker was his accusation that the motivation behind the collusion was to reduce the voting power of the North East in the upcoming 2015 national elections and (in the words of the Guardian) “to keep the region perpetually underdeveloped.” Nigeria’s ambassador to the United States, also present, is reported by the Guardian to have strongly objected to Nyako’s attack on the president. The Guardian reports that the ambassador was supported by at least two other governors, both of whom are members of Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party. Nyako, Kwankwaso, and Shettima are members of the opposition party. The Guardian is a leading Nigerian newspaper with a national circulation. Its report of the White House meeting is credible. Given the horrific nature of Boko Haram violence, it might seem extraordinary that a governor would accuse the security services of collusion with it. However, many of my northern contacts say much the same thing as Nyako. Similar accusations were made about security service collusion with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) before and after the 2007 elections. It was widely said that the security services wanted to keep the MEND insurgency going because it ensured a steady flow of federal funds into the security services–from which they pocketed a percentage through various forms of corruption. I have insufficient information to comment on the veracity of Governor Nyako’s accusations, any more than I was able to comment on alleged security service collusion with MEND. However, that many Nigerians find such accusations credible, at the very least, is evidence of the profound lack of trust between the Abuja government and its citizens.

There is an apocryphal story that in France, King Louis XVI’s queen Marie Antoinette was once told, “Madame, the people have no bread.” To which she replied, "then let them eat cake." The reality behind the story was of a self-centered court widely perceived as isolated from the French people. The French Revolution followed shortly after. A report issued by South Africa’s national ombudsman, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, brings Marie Antoinette to mind. After a two year investigation she has issued a report finding that President Jacob Zuma’s expenditure of some $23 million on his Nkandla estate allegedly for “security enhancements” was “inconsistent with his office.” Among other things, "security enhancements" included a swimming pool, described as fire-fighting equipment. Her 444-page report urges Zuma to repay “a reasonable percentage of the cost of the measures.” The $23 million is several times the amount spent on the security of the residences of national icon Nelson Mandela. President Zuma has responded that he will study the report and respond in “due course.” Thuli Madonsela has an enviable reputation for independence and probity. The story is carried in the New York Times, March 19, 2014. The real kicker in the Times story is near the end. “Money to complete the work was diverted from inner-city regeneration projects.” Here is where the “cake” comes in: diverting money from inner-city deprived areas for a private compound smacks of isolation from the realities of South Africa, and especially from the natural constituency of the ruling African National Congress. National elections are on May 7 this year. Up to now, South African voting patterns have largely been along racial lines, with the 80 percent of the electorate that is black voting overwhelmingly for the ruling African National Congress. However, the party and Jacob Zuma are increasingly seen as isolated, incompetent, and corrupt. There is speculation that while the African National Congress will retain its parliamentary majority, the percentage of seats in parliament that it holds will fall substantially below its present control of two-thirds of the seats. Should the ANC percentage fall below 60 percent that would be an earthquake in South African politics. There is speculation that if the party representation falls below 60 percent, it will remove Zuma from his position as party leader—and, likely, the presidency. It would be a ”revolution”–of sorts. Watch that space.

This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. Over the past year the plight of Africa’s elephants and rhinos has captured international imagination; in December 2013, the UN proclaimed March 3 to be World Wildlife Day. Moving beyond the headlines, countering wildlife slaughter and trade requires a better understanding of the illicit wildlife supply chain and what, beyond poverty and greed, motivates its participants. We know that elephants and rhinos are being killed at unprecedented rates. We know that demand for ivory and horn is increasing rapidly in Asia, particularly China and Vietnam. We know that poachers increasingly have sophisticated weaponry and equipment, a likely indication of the involvement of politically connected individuals. We know that rebel and terrorist groups often fund themselves from the trade. We know that ivory and horn has been seized at ports in both source and consumer countries with increasing frequency. Credible estimates are that wildlife crime is a U.S. $10 billion a year trade, its existence and prevalence undermines government authority and institutions, its survival threatens valuable national assets and revenue opportunities for countries that desperately need them. A recent, excellent report from Chatham House lays out what we do not know. At the beginning of the supply chain, Chatham House asks what draws armed actors into poaching, and poaching on such a large and well organized scale that it has the capacity to supply a mass consumer market. If an international effort were to succeed in removing the current armed actors from the business of poaching, who would replace them, given the seeming insatiable market demand for ivory and horn? Who benefits politically from the poaching business, how and where? In the middle of the supply chain: when seized at ports, by what route and means has ivory and horn been transported from Africa’s forests and savannahs? Who acts as middleman, and what compensation do they receive for their services? Without answers to such questions, policy makers and activists are limited in their capacity to counter the rise in poaching. The Chatham House report is, among other things, a literature review. Yet the existing literature has little on what motivates participants in the illegal wildlife trade beyond poverty and greed, or what impact their removal from the trade would have. We also need a better understanding of the historic trends of wildlife parts demand. The short term efforts to halt the massive scale of wildlife slaughter must continue in both source and consumer nations. Simultaneously however, there needs to be a deeper search to understand the intricacies of the trade and supply chain so that it can be better countered in the medium and long term. Countering poaching is a local, national, regional, and international responsibility. The political will to undertake it is rising, but it still has a long way to go.

This is a guest post by Alex Dick-Godfrey, program coordinator, Studies administration for the Council on Foreign Relations Studies program.  Somalia continues to improve after a nearly a quarter century of war, but integrating economics and governance remains difficult. IRIN identifies five core challenges for Somalia’s economic reconstruction. Potentially, the country offers interesting prospects to investors, including vast herds of livestock, bountiful fisheries, oil and gas reserves, and a long coastline with natural deep water ports. However, IRIN highlights such brakes on investment as security uncertainty, inconsistent trade and financial policy, and an unstable currency. These problems are not insurmountable. As the report shows, by formalizing institutions, increasing transparency, and generating cooperation between federal, regional, and tribal administrations, progress can be made. A second report, “Decentralization Options for Somalia,” published by African Arguments, focuses on governance. It lays out various forms of decentralization as options for Somalia. Little enthusiasm exists for a return to a centralized government structure after the fall of the Siad Barre regime in 1991 and federalism is already endorsed by the Provisional Constitution of Somalia. The report also explains that distrust in and among the political elite, animosity between Mogadishu and the hinterlands, and the desire for widespread political participation have driven Somalia towards decentralization. Diffusing power to the regional states is the most stable way forward, and the most likely one. Separately, these recommendations make sense. However, when considered together, they may prove difficult to integrate into a coherent political system and economic structure. Many of the economic changes required to build an economy, like trade agreements with other countries or oil and gas revenue sharing, require agreement and consolidation on a national level. To achieve a robust federal system, there will need to be strong states that can effectively govern their territory and provide basic services to the population. However, as investment increases, often so does corruption and cronyism, which can have devastating effects on governance and confidence in government. As power diffuses amongst states, so does momentum in national endeavors like infrastructure development, national unity, and defeating al Shabaab. Governance and economics together are essential to the stability and sustainable success of the country. The drivers for decentralization are already in place, and hostility or suspicion of centralized economic policy may be a brake on growth.

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. Civil war is raging in Nigeria’s northeast. Abuja says it is winning, but when Boko Haram attacks a military base, kills numerous soldiers and their dependents, then burns barracks to the ground, such claims strain credulity. The Army, long able to discourage direct confrontation, and since independence the country’s most durable national institution may be starting to unravel. In contrast, Boko Haram, firmly ensconced in the grassroots, remains robust. Moreover, they appear to have one-upped Amazon.com because they may be keeping their weapons inventory on mobile platforms, rather than in fixed caches. Moving "warehouses" are hard to destroy. In Abuja, the country’s center, it is clear that when reform begins to threaten vested interests, Nigeria’s thin veneer of democracy wears off and progress toward "transparency” and "good governance”—passwords required for successful login to the comity of nations—is revealed as illusory. In light of these fundamental insecurities, Mr. Sanusi’s recent “suspension” from his position as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria has proved shocking. None of this, however, will come as any surprise to Wang Xiaofang, author of The Civil Servant’s Notebook, a novel about politics and corruption in China. “Under the present system,” one of his characters opines, “the outcome of the law was in the hands of individual people, not in the hands of institutions, and the law often gave way to favors, connections, and even public opinion. The “iron fist of the law” only frightened the small fry, not the big fish.” Institutions, one of which Mr. Sanusi headed, prevented neither the disappearance of billions in oil revenue, nor Mr. Sanusi’s own removal. A single individual, the president, proved more powerful. American muckraker Lincoln Steffens would probably nod knowingly, too. Political corruption, he believed, was not a temporary evil that could be corrected by reforms, but rather a policy by which democracy was made over into a plutocracy. Bosses and crooks could stop corruption, he thought, but not reformers. They lacked the knowledge and tools, and were not up to a hard fight. In the Niger Delta, some amnestied militants are returning to oil theft, i.e., war against the state by other means, according to “Oil Thieves of the Niger Delta,” by Alexis Okeowo, Bloomberg Businessweek. “It’s not OK for us to be doing this, we know,” one said, “but the government is not looking after us at all... There were no jobs here, so what do we do? This was the only solution. We don’t have any other way to fight.”

Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday ordered the immediate suspension of Lamido Sanusi, the governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank. According to the BBC, Reuters, and the Financial Times, trading in Nigeria’s foreign exchange, bond, and money markets, halted due to uncertainty over the president’s move. How long trading will be halted and what the consequences will be remains to be seen. Various reactions from international economists indicates that the initial drop in the Naira after the announcement is an expected reaction after a surprise move like Jonathan’s in an emerging market, especially when international investors have such a high respect for Sanusi. Other commentators remark that the timing of the suspension points to political motivations for the suspension rather than economic. Sanusi is widely respected by the international financial community for his technical expertise and for his reform of the Nigerian banking system. Along with Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala he was the “face” of Nigerian fiscal and financial reform. The Banker, a publication of the Financial Times, designated him “Central Bank Governor of the Year” and “Central Bank Governor of the Year for Africa.” In 2011, Time included him on the list of the 100 of the world’s most influential people. Over the past few months, Sanusi has claimed that some U.S. $20 billion in revenue owed to the state from the state-owned oil industry has, in effect, disappeared through corruption. Those charges – which many observers find credible – raised the ire of President Jonathan, who is likely to run for re-election as president in early 2015. Just before Christmas 2013, Jonathan demanded that Sanusi resign; he refused. There is media speculation that Sanusi has other revelations to make about the pervasiveness of corruption. It is as yet unclear what Sanusi’s “suspension” means. The Central Bank is supposed to be independent of the government; the governor may be removed only by the National Assembly, not the president, and only with cause. The presidential statement announcing the suspension refers to on-going investigations into “breaches of enabling laws, due process, and mandate of the Central Bank.” Sanusi says he will fight the “suspension” to preserve the Central Bank’s independence. At the very least, his “suspension" raises questions about how real the independence of the Central Bank will be. Jonathan has appointed Sarah Alade, currently deputy governor of the Central Bank for economic policy as acting governor. He also announced that Godwin Emefiele, currently managing director of Zenith Bank of Nigeria, will take over as governor in June. Sanusi was appointed governor by President Jonathan’s predecessor, Umaru Yar’Adua, and his term is up in June, 2014. He is part of the core northern Nigerian establishment, at least some of which is alienated from Jonathan’s predominately southern and Christian administration. His father was the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the highest non-political position) and his grandfather was the emir of Kano. He is also a distinguished Islamic scholar.

An important venue for Nigerian politics since the 1999 restoration of civilian government, which followed a generation of military rule, has been the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). While there have always been numerous political parties, the PDP is the place where the competing and cooperating elites that dominate Nigeria have been most comfortable operating. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo liked to say that the PDP was the largest political party in Africa. After he left presidential office, he tried with limited success to shape or influence events from his position as chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees. Political parties, especially the PDP, are almost entirely instruments of elite politics with little resonance at the grass-roots level. They do not address the issues of religion, ethnicity, and region that increasingly mobilize the Nigerian “street.” The PDP, therefore, has only a most superficial resemblance to political parties in, for example, the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom. Like Nigeria’s other political parties, the PDP is driven by personality rather than policy, and money has always played a role in determining individual political alliances. The PDP, and the other parties, cannot be characterized as being on the “left” or the “right.” These terms have little meaning in Nigeria. It is also a long standing tradition that parties are not based on religion, ethnicity, or region; there is no Muslim or Christian party. There is in Nigeria no equivalent to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. This system may be changing however. Since Goodluck Jonathan’s 2011 election as president, the elites have fractured. Accordingly, so too has the PDP. Elites who oppose Jonathan’s government for a variety of reasons have withdrawn from the PDP and organized themselves into the All Progressives Congress (APC), itself a union of various earlier opposition groups. Five formerly PDP governors and numerous former PDP legislators have joined the APC. However, some who left the PDP for the APC have already returned to the fold, and in the remaining months before the 2015 elections, we can expect individuals to move between the two parties based on their calculations of their personal interests. Nevertheless, it is widely anticipated that the elections of 2015 will be a two-horse race, rather than the process of the previous three elections, which better resembled an anointing of the PDP candidate who had been chosen by something approaching elite consensus. Some of Nigeria’s friends have welcomed the emergence of the APC as opening up the political process by breaking the PDP monopoly on power. And, that is true, presuming the APC holds together through the elections. However, many perhaps most of the politicians in the APC were once in the PDP. They are elites practicing elite politics with little reference to the Nigerian people. Hence, in the short term at least, it would be unrealistic to expect that politicians will approach governance in a divergent way from when they were in the PDP. The fracturing of Nigeria’s elites has resulted in two elite political parties, the PDP and the APC. The APC is not the harbinger of a Nigerian version of the “Arab Spring.”

Technically, the news that many rich people in China have personal ties to China’s top leaders is not really news anymore. Nor is it news that many rich Chinese have placed their assets in offshore accounts or even that many rich people in China get that way through peddling influence or corruption. After all, the top fifty members of China’s National People’s Congress boast a combined wealth of $94.7 billion, making their American congressional cousins across the Pacific—whose top fifty members are worth only $1.6 billion—look positively poverty stricken. The link between politics and money in China is well-established. So why all the excitement over the recent release of a report from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that 22,000 (out of 1.3 billion) people in China have established offshore companies to hold—or hide—their wealth? Certainly there is the titillation factor. There is always a market for information about the super-rich: how they got their money and how they spend it—particularly when some of the rich are the sons and daughters of senior officials. There is also the issue of the “offshore” accounts in the British Virgin Islands, which to a layperson immediately sound suspicious. Even though every news article on the topic carefully mentions the fact that there is nothing necessarily illegal about these offshore tax havens, guilt is already established in the minds of many. (And, of course, there is some reason for this: a number of senior Chinese officials have already been tried in court and found guilty of using these accounts to hide millions of dollars in embezzled funds.) In addition, amassing personal wealth in China has always been a source of political vulnerability. Despite the obvious attraction of making money for many Chinese, the country’s ideological underpinnings have never fully supported it: it was denigrated by Confucianism and reviled by Communism. During the first decades of Communist rule, to be labeled a “capitalist running dog” meant a life of ongoing vicious political reprisals. Even Beijing’s more recent campaign against several politically outspoken billionaire bloggers carried a whiff of this same witch hunt mentality: questioning the political loyalty of those with money. What could be seen as surprising, however, is that the Chinese government has gone to such extraordinary lengths to shut down any mention of the report’s findings. Beijing’s much ballyhooed anti-corruption campaign is the signature policy of an otherwise fairly anemic political reform effort by the new leadership. A report that lays bare 22,000 potential corruption cases should be celebrated, not censored. Part of the problem is that President Xi Jinping, himself, is likely unhappy that the face of his brother-in-law has been plastered in the pages of the ICIJ report as one of those with significant offshore holdings. But even beyond any personal considerations, the real challenge for Beijing is that the report represents a substantial loss of power for the Chinese leadership. With transparency comes knowledge—not just for the seven men in the Standing Committee of the Politburo but for the 1.3 billion people they govern. The report offers the Chinese public the opportunity to hold Beijing directly accountable; when the Chinese leadership pronounces the guilt of one official, the Chinese people can ask about one hundred others. By censoring the list, China’s leaders are trying to control who is found guilty and when. In the end, it is in the interest of both China’s wealthiest citizens and the Chinese government to promote transparency and publication of the list. How else to disentangle the influence peddling inherent in traditional guanxi from meaningful corruption? How else to promote the rule of law and ensure that these 22,000 wealthy Chinese with offshore holdings do not become fodder for politically motivated attacks? And above all, how else to ensure that the Chinese people believe their leaders are holding themselves to the same standards to which they seek to hold everyone else?

I was heartened last week to read a piece in Foreign Affairs by Eric Li, a Chinese venture capitalist and political commentator, in which he asserts that “unprecedented” political reforms are underway in China [registration required]. Somehow I had missed them, mistakenly thinking that President Xi Jinping was tightening political control rather than offering greater opportunities for political participation. Fortunately, Mr. Li cleared up my confusion: President Xi tightening the reins of control is political reform. At the top of Beijing’s reform list, as Li elaborates, is fiscal reform, in which Beijing will now “assume almost complete authority over national spending.” For Li this means greater spending on social welfare, the strengthening of China’s market economy, and better enforcement on issues such as environmental protection and food safety. These are all potential positive political implications of a bureaucratic/financial reform; we will have to wait to see how Beijing exercises its increased power. Second on the list is another bureaucratic reform to strengthen anti-corruption efforts. Beijing has announced that local disciplinary committees and courts will report directly up the bureaucratic chain to higher-level committees and courts rather than be responsible to local governments. This indeed could be transformational—I have long believed, for example, that it would be useful to have local environmental protection bureaus funded and overseen by the Ministry of Environmental Protection rather than responsive to local officials. Yet when Li calls the system one of an “independent watchdog,” he is jumping the gun. These committees and courts will still be controlled by party officials; the difference is they will take their party mandates from Beijing rather than from local party officials. An independent watchdog would remove the party from the court system entirely. Finally, Li points to the decision by the top leadership to concentrate security and economic policy firmly in the hands of Xi Jinping himself as a new reform initiative. Here, too, is another bureaucratic reform that contributes to a greater concentration of power, in this case a single Chinese leader. Li acknowledges that few political observers other than himself have recognized the Communist Party’s actions as significant political reform, attributing this to the fact that the term “political reform” has been “ideologically hijacked” by Western media outlets and think tanks to mean only those reforms related to a multiparty democracy. Of course, this is a straw man: few, if any, people would define political reform as only those reforms that embrace multiparty democracy. Many, including those in China, however, would understand political reform as an opening of the political system to more rather than less public participation. It is not merely Western media outlets and think tanks that have “downplayed” the CCP leadership and Li’s version of political reform. In a recent New York Times interview with former senior Chinese official Wu Wei, Wu claims that the recent plenum offers “no advances apart from some adjustments needed to maintain growth… Especially in politics the controls on opinion are a major step backward.” About the current leadership he notes, “I don’t think they have a good understanding of the reforms of the ‘80s. In particular, they haven’t studied the political reforms of that time, or why there needs to be a separation between party and government, or why we need to develop democracy and rule of law, or why we need to ensure citizens’ fundamental rights. And they’re not interested in understanding.” Certainly Wu’s understanding of political reform must resonate with other Chinese. How else to explain the ten or twenty million followers of  Chinese bloggers who call for greater transparency and political participation, the tens of thousands of Chinese who protest against one injustice or another every year, or the scores of Chinese people who attempt to run as independent candidates in local elections? Li is correct that there should be room to understand the bureaucratic reforms he describes as a form of political reform. However there is no need to try to devalue the worth of democracy, transparency, the rule of law, and public participation by calling them Western concoctions. President Xi’s brand of political reform may represent Li’s personal China dream but he should allow that for millions of other Chinese, political reform has little to do with more power to the Party and everything to do with more power to the people.

Nigeria’s Aviation Minister Stella Oduah is part of President Goodluck Jonathan’s inner circle. She was his campaign director of administration and finance during the 2011 presidential elections. She is also stalked by scandal, apparently of her own making. In October 2013, she was accused of forcing the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority to buy two armored cars for her use at the cost of N255 million (U.S. $1.6 million). Her critics charge that the cost was inflated, there was no provision for such a purchase in the budget, nor did their acquisition process comply with public procurement policy. Sahara Reporters also accuses her of, in effect, inflating her academic credentials in her official resumes. Specifically, she claimed a Master’s degree from St. Paul’s College, Lawrenceville, Virginia. But, the college grants no graduate degrees. The college did confirm that she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. Subsequently Premium Times accused her of claiming an honorary degree from “Pacific Christian University,” in Glendale, California. That institution, apparently, has never existed. St. Paul’s has announced it is closing its doors in 2014 – a development unrelated to Stella. Stella Oduah is not the first political figure in the world to “improve” her resume, and she probably will not be the last. However, her transgressions provide the president’s enemies yet another stick with which to beat his administration, the competency of which is widely questioned in Nigeria. The question to be asked is why the president does not remove her from office, as many in Nigeria are demanding. She has no obvious qualifications to be minister of Aviation. The answer might be that it is difficult for a president facing an election in 2015 to remove his campaign director of administration and finance.

On December 19, International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda asked the judges to adjourn the trial date of Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta because one of the prosecution’s witnesses is now declining to testify and another has confessed to giving false evidence. She is asking for the adjournment to give her more time to seek other evidence before proceeding with the trial. She said: “Having carefully considered by evidence and the impact of the two withdrawals, I have come to the conclusion that currently the case against Mr. Kenyatta does not satisfy the high evidentiary standards required at trial. I therefore need time to complete efforts to obtain additional evidence, and to consider whether such evidence will enable my office to fully meet the evidentiary threshold required at trial.” Kenya’s President Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto have been indicted in connection with the bloodshed surrounding the 2007 presidential elections. At that time, Kenyatta and Ruto were on opposite sides. Kenyatta was a leader of the Kikuyu ethnic group, while Ruto was a leader of the Kalenjin ethnic group. The two ethnic groups have long been bitter enemies. The origin of the enmity appears to be dispute over land in the Rift valley. However, political figures on both sides have previously fanned the enmity in pursuit of their own agendas. It looks like that might have happened in 2007. At least 1,200 people were killed, and the international community, led by then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan intervened. In 2013, however, Kenyatta and Ruto reconciled their personal differences and led a united ticket against Raila Odinga. Kikuyu and Kalenjin found themselves on the same side. They won in elections that most Kenyans decided were credible. That victory means that Kenya’s president and vice president are both under ICC indictment. Since the elections–and even before–ICC officials, including prosecutor Fatou Bensouda have complained of witness intimidation and general Kenyan non-cooperation. Kenya has sought Africa Union support against the ICC, and the Kenyan parliament has called for withdrawal from its jurisdiction. Under these circumstances, as the years go by, it is likely that it will be increasingly difficult for Bensouda to make her case against Kenyatta. However, Ruto’s case, generally regarded as the stronger of the two, started in September 2013, and is going forward. Should the ICC case against the Kikuyu Kenyatta go away, and should the Kalenjin Ruto be convicted, it is unclear whether that would re-ignite the ethnic conflict between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin, up to now held in abeyance by the Kenyatta/Ruto alliance.

Peter Akinola, retired primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) and his driver were kidnapped the day before Christmas as he drove away from his office in Abeokeuta, Ogun state (in Yorubaland). Some reports–but not others–say his daughter was also kidnapped. There are other contradictions and inconsistencies in the details of the episode in the press reports. They were freed unharmed shortly thereafter when the archbishop convinced his captors that as a retired clergyman, he had no money to pay ransom. Though the archbishop was unharmed, the circumstances remind us that kidnapping can be brutal. The archbishop–who is almost seventy years old–was according to one report forced to lay on the ground. When he and his party were released, they were dumped on the side of the road and had to make their way through dense bush until the police found them. Even though the archbishop has been one of the most powerful religious leaders in the country, and is one of the Nigerians best known outside of Nigeria, the kidnapping appears to have had no political or "terrorist" dimension. It looks like it was solely a criminal act with the goal of collecting a ransom. Another Anglican archbishop was kidnapped in September 2013, and an Anglican bishop was kidnapped in January 2010 and another in September 2010. Up to now, the Church of Nigeria has avoided publicizing the kidnapping of senior clerics in hopes of avoiding copy-cat episodes. It is unknown whether ransoms have ever been paid. But, many other prominent people and their relatives are kidnapped almost on a regular basis. The criteria for victim selection appears to be the perceived ability to pay ransom. One notable victim was the elderly mother of Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Others have included elderly relatives of governors, traditional rulers, and business people, especially if they do not have bodyguards. The motives appear almost always to be ransom, not political. Before he retired, Archbishop Akinola was the primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, with perhaps twenty million communicants, probably the largest Christian denomination in Nigeria, and the second largest part of the world-wide Anglican Communion (after the Church of England). The archbishop was also the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, a powerful interdenominational advocacy group. He is a leader of Christianity in the Global South; in 2006 Time Magazine included him in its list of the hundred most important people in the world, in the category of "Leaders and Revolutionaries." A low-church evangelical, he is a social conservative and strongly opposed to gay rights. He organized the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) for dissident Episcopalians after the Episcopal Church (the branch of Anglicanism in the United States) ordained an openly gay bishop. Kidnapping is not usually political, but it has a political consequence. The Nigerian government’s inability to suppress it contributes to the lack of confidence many Nigerians have in their institutions of government.

Things are churning in Nigeria. There is the publication of former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s letter to President Goodluck Jonathan cataloging the latter’s political failures. There is Central Bank governor Lamido Sanusi’s letter, also publicized, reporting the failure of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to remit almost U.S.$50 billion over a thirteen month period. Earlier this week, thirty-seven members of the House of Representatives left the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and joined the principal opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). The defectors are from Kano, Sokoto, Bauchi, Kwara, Rivers, Katsina, and Adamawa states. Five PDP governors have also joined the opposition. They are from Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa, Rivers, and Kwara states. (The map above and here shows the party affiliation of the governors following the PDP defections.) The core of the APC has been the merged political organizations of Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos state and a major figure in the predominately Yoruba southwest, and Muhammadu Buhari, former military chief of state and perhaps the most popular political figure in the north. Jonathan appears to be splintering the PDP, hitherto the arena where Nigeria’s competing and cooperating multi-ethnic elites have managed their differences and ensured their access to oil riches. And there does not seem to be an alternative instrument developing for elite coordination to replace the PDP. It is early days yet, and much could change before Nigerians go to the polls in 2015. Nevertheless, the opposition increasingly looks like an alignment of the north with parts of the Middle Belt and the southwest. The states with Nigeria’s two largest cities, Lagos and Kano, are also in the opposition camp. This is not new; there is a long tradition of their opposition to any central government. The large-scale Boko Haram attack at the beginning of December in Maiduguri also serves as a reminder that the jihadi insurrection continues. With this constellation of events, will Jonathan in fact run for the presidency in 2015, can he secure the PDP nomination, even if only that of a rump of the party, and if he does secure the nomination, can he win against the opposition? Before writing Jonathan off, it is worth keeping in mind certain realities. 1)      The power of an incumbent Nigerian president is enormous. He has access to “carrots and sticks” second to none. These include control of the security services and access to almost unlimited amounts of money from oil production. 2)      Jonathan appears to maintain strong support in the Delta, Nigeria’s oil patch. Some of that region’s warlords are closely associated with Jonathan. Some have said that if he is deprived of the nomination or the election, they will set the Delta on fire. That has the potential to dry up the oil revenue upon which the Nigerian elites depend. Elites recognize that reality. 3)      It is by no means certain that the 2015 elections will be free, fair, and credible, despite the continued presence of the well-regarded Attahiru Jega as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission. The Anambra state elections last month—seen by many as a dry run for 2015—were an administrative and logistical disaster. That raises the potential that the 2015 elections—if they are held—will not go well, with many possibilities for rigging, and where incumbents will likely be the beneficiaries. My reading as of today is that Jonathan will run, that his campaign will have something of a PDP fig leaf covering the widening party divisions, and given the fracturing of the Nigerian elites, he is likely to prevail against an opposition candidate. But, the process will be messy and fraught with danger. And there are so many wild cards, not least Boko Haram. All of this, of course, is based on the assumption that there will be elections in 2015. That, at the moment, may be a leap of faith.

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo witheringly criticizes President Goodluck Jonathan’s governance in an eighteen page, ostensibly private, letter that has been leaked to the press. Obasanjo’s catalog of Jonathan’s shortcomings and mistakes runs the gamut from failing to address the underlying causes of security issues in the Niger Delta and the jihadist Boko Haram insurrection in the North to subordinating the well-being of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to his own political ambitions. According to Obasanjo, Jonathan is failing to address threats posed by narcotics trafficking and corruption, and his mismanagement of the economy is causing a pause in foreign investment. Obasanjo accuses Jonathan of identifying himself with his fellow Ijaw ethnic group, not the Nigerian people as a whole. And Obasanjo sees points of comparison between Jonathan’s abusive use of the security forces with what the notorious military dictator Sani Abacha did during the era of military dictatorship. Looking to national elections in 2015, Obasanjo says that Jonathan won the ruling party presidential nomination in 2011 because he promised not to run in 2015. There is every sign that Jonathan will break that promise and run; that would be “morally flawed.” Obasanjo’s letter has little that is new. However, its eighteen pages are a remarkably comprehensive indictment of the Jonathan administration. In the letter’s last paragraph, Obasanjo says that he will be sharing the text of this private letter with former military heads of state Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, former vice president Alex Ekwueme, and Yakubo Danjuma, a retired general who played a central role in successive military administrations, though he himself was never a head of state. These individuals are at the pinnacle of Nigeria’s traditional elite. Predictably, the Jonathan administration appears to be outraged over the fact the letter was leaked as well as its content. According to the BBC, Jonathan’s office has characterized the letter as “reckless, baseless, unjustifiable, and indecorous.” The president has promised a full response in due course. Some commentators are suggesting that Obsansjo’s letter is designed to build opposition to the ruling PDP’s renomination of Jonathan in 2015. Yet, the letter strikes me as more than a political maneuver. It reflects the criticisms and anxieties that are widespread among Nigeria’s elites, many of whom are deeply concerned that the country is on a downward spiral. There is irony in Obasanjo’s critique. He more than anyone else was responsible for Jonathan’s selection as PDP vice presidential candidate in 2007. With the death of President Yar’Adua in 2010, Jonathan became the president—and the incumbent in 2011. Many others have confirmed Obasanjo’s statement that Jonathan then promised not to run in 2015—though Jonathan himself has never acknowledged making it. Jonathan says that he will announce whether he will run in 2015 only in 2014. However, most Nigerian observers see his candidacy as a foregone conclusion.