Why US favours Jonathan for 2011
Cover Stories Aug 10, 2010By Hugo Odiogor, Deputy Political Editor
LAGOS — As President Goodluck Jonathan prepares to visit the United States of America next month for the United Nations General Assembly, Vanguard can reveal that the America’s determination to secure its interest in the global energy war is the strongest motive for Washington’s preference for the candidacy of Dr. Goodluck Johathan in the 2011 presidential election.
While Nigerian political actors across the geopolitical divide are bogged down with argument on power shift, informed diplomatic source told Vanguard at the weekend that America’s energy security interest in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea is the key edge that Jonathan has over all those that have so far shown interest in the Presidency in the 2011 polls.
Apart from President Jonathan, other known aspirants to the Presidential seat are Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Otunba Dele Mommodu and Alhaji Ibrahim Shekerau.
President Goodluck Jonathan
Among the listed aspirants, some of them lack the experience at national politics, especially at the presidential level.
Those that occupied the office as military leaders from 1983 to 1993 have issues concerning mismanagement of public funds and abuse of human rights which does not say well of the country in the area of public auditing of leaders in a fast changing global environment.
Informed diplomatic contacts told Vanguard in Lagos that Washington was involved in a high level oil diplomacy aimed at securing its energy interest in Nigeria especially in the Gulf of Guinea. The country is engaged in extensive diplomatic consultations at home and abroad to ensure that it stays on top of the situation in Nigeria.
Meddling in domestic affairs
The country has been using its former diplomats to penetrate into those areas that its serving envoys would not enter to avoid being accused of meddling in the domestic affairs of the African country but at the same time it has been making top level consultations through their officials of state.
Former US Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Walter Carrington, was in Nigeria last month on a private visit with his Edo State-born wife, Dr. Arese. Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia met with his United States counterpart, Mrs. Hillary Clinton in Washington last week in what diplomatic watchers regard as smoothening the path of Jonathan in the international arena.
The President has another opportunity to up the ante when he meets with world leaders in New York next month at the UN General Assembly gathering.
“These are solid credentials that are so tempting for any politician that is already in office to ignore, especially if there are constitutional lee ways to exploit. I think the political class should be wise enough to put their bet on a horse that has the potentials to win. That is how to play the game, it is not by sowing seeds of discord and mayhem which will be of no benefit to them and the country,” said the source.
The United States through its diplomats has stated that it will continue its investment in the oil sector and to that extent, the country is interested in consistency and continuity in policies and stability in the polity.
Nigeria’s ambassador to the US, Chief A. Adefuye who is saddled with organising the next month visit, has been making contacts with key sectors of the US sectors and investors that will meet with the Nigerian leader in New York. A strong delegation of Nigerians in the Diaspora has been programmed to meet with the President and drum up support for a possible 2011 contest.
The US scale of preference
The source told Vanguard that “the United States will not go beyond providing technical and logistic support to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to organise a credible and acceptable election but we expect that Nigerians should elect a leader who will, among other things, show commitment to reforms, consistency in policies and stability in the polity.
“It is important to elect a leader who has the intellectual capacity to understand the complex global energy demand in the 21st century. This will be a person who could win the confidence of the oil host communities and promote regional security especially in the Gulf of Guinea.
“The success of the amnesty programme in Niger-Delta, tackling the internal insecurity challenges and global war against terrorism, maintaining the anti-corruption campaign in the public sector and ensuring stability and security in the oil supply source are critical to national and international development for Nigeria at this moment.
“The focus of US oil diplomacy also entails having a measure of policy stability especially in seeing the completion of reforms embarked on in the oil sector of which Jonathan is part of the Yar’ Adua administration that embarked on the much awaited programme to restructure and reorganise the Oil and Gas industry instituted, financial and commercial policy and legislative reforms, especially in the Nigerian Content Bill, restructuring the Downstream Gas Bill now called the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.
Jonathan and global energy war
The global war is between the United States, China and India on one hand and the unstable supply source in the Middle East and Africa. The battle is on who controls the supply source. At stake is the $16 trillion investment in global development of oil production and distribution between 2011 to 2030 in anticipation rise in energy demand which the US-based International Energy Agency, IEA, puts at 35 per cent.
The IEA believes that for Nigeria to remain relevant in the global energy equation, it must be part of the global community. The report of IEA available to Vanguard states that about $16 trillion will be spent on infrastructure and facilities to produce and deliver energy, transport fuels and refined products from producing countries to consuming countries.
United States Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton, told his Nigerian counterpart, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, last week that the United States remained committed to future investment in the oil sector in Nigeria where its multinational companies are fully involved in the extraction of hydrocarbons in the volatile Niger Delta. The US Government wants a leader who can see the full implementation of the amnesty programme to bring about peace in the oil rich region.
The United States has been working on boosting its sourcing oil from the relatively peaceful Gulf of Guinea which has in recent times become troubled by militancy and piracy even when the African Command, Africom, a volunteer military alliance put together by Washington to respond to security emergency in African, became operational in 2008.
At the height of the militancy crisis in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s production level fell from 2.2 million bpd to about 1.2 millionbpd which contributed to the steep rise in the global crude oil price to $147 per barrel in the last quarter of 2008.
Vanguard learnt the recent massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an issue in the US oil diplomatic moves in the Gulf of Guinea where Nigeria is a major player. It is expected that by the year 2030, the global energy need will be 35 per cent higher than the levels it were in 2003.
Oil diplomacy
The world total energy demand is expected to climb by about 50 per cent by the end of 2030. This expected rise is driven by the emergence of Brazil, China and India as new industrial powers accounting for more than 40 per cent of the global energy demand.
The US is equally worried that interest oil will face increased threatens at the supply source by the aggressive oil diplomacy of China which is active in Sudan, Chad, Angola as well as Nigeria. Access to affordable energy source is essential to sustain business development in US and keep people in employment in its economy that is making sluggish recovery from the recession of 2009.
This means a stable global political economy is import especially from Nigeria which controls substantial oil and other maritime resources in the Gulf of Guinea which America regards as the alternative supply source from the highly unpredictable Middle East.
Prof. Kayode Soremekun of the Political Science Dept, Covenant University Ota, Ogun State told Vanguard that interest of the United States in who emerges as the next president of Nigeria is in line with its position as a global power which studies “situational realities and align its interest with forces that can best protect such interests at any given time, especially as it affects its multinational oil companies.
“The US had a defined interest in having access to resources like oil and to that extent it will seek to ensure stability that will allow its multinational companies in the oil sector to thrive; and to the extent that Nigeria after 50 years of independence has no so clearly defined interest. It will have to rely on extra African powers to define its political and economic interest.
“Nigeria is a sub imperial power that has remained a toddler at 50, hence it must go through this phase where external powers will continue to shape its political destiny.
“Oil is a global energy commodity which is the life wire of industrial economy, and the global nature of the world economy has created a situation where it has become necessary to pay greater attention to events at the supply source of the commodity.
Said Soremekun” Oil Industry experts are quick to warn that the continued rise in oil prices would upset the global economy, consequently the United States has shown considerable interest in oil supplies from the relatively secured Gulf of Guinea, where Nigeria is a major player.
The Middle East remains a source of concern as the US leads the global anti terror war and sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.
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