Terrorist Panic on Nigerian flight

2012-10-24 13:32

 

Lagos – Panicked passengers aboard a flight in Nigeria swarmed on a man who shouted “Allah Akbar,” but he was found to be harmless and authorities called him mentally unstable, officials said on Wednesday.

The incident on Tuesday occurred with Nigerians jittery over waves of bombings and shootings blamed on Islamist extremist group Boko Haram in the country’s northern and central regions.

The flight had left from Maiduguri in Nigeria’s northeast, which has been Boko Haram’s base.

“A passenger on board flight W3 812 from Maiduguri to Abuja caused a scare when he started shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ shortly before the aircraft landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja,” a statement from Nigerian airline Arik Air said.

“The frightened passengers on board the flight became suspicious, thinking the man was about to do something sinister.”

Local media reported that passengers rushed the man to restrain him.

Nigeria’s secret police, concerned by the spread of rumours over the incident, issued a statement saying the man was “mentally unstable“.

Arik Air is Nigeria’s largest airline.

– AFP

SSS spokesperson Marilyn Ogar

By SaharaReporters, New York

Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) has blamed today’s incident on an Arik Air flight from Maiduguri to Abuja on a mentally-unstable man whose “condition was triggered off” by turbulence.

Social media reports had claimed a bombing threat on the flight.

In a press statement, Marilyn Ogar, DSS’ Deputy Director for Public Relations, said that when the man, an Abuja interior decorator named Aminu S. Galadima boarded the flight, Airport Management was not informed as had previously been arranged.

Mr. Gladima had travelled to Maiduguri on October 19 with Hajia Yachilla Jidda, wife of the Secretary to the Borno State government, to do some work.
“On arrival in Maiduguri, he was lodged at Greenland Hotel. During the course of his stay, he exhibited unusual behaviour by smashing a window, and ended up with lacerations on his hands,” the statement said.

Following an investigation, it was discovered that Mr. Galadima was in poor mental health, and arrangements were made for him to be returned to Abuja for treatment.

As it would turn out, terrible miscommunication then followed, leading to the lives of passengers being put in danger.

“Unfortunately, when Galadima was taken to the Airport on 23rd October for his return trip, the management of the Airport was not informed, and 10 minutes into the flight, due to slight turbulence, his condition was triggered off,” Ogar said.

Explaining that the clarification became necessary in order “to dispel the unfounded rumours concerning the flight,” she said Mr. Galadima is with the security forces.

She did not explain why he is not in a hospital.

Earlier today, the Ministry of Aviation told SaharaReporters there had been no threat to the Maiduguri-Abuja flight.  That means it does not consider a “triggered-off” mentally-unstable passenger who had not been professionally handled a danger.

On their part, an Arik pilot on the flight said that the problem was only as “an unruly passenger who was high on drugs blabbing rubbish.”

Full text of the press statement:

PRESS STATEMENT
This is a brief highlight of the incident that occurred on the Arik Air flight from Maiduguri to Abuja.

On Friday, 19th October, 2012, Wife of the SSG to the Borno State Government, Hajia Yachilla JIDDA, travelled to Maiduguri in company of one Aminu S. GALADIMA, an interior decorator based in Abuja to do some interior decoration work. On arrival in Maiduguri, he was lodged at Greenland Hotel. During the course of his stay, he exhibited unusual behaviour by smashing a window, and ended up with lacerations on his hands.

The SSG was contacted, and in collaboration with the Hotel management, subject was taken to Atal Hospital, also in Maiduguri, where he received treatment. His family in Abuja was contacted and they gave confirmation that GALADIMA has been mentally unstable. In addition, his elder brother who lives in the UK was contacted and he requested that subject be returned to Abuja for medical attention.

On Sunday, 21st October, 2012, he was taken to the airport to be returned to Abuja, but missed the flight. However, the Airport management was informed of his state of health, and they advised that whenever his return is scheduled, the management should be notified. Unfortunately, when GALADIMA was taken to the Airport on 23rd October for his return trip, the management of the Airport was not informed, and 10 minutes into the flight, due to slight turbulence, his condition was triggered off. Meanwhile, GALADIMA is in the custody of security forces.
This clarification has become necessary to dispel the unfounded rumours concerning the flight.

Marilyn OGAR, msi
Deputy Director, Public Relations
Department of State Services
23rd October, 2012

A mentally ill man caused panic on a Nigerian flight, when in mid-air he started screaming “Allah Akbar” which means “God is great”.

 

Fearing that he could be a terrorist and about to blow up the plane, fellow passengers wrestled him, only to find that he was not carrying any weapons or explosives.

Nigeria’s security services had been trailing the man, Aminu Galadima, for a while and had it confirmed that he was mentally unstable, but a communication breakdown led to the mid air fiasco.

The Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) had followed Galadima from Abuja to Maiduguri where he lodged in a hotel.

“On arrival in Maiduguri, he was lodged at Greenland Hotel. During the course of his stay, he exhibited unusual behaviour by smashing a window, and ended up with lacerations on his hands,” the security service said in a statement.

Galadima’s hotel room was searched but no weapons or suspicious materials were found.

He was taken to Atal Hospital for check-up and treatment, and upon his release, he was put on the Maiduguri flight back to Abuja yesterday.

“His family in Abuja was contacted and they gave confirmation that Galadima has been mentally unstable.”

The airport management was informed of Galadima’s state of health, but were not notified when he was taken to the Airport on 23rd October for his return trip.

Aviation Minister, Joe Obi, dispelled every fear of a terrorist on a Nigerian plane.

“A passenger, Aminu Galadima, an indigene of Minna, Niger State boarded a Maiduguri-Abuja-bound Arik Air aircraft with registration number 5N MJE after going through all mandatory security screening. Nothing incriminating, no explosives or weapons whatsoever were found on him.”

“However, mid-air the passenger began to act strangely, loudly screaming Allah Akbar (God is Great).

“Fellow passengers, alarmed by this behaviour rushed to apprehend him. A thorough search by fellow passengers and crew members revealed nothing dangerous on him.

“The pilot immediately radioed Air Traffic Control and airport security operatives.”

Galadima – employed by the Secretary to the Borno State Government – was taken into custody by security agents Wednesday.

Read the original article on Theafricareport.com : Terrorist panic on Nigerian flight [501820596] | The Africa Report.com

 

 

Nigeria: Where Are Halliburton’s Accomplices?

 

SOURCE
Penultimate week, Albert Jack Stanley, a former chief executive officer of Kellogg Brown & Root Incorporated, an engineering subsidiary of Halliburton Company, was sentenced to 30 months in prison by a Texas, USA court. The previous day, it was the turn of Wojciech Chodan, a 74-year-old retired sales executive from Somerset, United Kingdom, who got jailed for two years. Their crime was paying bribes to Nigerian politicians and government officials to secure construction contracts worth $6 billion for the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Bonny Island in contravention of the American Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In the massive decade-long bribery scheme, huge sums of money totalling $180 million were stuffed in briefcases and ferreted to Nigeria as kickbacks. Sadly, the Nigerian politicians and government officials who were similarly indicted in the scam have not been successfully prosecuted.

In spite of the sustained public outcry for all those involved in the Halliburton bribery scandal to be prosecuted by the Nigerian authorities, especially since the dirty secrets were exposed by the high-powered panel led by ex-Inspector-General of Police Mike Okiro. At the height of the controversy, all the indicted persons and corporate bodies were billed to face prosecution, including former US Vice President Dick Cheney, who at one time led Halliburton in the bribery scheme. In an unprecedented global compromise, the charges were dropped, after Halliburton agreed to pay a $35 million settlement. Foreign court trials and convictions notwithstanding, the Nigerian government keeps vacillating on the trial of Halliburton’s accomplices in this country.

The closest we came to seeing justice served was the arraignment of Mr Sunday Bodunde Adeyanju, an aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2010. However, EFCC’s prosecution was nothing but a charade devoid of diligence. At the worst of times, Nigeria’s then attorney-general, Michael Aondoaaka, entered a nolle prosequi under Section 174 (1) (c) of the 1999 Constitution, thus ensuring that the foreigners involved never faced prosecution. This cast a pall of insincerity on the trial.

While it may be argued that the payment of fines by these major companies represents an implicit acknowledgement of guilt by the affected firms (and so constitutes a gesture of remorse), we shudder at why the government cannot go the whole hog to bring the perpetrators to book. The recent sentencing of Stanley and Chodan should inspire Nigerian authorities to reignite the staid war against corruption. It is in the wider interest of the society for the rich and powerful to be punished for the crimes they commit.

It is only when the federal government rids the country of economic crimes that the much-desired foreign direct investment can come from viable and credible companies in countries where trans-border graft is severely punished.

The veil on the Nigerian criminals indicted in the scandal should be lifted by the EFCC and a wholehearted prosecution effected.

 

Revisiting The Hulliburton Case

 

Monday, April 16, 2012

FROM all indications, the Halliburton bribery case has gone the way of other scandals – under the carpet. An Abuja High Court recently struck out the case because the prosecution failed to arraign the three suspects involved for the one year the trial lasted.

 

Throughout the duration of the trial, the agencies prosecuting the case could not produce the 14 witnesses that were scheduled to testify against the three suspects. The suspects in the case – a former permanent secretary in the office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Ibrahim Aliyu, retired Air Vice Marshall Abdullahi Bello and Mohammed Bukari – have thus been set free.

IN the Halliburton case, improper payments totalling $182 million was established to have been made to ensure a favourable consideration of the company’s bid for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) contract. It is one of those scandals that have been widely celebrated and highly sensational largely because of their international dimension. In its bid to demonstrate some measure of seriousness with the fight against corruption, the Federal Government under the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, set up an inter-agency panel to investigate the scam and bring the culprits to book. The panel, which included the police, the State Security Service (SSS), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), was headed by a former Inspector – General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro. The agencies were reported to have undertaken to produce different number of witnesses but they all failed to fulfil their promises.

IT is indeed not a surprise because it is in the character of Nigeria to so behave. It is, however, a matter of deep regret that after the bad image and international embarrassment, the Halliburton case has been so badly bungled. At the time the Okiro panel was set up, there were high expectations that the Halliburton case would be the beginning of serious handling of corruption cases. The high expectations stemmed from the categorical assurance of the government that all those found culpable would be duly punished no matter their status in the society. The government said it was in possession of documents which were expected to strengthen its hands in dealing decisively with those involved in the scandal. It is now evident that either the government was swayed from its initial line of action, or its initial expression of seriousness was sheer playacting.

WHILE Nigeria was engaged in prosecutorial dilly-dallying in a case that was programmed to fail, two Britons and an American were sentenced by a court in Texas, United States, to various terms of imprisonment and fined different amounts of money. It has since come to light that the Okiro panel in the course of its investigations interrogated only the small fries while the principal characters were left untouched. The United States Ambassador to Nigeria at that time, Mr. Robin Sanders, said that necessary documents needed by the Nigerian authorities to prosecute the case had been made available but – as it has now become apparent – the evidence has not been put to use. It is a sad reflection on the sincerity of the government about the much-hyped anti-corruption crusade.

HALLIBURTON is not the only foreign firm to be involved in a scandalous deal with Nigerian officials. Another American company – Wilbros – distributed $6 million to top officials of the Federal Government, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC) and the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS). Some chieftains of the ruling party – the Peoples Democratic Party – also benefited from the bribe payments. In the case of the German firm, Siemens, five Nigerians were named as receivers of a 10 million Euros bribe. All the foreigners and foreign corporate institutions involved in the case have been made to face the wrath of the law in their different countries. The story has only been different in Nigeria where culprits in corruption cases are – as a standard practice – left to enjoy and flaunt their ill-gotten wealth. But for the fact that the names of those involved in the Siemens case were made public in Germany, their identities would have remained, like others, under wraps as a state secret.

AT the time former Delta State governor, James Ibori, should be on trial in Nigeria for his various misdeeds, he was enjoying the protection of the government and wielding influence in the corridors of power. At the end of the day, he further sullied Nigeria’s already battered image by going to a foreign land to plead guilty to the crimes that were covered up in Nigeria when Chief Michael Aondoakaa functioned as the omnipotent Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation.

IT is highly regrettable that a serious case as the Halliburton bribery scandal could be struck out for lack of diligent prosecution. Many other cases have been similarly swept under the carpet. This is a very unfortunate trend in a country in which development is being stunted by corruption. It has made manifest what the government has been striving to conceal – that the anti-corruption campaign is nothing but sheer sloganeering.Source

 

The Victims of Halliburton and TSKJ Scandals

 

Just as there is confusion over the name of the major oil company involved in the bribery scam for a gas plant in Nigeria, so also are the different lists of alleged beneficiaries. The story of bribery scandals by a consortium of foreign oil firms operating in Nigeria has resurfaced again with names of the main culprits who were actually involved lumped with alleged victims whose only offense is that they held sensitive offices at the period when the projects were awarded.

Sometimes between 2004 and 2005, this writer while working as a PR person at the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) was inundated with various enquiries from the foreign media on the alleged bribery. They sought to verify if the Chairman of the Commission, Engr. Hamman Tukur was aware of his name, allegedly featured in a handwritten note by an official of one of the oil companies.

As at that time the US Securities and Exchange Commission had subpoenaed documents from several multinational companies in an attempt to probe into the $170m alleged bribery for a gas plant on Bonny Island in Nigeria. The companies involved in the project including Shell of UK which was the largest private shareholder on the project, Total of France, Eni of Italy, Halliburton of US, NNPC of Nigeria and Marubeni conglomerate of Japan which acted as a subcontractor on the project.

The scandal in the first instance was leaked by a former executive of one of the foreign companies who was sidelined in the deal. The subsequent investigations largely centred on the conducts of TSKJ, the major contractor for structures of the gas plant which was said to have ‘picked up about $7bn worth of building contracts between 1995 and 2004.’ TSKJ is a global consortium that includes a subsidiary of Halliburton, which was claimed to be owned by a former Vice-President Dick Cheney of the US.

Precisely on September 19, 2005, one of the emails received by this writer came from Michael Peel an award-winning journalist with the Financial Times of UK. He has reported the oil sector and financial crimes in Africa which expose corporate corruption especially in multinational oil companies and the effect on the environment. Though I had refused to respond to his first email which came through yahoo address, thinking it was from those notorious 419ners. A Google search indicated that Peel had published a profile interview with former GMD of NNPC Mr. Gaius Obaseki. Before then, I had advised my Chairman to ignore the early questionnaire.

Subsequent enquiries from him and others provided insights into the alleged scandals. The award of the first railway contract was made to TSKJ in 1994 when Engr. Tukur was a board member of NLNG by virtue of being the Director General in the Ministry of Petroleum, a tradition in various ministries where senior officers are directors in related institutions and parastatals. Surprisingly Engr. Hamman Tukur did not last long when the former Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha relieved him of his appointment.

Tukur’s name in the imbroglio stemmed from some notes by one William Chaudan, an employee of the TSKJ consortium, made of its meetings in the run-up to the 1994 contract award. The Peel’s email stated that: “A section of the notes, taken at an alleged ‘cultural meeting’ of consortium members in December 1993, is entitled ‘Marubeni suggestions.’ The section lists some people, next to the words ‘cover directly.’ Beneath, four other names of NLNG directors are listed next the words ‘already covered’. A note was said to be below that that says: ‘M requested approval and commitment for $30[m] for the above. Excludes Abacha, extra for Etiebet.’”

The Financial Times actually wanted to know whether the people named as “already covered” were offered or received bribes. Therefore the question by the reporter is to confirm “if any representative from TSKJ offer or give (gave) out money? If not, to confirm what the phrase “already covered” might mean?”

It was discovered that a number of notes suggest that the TSKJ partners were keen on hiding what they were doing. Notes of several so-called cultural meetings record discussions between TSKJ partners of “secret” and “open” commission payments. It was further revealed that at one point, another company Technip rejected a proposal as possibly opening up an opportunity for blackmail.

In my response to Peel’s enquiry on October 6, 2005, after speaking to Engr. Tukur on phone (who was then on a break in his hometown) I stated that “Engr. Tukur did not attend any nocturnal meeting for ulterior motives and was not aware of those coded messages and what they stood for in the notes.” I went on to clarify that “It might not be strange for individuals to impersonate others for extortions, in the name of fronting as link-person, a fraudulent practice that still exists.”

While some of the foreign media refused to mention names in their reports because of the risk and implications of indicting innocent victims from the main culprits, Financial Times was magnanimous enough in balancing the story even when it named names.

It is suspected that either the names of some innocent persons were featured to give the deal a semblance of legitimacy or some crooks were cunningly using other people’s name without authorisation, for fraudulent activities in the name of commission charges.

It is necessary to point out that as much as we keep accusing some of our leaders of corrupt practices, we must realise that there are many Nigerians that are honest, sincere and fighting corruption in various ways. Engr. Hamman Tukur has been a single individual that has stake his life to expose misdeed in the oil sectors, campaigned against misuse of revenues by the custodians at the federal and states levels and does not spare the Presidency and National Assembly in his acts and deed.

There are many honourable and distinguished Nigerians that are indeed very clean but not celebrated. One can even cite Tukur’s deputy at the commission, Alhaji Abu Gidado who is popularly referred to as an Incorruptible Minister during General Sani Abacha’s administration who could neither be bribed nor tempted as Chairman of Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) during the military era.

While it is agreeable that corrupt practices like bad news make the headlines, the media should be cautious in lumping innocents with criminals as the fifth columnists are presently out in full force to achieve hidden agenda towards their 2011 election. The government must also immediately investigate and prosecute those found wanting in the scam. It must also take further steps to blacklist the foreign collaborators and revoke the licenses of the foreign firms involved in this monumental scandal rubbishing the image of our country.

Apart from the victims whose names where wrongly or mischievously added to the list of Halliburton TSKJ Scandals, all citizens of Nigeria are victims of the damaging campaigns to the reputation of this great African nation. We are not all corrupt Source

 

British Special Services Kill Hostages in Nigerian Op

Source  

By John Helmer, Moscow March 11th, 2012

 

Imagine that Russian spetznaz troops were helicoptered into a foreign country, opening fire on a hideout in which Russian citizens were being held hostage by heavily-armed bad guys demanding a ransom for their captives. And suppose the outcome of the firefight was the deaths of the hostages. One can be sure the Anglo-American media would headline the operation as a botch-up demonstrating the incompetence of the Russian military, the Russian lack of respect for the human rights of its citizens, and the ruthlessness of President-elect Vladimir Putin for giving the foolhardy order to fire.

“The beginning of the end of Putin” would be the sub-text, just as The Economist has front-covered its reporting of Russia this week, while its sister publication, The Financial Times, tries to talk down Putin’s election majority, talk up Russian risk in the markets, and ignore the contrary evidence of the RTS index — up 24% since the start of the year; down 4.3% after election day, and up again by 2.2% yesterday. As a Moscow-based reporter of a US paper of record complains, his bureau has been under orders from headquarters to keep up the anti-Putin drum-beat to the exclusion of other news.

In truth, Russian special forces didn’t attack a compound in a northern Nigerian town, but the British did. That was on Thursday last, March 8.

A large number of people died, including the hostages, one British, one Italian. The operation was more than a fatal botch-up. The Italian government has announced publicly it did not know in advance of the military operation, and approved a ransom solution, not a military one. Easy for the Italians to claim with hindsight, especially since it’s not clear if Rome issued an explicit no-attack, no-fire order. But London is unapologetic, at least towards Rome.

The reports appearing in the Italian, Nigerian and then British media over the weekend claim Rome had agreed to pay a larger ransom than London, which cut the price down from €5 million to €1.2 million, including a deposit, followed by a phased release. The British Special Boat Service (SBS) reportedly used the deposit handover to follow the bad guys back to their hideout, where the SBS, with Nigerian backup, started their operation. It has been reported in Corriere della Sera that once they knew they were surrounded, the kidnappers asked for safe passage, leaving the hostages behind alive; this request was reportedly turned down in London, and countered with the British demand for unconditional surrender. That then led to the conclusion on the part of the kidnappers that they should dispose of the evidence against them, so they shot the hostages.

The hostage-taking occurred on May 12, 2011. So ten months have elapsed in which to identify the bad guys, locate their hideout, determine their price, plot the options, weigh the alternatives. The British cover-up has made it appear the bad guys were Islamic fundamentalists. Nigerian evidence suggests this was a commercial kidnapping, which is common in that country, often with complicity of and ransom-sharing with local, regional or federal Nigerian officials, military officers and the like. “We have always claimed responsibility for all the operations that we undertake, but we are not in any way responsible for the killing of the two foreigners,” the spokesman for the local Islamic fundamentalist organization has said. “It is not in our line of operation to take hostages.”

The cost of the British operation, including the final military failure, is several multiples greater than the discount ransom, and almost certainly more expensive than the original ransom. So much for the price London puts on the lives of its citizens.

There is a much longer story about how Moscow behaved during the 26-month captivity of Russian citizens in Nigeria between October 2003 and December 2005. The bottom-line of that one is that Moscow waited for much longer, paid a far higher ransom price, and recovered all the hostages alive and well. What isn’t well-known is that the Kremlin carefully plotted a military rescue operation, but concluded the risk of hostage casualties was too great to proceed. Also, the Nigerian Government was punished at the highest level for its involvement in the affair. Here’s a resume of that story.

The African Pride was a Greek-owned, Panamanian-flagged tanker which was caught smuggling crude oil from Nigeria in October of 2003. The contraband scheme was an elaborate one at the supply end, involving high-ranking Nigerian naval officers ashore and at sea, as well as an international oil trader of repute, who was the purchaser of the cargo once the tanker made port elsewhere. Several vessels were involved, with about 30,000 barrels of crude going out the backdoor every day. The African Pride was crewed by 12 Russian mariners, and one Georgian. When their vessel was apprehended by Nigerian police, it was loaded with 11,400 tonnes of oil. The crew was taken ashore under arrest. In time, however, the tanker, its officers and its cargo proceeded to make good their escape.

For two years the crew was held in a Lagos prison without trial. During that time, the Kremlin paid Russian lawyers and more than one special emissary to negotiate the release with the Nigerian authorities. On one occasion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivered a personal demand to the Nigerian Ambassador in Moscow, as well as to a powerful Nigerian intelligence officer. In the final deal approved by the Kremlin, the Nigerians agreed to charge and try the crew for smuggling offences; convict them and sentence them to time served; and for the final three months, September to December 2005, while the Nigerians organized their show trial, the mariners were released on bail to live in the Russian embassy compound in Lagos. At the end of December they were convicted, released, and flown home.

It helped that the Nigerian Government at the time wanted to take a seat on the United Nations Security Council and needed to get Russia to lift its veto on everything Nigerian. There was also competition for the same seat, and for Russia’s favour, from South Africa. A great deal of money – roughly four times last week’s ransom — was at stake and discreetly on the table in these many-sided negotiations. How to pay it, and make sure the Nigerians stuck to the release terms, also took time and care on the Russian side. Although never acknowledged officially, the ransom or bribe was concealed within at least one, possibly two oil exploration concessions awarded by the Nigerian government to Russian oil companies, Zarubezhneft and LUKoil.

A source who was involved in the negotiations for release of the hostages has described in detail the military option, which was drawn up and discussed in Moscow during 2005. He says that a spetznaz operation would have involved a helicopter attack on the prison in Lagos, where the hostages were being held. There were multiple objectives – create a diversion to draw the Nigerian guards away from their Russian prisoners; blast a path into the cellblock where they were held; and shoot their way out on to the rescue helicopters. Non-military means to lull the Nigerians were also anticipated.

The problem acknowledged in the Kremlin was that the risk remained incalculably high that the Nigerians would kill the Russians as soon as the attack started, or use them as shields and see them dead in the crossfire. The Russians were also certain the Nigerians could not be trusted to honour their side of a release bargain, whether reinforced by bribes or not. In short, Moscow decided the risk of a fatal outcome for their citizens remained too high to justify the military option.

So the ransom was paid, and eventually everyone survived. Hostage-taking and kidnapping for ransom of Russian citizens continued in Nigeria (notably of six Russian employees of United Company Rusal’s aluminium smelter south of Port Harcourt in mid-2007). There have also been hostage-taking episodes involving Russian ships and seamen in Guinea and Benin. The Kremlin doesn’t invariably pay pirates and kidnappers, but in West Africa always. Let’s hear the Economist roar its disapproval of that.

Nigeria Civil Massacre the Documentation

PROLIFERATION OF SMALL ARMS AND ETHNIC CONFLICTS IN NIGERIA:IMPLICATION FOR NATIONAL SECURITY

1. The proliferation of small arms and light weapons engenders violentethnic conflicts.2. Small arms and light weapons have escalated the intensity of inter-ethnic conflicts.3. There is a relationship between the proliferation of small arms andlight weapons and ethnic conflicts.4. The proliferation of small arms leads to increase in ethnic conflicts.5. The widespread availability of small arms leads to the prolongation of ethnic conflicts.
1.7

EXPECTED FINDINGS
The research is intended to highlight, how small arms and light weaponshave exacerbated ethnic conflict in Nigeria. It will also provide a framework of controlling regimes, such as national policy, regional initiatives and internal processes

View this document on Scribd

15 of the Deadliest Corporations

These corporations, if they were individual human beings, would be locked up for life. Instead, they continue raking in the big bucks. Human rights abuses, murder, war, eco disasters, and animal exploitation keep these evil companies raking in the green. Prepare to be disgusted.

Chevron

Several big oil companies make this list, but Chevron deserves a special place in Hell. Between 1972 to 1993, Chevron (then Texaco) discharged 18 billion gallons of toxic water into the rain forests of Ecuador without any remediation, destroying the livelihoods of local farmers and sickening indigenous populations. Chevron has also done plenty of polluting right here in the U.S.: In 1998, Richmond, California sued Chevron for illegally bypassing waste water treatments and contaminating local water supplies, ditto in New Hampshire in 2003. Chevron was responsible for the death of several Nigerians who protested the company’s polluting, exploiting presence in the Nigerian Delta. Chevron paid the local militia, known for its human rights abuses, to squash the protests, and even supplied them with choppers and boats. The military opened fire on the protesters, then burned their villages to the ground.

DeBeers

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend — unless she lives in the Ivory Coast. “Blood” or “conflict” diamonds are the name given to minerals purchased from insurgencies in war-torn countries. Prior to 2000 when the U.N. finally took a stand against the practice, DeBeers was knowingly funding violent guerrilla movements in Angola, Sierra Nevada, and the Congo with its diamond purchases. In Botswana, DeBeers has been blamed for the “clearing” of land to be mined for diamonds — including the forcible removal of indigenous peoples who had lived there for thousands of years. The government allegedly cut off the tribe’s water supplies, threatened, tortured and even hanged resisters.

Tyson

Even if you don’t care about the horrendous animal abuse that has been documented in Tyson’s factory farms, you have to flinch at Tyson’s appalling environmental abuses and workers’ rights violations, as well as the fact that on several occasions, Tyson has allowed e coli tainted beef to enter the food supply. A recent study showed that Tyson’s chickens were the most salmonella-and-campylobactor filled poultry of all the major suppliers. As if that wasn’t gross enough, Tyson has been sued repeatedly for illegally dumping untreated wastewater into Tulsa’s water supply; after they were sued the first time, they simply paid the fine and continued the practice. Tyson has made people seriously ill with the ammonia from their factory farms. Tyson is infamous for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and has even been accused of human trafficking to supply themselves with cheap labor.

Smith and Wesson

As the largest manufacturer of handguns (and sub machine guns) in the U.S., Smith and Wesson is indirectly responsible for uncountable shooting deaths — not just by the police and government agencies to which these guns are issued, but by criminals and by “accident.” In a study of the top ten guns involved in crime in the U.S., the first was the Smith & Wesson .38 Special. Numbers 6 and 7 were also Smith and Wessons. Statistically, studies have shown that guns are used more often in crime than in self-defense. Of course, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” And frequently, they use Smith and Wesson guns to do so.

Phillip Morris

Phillip Morris is the largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the U.S. Cigarettes are known to cause cancer in smokers, as well as birth defects in unborn children if the mother smokes while pregnant. Cigarette smoke contains 43 known carcinogens and over 4,000 chemicals, including carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, nicotine, ammonia and arsenic. Nicotine, the primary psychoactive chemical in tobacco, has been shown to be psychologically addictive. Smoking raises blood pressure, affects the central nervous system, and constricts the blood vessels. Discarded cigarette butts are a major pollutant as smokers routinely toss their slow-to-degrade filters on the ground. Many of these filters make their way into salt or fresh water bodies, where their chemicals leech out into the water. Then again, cigarettes make you look cool.

Haliburton

Any corporation that has Dick Cheney as a CEO has got to be evil. Haliburton, a huge “oilfield services” company, profited big time from the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq when Cheney called in his boys to quell burning oil wells — and to “help” the Iraq oil ministry pump and distribute oil. Haliburton has also been implicated in countless oil spills, including the BP disaster of 2010.

Coca Cola

America’s favorite soft drink, deadly? Well, even if you choose to overlook the childhood obesity epidemic and how soft drinks market to children to get them to buy something really, really bad for them, Coca Cola corporation has wrought devastation in India, where its factories use up to one million liters of water per day, leaving tens of thousands of nearby residents dry during the drought months. Then the factories dispose of the wastewater improperly, contaminating whatever water is left. A lawsuit in 2001 accused Coca Cola of hiring paramilitaries in Columbia which suppressed unionization in the cola plant there through intimidation, torture and murder.

Pfizer

Big Pharma gets rich when you get sick. Pfizer, the largest pharmaceutical corporation in the U.S., pleaded guilty in 2009 to the largest health care fraud in U.S. history, receiving the largest criminal penalty ever for illegally marketing four of its drugs. It was Pfizer’s fourth such case. As if Pfizer’s massive use of animal experimentation wasn’t heart wrenching enough, Pfizer decided to use Nigerian children as guinea pigs. In 1996, Pfizer traveled to Kano, Nigeria to try out an experimental antibiotic on third-world diseases such as measles, cholera, and bacterial meningitis. They gave trovafloxacin to approximately 200 children. Dozens of them died in the experiment, while many others developed mental and physical deformities. According to the EPA, Pfizer can also proudly claim to be among the top ten companies in America causing the most air pollution.

ExxonMobil

Another oil company that makes the list, ExxonMobil is perhaps best known for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill which resulted in 11 million gallons of oil contaminating Prince William Sound. But they have also been responsible for a huge oil spill in Brooklyn and for aiding in the decline of Russia’s critically endangered grey whale because of drilling in its habitat. The Political Economy Research Institute ranks ExxonMobil sixth among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States. ExxonMobil counters not by cleaning up its act, but by funding scientific studies which refute global warming. ExxonMobil was targeted by human rights activists in 2001 when a lawsuit alleged that ExxonMobil hired Indonesian military who raped, tortured and murdered while serving as security at their plant in Aceh.

Caterpillar Company

Caterpillar sells all kind of tractors, trucks and machinery — including many of the vehicles, ships and submarines used by the U.S. military. Caterpillar also supplies the Israeli army with bulldozers which are used to demolish Palestinian homes — sometimes with the people still inside. In 2003 a Caterpillar bulldozer ran over and killed Rachel Corrie, an American protesting in Gaza who stood in front of the tractor to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey

“The Cruelest Show on Earth” is famous for its abuse of wild animals. In July 2004, Clyde, a young lion traveling with Ringling, died in a poorly ventilated boxcar while the circus crossed the Mojave Desert in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Circus elephants are routinely confined for days at a time and beaten with bullhooks and electric prods, and when they’ve had enough, they lash out. In one famous case in 1994, an elephant named Tyke killed her trainer and injured 12 spectators before being gunned down on the streets of Honolulu. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus also has an impressive dead human headcount because of a fire under the big top in 1944 which killed a hundred spectators — the canvas was illegally non-flame-retardant.

Monsanto

Big Agra makes the list with Monsanto, pushers of genetically modified foods, bovine growth hormones, and poison. Monsanto’s list of evils includes creating the “terminator” seed which creates plants which never fruit or flower so that farmers must purchase them anew yearly, lobbying to have “hormone-free” labels removed from the labels of milk and infant milk replacer (through bovine growth hormone is believed to be a cancer-accelerator) as well as a wide range of environmental and human health violations associated with use of Monsanto’s poisons — most notably “Agent Orange.” Between 1965 and 1972, Monsanto illegally dumped thousands of tons of highly toxic waste in UK landfills. According to the Environment Agency the chemicals were polluting groundwater and air 30 years after they were dumped. Alabama sued Monsanto for 40 years of dumping mercury and PCB into local creeks. Plus, Monsanto is infamous for sticking it to the very farmers it claims to be helping, such as when it sued and jailed a farmer for saving seed from one season’s crop to plant the next.

Nestle

Sticky-sweet image aside, Nestle’s crimes against man and nature include massive deforestation in Borneo — the habitat of the critically endangered orangutan — to grow palm oil, and buying milk from farms illegally-seized by a despot in Zimbabwe. Nestle drew fire from environmentalists for its ridiculous claims that bottled water is “eco-friendly” when the exact opposite is true. Nestle attracted worldwide boycott efforts for urging mothers in third-world countries to use their infant milk replacer instead of breastfeeding, without warning them of the possible negative effects. Supposedly, Nestle hired women to dress as nurses to hand out free infant formula, which was frequently mixed with contaminated water, or the children starved when the formula ran out and their mothers could not afford more and their breast milk had already dried up from disuse. Nestle, of course, denies contributing to the death of thousands of infants.

British Petroleum

Who can forget 2010’s oil rig explosion in the Gulf Coast which killed 11 workers and thousands of birds, sea turtles, dolphins and other animals, effectively destroying the fishing and tourism industry in the region? This was not BP’s first crime against nature. In fact, between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for a whopping 104 oil spills. Thirteen rig workers will killed in 1965 during one explosion; 15 in a 2005 explosion. Also in 2005, a BP ferry carrying oil workers crashed, killing 16. In 1991, the EPA cited BP as the most polluting company in the U.S.. In 1999, BP was charged with illegal toxic dumping in Alaska, then in 2010 for leaking highly dangerous poisons into the air in Texas. In July 2006, Colombian farmers won a settlement from BP after they accused the company of benefiting from a regime of terror carried out by Colombian government paramilitaries protecting the Ocensa pipeline. Clearly, there is no way BP will ever “make it right.”

Dyncorp

This privatized military company is often hired by the U.S. government to protect American interests overseas — and so the government can claim no responsibility for Dyncorp’s actions. Dyncorp is best known for its brutality in impoverished countries, for trafficking in child sex slaves, for slaughtering civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for training rebels in Haiti. Among some stiff competition, mercenary Dyncorp may be the deadliest and most evil corporation in the United States.
Source

The black gold and its curse

In recent years, gas and oil discoveries have been made on the African continent in countries such as Mozambique,(2) Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda and on prospected fields in Kenya, Mali and Sierra Leone. Today, 19 African countries are important oil and/or gas producers, with six of these, namely Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Angola (oil), Sudan (oil) and Egypt (gas), accounting for the majority of the production.(3) However, for many countries the resource discoveries have been a curse rather than a blessing.

On the African continent there are numerous cases of the infamous resource curse and the so-called Dutch disease. Companies getting involved in resource-rich areas of Africa, many of which are ravaged by conflicts and poverty, face a series of obstacles. Some of these obstacles are connected to companies’ responsibilities under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that all individuals and organs of society, including companies and business enterprises, must protect and promote human rights.(4) Oil companies are often accused of hampering developing countries’ progress and violating human rights. Such accusations beg the questions: what can be expected from oil companies and what problems are they facing?

This paper discusses the human cost of oil by grouping human rights into two categories: direct and indirect human rights atrocities. The direct human rights atrocities are defined in this paper as those caused by oil companies because of their presence and activities in a country. The indirect human rights abuses are the ones in which revenues from oil and gas do not reach the people to whom the natural resources belong. Instead, the revenues encourage authoritarian Governments, or simply reach a small elite, hampering development and thus, indirectly violating peoples’ rights.
The black gold and its curse

A high number of human rights abuses related to fossil fuel operations have been perpetrated by Governments and corporations around the world. These include, for example, forced relocation and deadly suppression of critics.(5) In addition to human rights violations, the relationship among corruption, authoritarian governments, governance, conflicts and extractive industries tends to have a ‘repression effect’ in which resource wealth hinders democratisation by making it possible for governments to fund tools of repression.

Furthermore, World Bank analyst, Paul Collier, has declared that countries relying on revenues from resource exports run a 40 times higher risk of civil war, thus demonstrating a link between dependency on oil and serious armed conflict.(6) The two most recent African examples where tensions have increased and may continue to escalate due to disagreements surrounding oil are the border conflict between South Sudan and Sudan and the recent dispute between Kenya and Somalia. The latter is a result of newly identified oil exploration blocks in an area of the Indian Ocean being claimed by both countries.(7)

Simultaneously clashes between the global oil industry and a transnational human rights advocacy network are becoming increasingly evident.(8) So, what is it that makes natural resources, the oil business in particular, so prone to human rights abuses?
The direct effects of hydrocarbon industries on human rights

Direct effects, as defined above, include the mistreatment and forced relocation of indigenous peoples and unfair treatment of company employees.

As indicated in an ‘Economies of Violence’ report by Michael Watts,(9) the most common human rights violation by oil companies is connected to the fact that their activities are often located within the areas where indigenous peoples live or work. The governments in most petro-states have set up constitutional monopolies over national resources such as oil, while the indigenous or ethnic minorities in many countries have incorporated, within constitutions or customary law, essential rights to their land. Thus controversy is frequently caused by claims over access to and control over oil revenues and access to the oil companies as stakeholders. The companies often simply pay lip-service to local communities and submit unequal and minimal payments for use of their land and the resources removed from this land. Frequently, there is no rigorous and accountable set of governance structures that connect capital and community.(10) The displacement of indigenous people’s also constitutes a violation of the rights of people in oil-rich regions. Former Sudan is one example where the Government, since 1999, has been involved in human rights violations by moving people from the oil producing areas, causing displacement of 175,000 people.(11)

Direct implications on human rights also include the unequal treatment of locally employed people and international employees. Other issues evolve in the areas of the oil compounds where boomtowns have grown and with them prostitution and sex trade. The oil industry has made no efforts to regulate these developments.(12)

One of the most notorious and high profile examples of gross human rights abuses comes from Nigeria where Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other men experienced the price of oil in 1995. The men were hanged in Nigeria’s Port Harcourt prison after launching a non-violent movement for social and ecological justice for the Ogoni people in the Niger Delta, challenging the conduct of the oil companies and the Nigerian Government.(13) The oil company, Royal Dutch Shell, had their reputation severely damaged. Global campaigns of disinvestment were launched by many different organisations.(14) In the end Shell was forced to pay US$ 15.5 million in a court settlement due to their atrocities against the Ogoni people in the 1990s.(15) The event triggered the social investment movement and led to Shell’s launch of the Statement of General Business Principles, which included the company actively seeking out non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for policy “dialogue”, as well as BP’s “What we stand for…” statement in 1998.(16)

By the late 1990s most of the oil companies had implemented codes of conduct, as an emerging movement on cooperate social responsibility led to a number of voluntary codes of conduct, including their approach towards community development, labour and payment and environmental accountability. However, these codes of conduct are most often weak on the important issues, such as monitoring, disclosure and enforcement.(17)

Welcomed by many advocacy groups, the United Nations (UN) Draft Norms, launched in 2003, address the importance of protecting civilians, worker rights, non-discrimination, security and war laws, social and economic cultural rights and indigenous people’s rights. They also include enforcement and compliance instruments.(18) The framework was released due to the assumption that self-regulation or civic regulation cannot provide a sufficient framework for regulating global businesses.(19) Mandatory regulation is necessary where states are key players. The regulatory effort also includes the transparency and monitoring efforts of multilateral agencies such as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), such as the IMF’s oil diagnostics programme in Angola. The Norms also imply that the World Bank will take a more critical approach towards the market of oil and gas.(20)

In addition to the steps taken by bodies such as the UN, there are society groups, watchdog agencies and NGOs which engage in monitoring corporate activities. New forms of global regulations are thus, continuously being developed.(21)
The indirect effects of hydrocarbon industries on human rights

The indirect human rights abuses include the encouragement of the development of Dutch disease, as well as patronage and rent seeking and keeping oppressive African leaders in government.

The Dutch disease is the most well known economic mechanism for anti-developmental outcomes. Dutch disease is a macroeconomic dynamic where a boom in the resource sector harms the non-resource sectors of the economy.(22) Countries tend to become dependent on their resource sector and do not diversify their economies. While oil prices remain high, Governments spend money through credit expansion and augmentation of the public sector. Thereafter, when the prices fall as a result of the volatility of the international oil market, these economies fall into debt.(23) The resource curse has therefore become widely used to describe the risk petro-states face. The oil industry is also, to a large extent, a closed society with limited employment effects, which creates few non-state multiplier effects.(24)

Oil has a tendency to encourage patronage and rent seeking instead of statecraft, transparency and state-institutional capacity. However, it is the level of corruption, fraud and total pillage of the public cashier that represent the core of the rights violations perpetrated by both companies and governments.(25)

It must be noted that as these effects are indirect, oil companies cannot be held directly responsible for them. Indeed, the presence of oil companies may also have beneficial outcomes for the countries in which they operate. China’s involvement in the oil business in African countries has been widely criticised from a human rights perspective. However, on the other hand, China is simultaneously investing in Africa’s governmental sectors, particularly infrastructure sectors in many countries, evident in China’s investment in Angola.(26)

Despite the investments in countries made by oil companies, if citizen’s rights are to be respected, it remains essential to address the economic and political issues described. In this effort, the World Bank, for example, started a Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline project, which finished in September 2008 after a fourteen-year engagement with the Government of Chad. The effort was aimed at setting a new standard for engagement of international donors in resource-rich but democracy-poor nations. The ambition was to establish institutions that would keep Chad from facing the typical political and economic issues related to oil booms in poor nations. The institutions were to direct oil revenues towards reducing poverty and certify fiscally sound and transparent Government spending. However, according to ‘Betting on oil: the World Bank’s attempt to promote accountability in Chad produced results that were far from positive. Moreover, the oil revenues might even have fuelled the consolidation of authoritarian power by, for example, arming rebellions.(27)

Oil revenues have also contributed to keeping oppressive African leaders in government, which makes transparency in oil deals of significant importance. Increasing transparency has been identified as the main factor in the struggle against the resource curse, for example, through the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which is a global organisation of governments, companies, civil society groups and investors. Its aim is to strengthen governance by improving transparency in the sector of natural resources. The promotion of public reporting of revenue flows is reinforced through legislation such as Section 1504 of the United States Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), which requires companies to report on tax payments from each country. Similar sets of rules have also been proposed by the European Commission. This development is one step towards breaking the pattern of the resource curse and exploitation as oil, gas and mining companies pay what they should and governments manage revenues in a socially beneficial way.(28)

However, whether these control measures will be observed and have their desired effect, remains to be seen. Kenya recently discovered the country’s first oil deposit in its northwest territory of Turkana. Kenya’s oil findings are being compared to the ones made in Uganda in 2006. The oil is considered high-quality. Tullow oil, an oil exploration company in the territory, declared the site Ngamia-1 in Kenya’s Turkana County.(29) However, the discovery raises both hope, due to the investment that may enter the impoverished region, but also fear for the exploitation and abuse of Turkana province’s indigenous peoples.(30) Kenya has relatively stable democratic institutions, but struggles with corrupt elite. With this said, the oil discovery in Kenya is yet to be determined as a curse or a blessing.(31)
Concluding remarks

This paper concludes that it is only the direct human rights atrocities for which an oil company can be solely accountable. It also shows that the increasing global social movements of society groups, NGOs and watchdog agencies, as well as legislation and the monitoring efforts of multilateral agencies, play an essential role in preventing these atrocities. Their presence increases the price for human rights violations, which in turn increases the company’s incentives to remain lawful.

The issue of the indirect human rights abuses are more complex. These atrocities are usually a result of corruption, lack of transparency and authoritarian governments. The oil companies can not be given full blame for these situations which may incite a blame game between the companies and the state. However, with a legal framework of transparency these abuses could be regulated more efficiently. This would be beneficial for the oil companies operating in countries with a weak democratic apparatus since that would keep them from bad publicity. This paper encourages this development as an increasing number of African countries are being subject to natural resources discoveries and international attention.

NOTES:

(1) Contact Christine Petré through Consultancy Africa Intelligence’s Rights in Focus unit ( rights.focus@consultancyafrica.com).
(2) ‘Statoil says finds partner for Mozambican blocks’, Reuters, 25 April 2012, http://www.reuters.com.
(3) ‘Africa oil and gas: a continent on the move’. Ernst & Young Oil and Gas Center report, 2011, http://www.ey.com.
(4) ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, United Nations, http://www.un.org.
(5) ‘Human Rights’ Oil Change International website, http://priceofoil.org.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Gillblom, K., ‘Kenya, Somalia border row threatens oil exploration’, Reuters, 20 April 2012, http://www.reuters.com.
(8) Watts, M., ‘Human rights violence and the oil complex’, Niger Delta: Economies of violence, working paper no. 2, 2004, http://oldweb.geog.berkeley.edu.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Wheeler, D., Fabig, H. and Boele, R., 2002. Paradoxes and dilemmas for stakeholder responsive firms in the extractive sector: lessons from the case of Shell and the Ogoni. Journal of Business Ethics, 39(3), pp. 297-318.
(14) Ibid.
(15) ‘Human Rights’ Oil Change International website, http://priceofoil.org.
(16) Watts, M., ‘Human rights violence and the oil complex’, Niger Delta: Economies of violence, working paper no. 2, 2004, http://oldweb.geog.berkeley.edu.
(17) Human rights & oil in Nigeria’ Amnesty International, August 2004, http://www.amnesty.org.
(18) Watts, M., ‘Human rights violence and the oil complex’, Niger Delta: Economies of violence, working paper no. 2, 2004, http://oldweb.geog.berkeley.edu.
(19) Ibid.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Ibid.
(22) Gould, A. and Winters, M., 2011. Betting on oil: the World Bank’s attempt to promote accountability in Chad. Global Governance 17(2), pp. 229-245.
(23) Bantekas, I., 2005. Natural resource revenue sharing schemes (trust funds) in international law. Netherlands International Law Review, 52, pp. 31-56.
(24) Ross, M., 2001. Does oil hinder democracy?’ World Politics, 53, pp. 325-61.
(25) Watts, M., ‘Human rights violence and the oil complex’, Niger Delta: Economies of violence, working paper no. 2, 2004, http://oldweb.geog.berkeley.edu.
(26) Taylor, I., 2006. China’s oil diplomacy in Africa. International Affairs, 82, p. 937-959.
(27) Gould, A. and Winters, M., Betting on oil: the World Bank’s attempt to promote accountability in Chad. Global Governance, 17, pp. 229-245.
(28) ‘Rigged? The scramble for Africa’s oil, gas and minerals,’ Global Witness report, January 2012, http://www.globalwitness.org.
(29) ‘Kenya discovers first ‘major’ oil deposit’ Al Jazeera, 26 March 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com.
(30) Alpert, E., ‘Newly discovered oil fuels hope and fear in Kenya’. Los Angeles Times, 27 March 2012 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com.
(31) Wanyonyi, T., ‘Will it be a curse or blessing for Kenya?’ Daily Nation, 26 March 2012, http://www.nation.co.ke.

Iyabo’s firm benefits in secret oil block deals

A company owned by a daughter of former President Olusegun Obasanjo is among the beneficiaries of the Federal Government’s recent secret allocations of prize oil blocks, Daily Trust investigations show.
Findings reveal that All Grace Energy, in which Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello has majority stake, got the oil block Ubima Creek field OML 17 in a discretional process without competitive bidding.

Some oil companies and industry experts said the secret allocations are against international best practices.

Daily Trust learnt that the secret allocations were done over the past one year, even though government had said the process of awarding oil licences were to be executed publicly through competitive bidding.

A newspaper report recently said All Grace Energy is among companies that benefitted from the deals.

Records made available to Daily Trust by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) revealed that Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello is the major shareholder of All Grace Energy, which was registered on July 12, 2006 with N30 million share capital.

Mrs Obasanjo-Bello has six million shares, followed by other directors/shareholders: Abe Magnus Ngei (2 million), Mrs Abiri Dorcas (3 million), Dr. Adenikinju Adeola (3 million), Ugbeya Donatus (1 million), Alabi Yekini (1 million) and Alhaji Abubakar Abdullahi (1 million).

The company was registered “to operate marginal fields for the purpose of producing petroleum, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas etc,” and has filed annual returns only up to 2007, according to CAC records.

Apparently reacting to the recent report that oil blocks were awarded illegally, Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Osten Olorunsola, said at a conference in Houston, United States, that the president is empowered by law to make such allocations.

This development flies in the face of the Federal Government’s consistent pledges to conduct fresh oil bid round. The last public oil bid was conducted during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime.

In 2010, for instance, Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke said government was trying to “sort out some issues” surrounding the previous bid rounds before it starts fresh ones.

Instead, the government apparently resorted to secret allocation of choice oil blocks to companies belonging to cronies, family members and associates, industry analysts say.

A player in the oil industry, who craved for anonymity, told Daily Trust the government’s action would discourage competition among indigenous oil operators and also send wrong signals to international investors.

A source at DPR said that the process of awarding the oil blocks to Iyabo actually started during Obasanjo’s administration but “a disagreement between Shell and DPR over the area to farm-out couldn’t be reached until recently when the Malabu oil block deal was sealed between the Federal Government and the multinationals.”

Oil block deal conditions not met

When our reporter contacted the spokesperson for the DPR, Mrs Belema Osibodu, she did not confirm or deny that Iyabo’s company was given the oil block but said the marginal fields were awarded based on some conditions.

She said the conditions included the development/execution of a public private partnership (PPP) model for three pilot projects under the small scale gas utilisation scheme.

Under this arrangement, Osibodu said, a gas-fired power plant of not less than 5mw shall be dedicated to supply electricity to Ubima community of Rivers State; an LPG extraction plant shall be installed as part of gas processing facility; and a part of the produced liquefied petroleum gas shall be designated for domestic use and support of small scale industry in the community.

But when a Daily Trust reporter visited Ubima community in Ikwerre local government area, there was no indication that such project was being executed. The community happens to be the country home of Governor Rotimi Amaechi.

The chairman of Ubima community, Elder Daniel Anwuzurike, told Daily Trust that the community has been living without electricity supply for the past three months.

Anwuzurike said he was not aware of any power project going on in the Ubima community.

‘Secret oil block deals going on for long’

The controversial oil field is considered under “marginal oil fields” which the Petroleum Act (Amended) 1996 defines as “such field as the President may, from time to time, identify as a marginal field.”

The law provides that the holder of an OML can farm out (lease out) any marginal field which lies within the Oil Mining Lease (OML).

Also, the president may cause the farm-out of a marginal field which has been left unattended for a period of not less than 10 years from the date of the first discovery of the marginal field.

Reverend David Ugolor, Executive Director, African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), said this was not the first time such secret allocation of oil blocks was done by a president.

“In any case, the development contravenes global best practice of open competitive bidding and as such should be discouraged,” Ugolor said. “Nigerians are also kept in the dark as to how much accrued to the country from the exercise. The unresolved regulatory issues has not allowed potential investors, both local and international, to make huge financial commitment in the sector. Nigeria is losing huge resources from the dwindling investment in the sector and there is also loss of potential revenue from royalties,” he added.

Ifeayi Izeze, an Abuja-based consultant on strategy and communication, said the controversies surrounding the delay in passage of the Petroleum Industry Reform Bill (PIB) could be blamed for the delay/shifting date for the 2012 oil bloc bid round.

When Daily Trust contacted the spokesman for the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Mr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, he said it is not the responsibility of NEITI to decide how oil bid rounds will be conducted.

He however added that NEITI expects to be invited to observe the process in line with provisions of the law.Source

Torture and Abuse in the Niger Delta

Big Oil companies have been notorious for trends of destruction and devastation for decades. Children have been left to bathe in water reeking of hazardous chemicals, animals have had their homes destroyed and disease runs rampant as factories continue to taint the air that people breathe.

Most would agree that these acts are criminal to say the least, but where is the line drawn? When is enough enough? The lasting effects of oil pollution seem to have finally become all too much for natives of Ogoniland, the name of the region surrounding the Niger Delta. In addition to admittedly being involved in “the world’s most wide-ranging and long-term oil clean-up,” Shell has also being accused of corruption and human rights abuse.

Shell has inhabited Ogoniland for more than 50 years. Countless oil spills have left the area heavily contaminated and unsanitary, leaving behind trails of disease and illness. The drinking water has been found to contain high concentrations of benzene, as well as other harmful chemicals. The soil contamination is more than five meters deep in some areas, leaving the soil infertile.

The total damage covers 1,000 sq kilometers of Ogoniland, and will cost $1 billion to fix over a 30 year time span. “The oil industry has been a key sector of the Nigerian economy for over 50 years but many Nigerians have paid a high price,” said Achim Steiner, a UN under-secretary general. Shell has never denied their role in polluting this once lush and fruitful land, however, evidence of abuse, torture and murder of the inhabitants of Ogoniland has hit the surface, bringing Shell’s alleged “compliance” into question.

Recently released confidential documents allude to a “reign of terror” of sorts in Ogoniland during the 1990s, funded by Shell. Many people, fed up with the numerous oil spills Shell claimed were due to “sabotage,” decided that indeed, enough was enough. During this time, people banded together to organize peaceful protests, contesting the fatal trend of pollution in their community. But Shell seemed to have a no-tolerance policy when it came to defacing their company name.

In response to this outbreak of social unrest, the Nigerian military reportedly tortured and killed thousands of people in attempts to silence those opposed to the company’s presence in Ogoniland. Citizens of Ogoniland claim that the company relied on the Nigerian military to do their dirty work, dedicating funds towards these militant efforts and even giving the soldiers spending money, free food and free transportation.

Shell has denied all accusations of human rights abuse, only admitting to paying the military once, “as a show of gratitude and motivation for a sustained favourable disposition in future assignments.” However, Shell may have bit off more than they can chew. Even though Shell paid $15.5 million in 2009 to the families of eight murdered Ogoni tribe leaders in a settlement, natives of Ogoniland do not feel justice has been served and are pursuing a criminal trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court will use the case of the Ogoni people and Shell in order to determine whether corporations will be held liable in U.S. courts for human rights abuse and torture overseas. The court will also hear a second case that will determine whether the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1992 can be used against organizations or solely individuals. If the courts vote in favor of people, corporations will be subject to civil suits for torture and killings of people all around the world.

Shell isn’t the only major corporation under review. Chiquita Brands International is in trouble for its relationship with paramilitary groups in Colombia, Exxon for abuses in Indonesia, Chevron for its abuses in Nigeria, and several other companies for their role in apartheid in South Africa. The cases are set to be heard early next year.The thoughtless actions of one corporation has left thousands of people living in less than sanitary conditions; subjected to torture and murder because of it.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/torture-and-abuse-in-the-niger-delta.html#ixzz1zvZtzFFf

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