A Nigerian politician was shot dead Saturday by gunmen suspected to be from the Islamist sect Boko Haram, the military said.
The man identified as Alhaji Ahmadu, chairman of the People’s Democratic Party in Nafada area of northeastern Gombe state, was killed in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, spokesperson of the Joint Task Force Lt. Col. Sagir Musa told Xinhua.
He said the military has uncovered plans by the sect to attack public buildings during the commemoration of Nigeria’s Democracy Day May 29.
African Outlook Newsdesk is able to confirm that the victim was earlier indentified as a chieftain of the defunct Peoples Redemption Party a second Republic political party established by the late Alhaji Aminu Kano and may be a mistyped identification for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
“Our operatives will keep working our sources to get the correct identification of the deceased politician” a JTF official said .
Founded in Maiduguri around 2002, Boko Haram aims to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state in the west African country.
The group is known by several different names, including al-Sunnah wal Jamma — or Followers of the Prophet’s Teachings.
The official name of the group is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means “people committed to the propagation of the prophet’s teachings and jihad”.
But since its early years, residents have dubbed it Boko Haram, which in the local Hausa language means “Western education is forbidden”.
It is one year now since Governor Rochas Okorocha came into power. He came into power on a tidal wave of voters support for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He dispatched Chief Ikedi Ohakim in the governorship election, which saw the APGA take the top post in Imo State. Okorocha was sworn in as Governor of Imo State on May 29th last year. He promised to reinvent Imo and help create a climate for business and job growth. I once watched him in a workshop organized for his executive, introduce his postulated economic theory, the one he called “Rochanomics”. In that workshop he said that ‘Rochanomics’ is a political principle based on liberation from political bondage. The ‘Rochanomics’ political philosophy to him is grounded on restoring of the fundamental essence of government, which is to create jobs ,create an environment where the people are secured in their rights to good life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
One year of his four year tenure is over. The question is how has the Okorocha administration performed in Imo State so far? Is the Imo ‘Rescue Mission’ on track or do they need to go back to the drawing board? As usual his spin doctors have started celebrating his one year performance on the pages of newspapers with adverts just to buoy their egos and selfish interests. As I write, Okorocha’s one year of achievements in office is still running in several Newspapers and online blogs. In their spin they are saying he is not only a performing Governor but one who has more than the needed credentials to take over from President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.
The irony of the matter is that our governor who is expected to wake up from his slumber is the one dominating the pages of Newspapers in the name of one year anniversary. These spin doctors are enumerating non-existent projects and policies as the governor’s achievements so far. We need to ask the spin doctors if insecurity and youth unemployment in Imo State are ways to celebrate ‘Rochanomics’. According to Abraham Lincoln, You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
If Imo citizens didn’t know who Okorocha was before, they do now. According to a recent SP poll, 88.6 percent of the 400 randomly selected Imolites dislike strongly Okorocha’s one year performance in office .They are praying he make amend for the better in his second year. They believe his actions are harming the state. Imo people have shown their anger on the governor twice this year. He has been booed twice. They booed Okorocha when he was addressing workers at the State Secretariat last month. In March too, he was booed during one of his state of the state address in Owerri.He was speaking to people of the state telling them that Civil Servants can now beat their chest that their salaries come to them by 25th of every month and their 20,000 naira minimum wage has been paid. The Governor was interrupted with shouts of No! Na lie!. The people began to boo him. The State SSG,Prof Anthony Anwuka was also booed and jeered this year at the May 1st workers day celebration. In Imo politics and governance, public goodwill is everything. If there is any politician who should understand it more than others, it is the Imo governor who rode on the wings of massive public goodwill to the Imo government house.
Okorocha’s problem started when immediately he came into power ,he sacked thousands of workers employed by the last administration. The youths that were employed to beef up the public service in Imo state were sacked and they remain without jobs till date.Secondly,the people got angry when he introduced military style of leadership in a democratic dispensation.
Anele, an employee with ISOPADEC, gave Okorocha a solid low grade in his one year in office.“I think he’s not done a good job,” Anele said. “I think he’s not got for himself pretty good advisers, and that’s why he is having a lot of problems with the masses. A good leader begins with a good team and uses the best qualified .A situation where MDAs are subjected to generate their salaries and allowances; where contractors are subjected to fund government projects to completion without payment, where more than 10,000 Imolites were deprived of their legitimate jobs without payment of their entitlements is bad’’
Obinna from Emekuku, in his own remark said he is down and angry about Okorocha’s one year in office. “ I got angry when he lied that he paid 12years pensions to retirees whereas he merely paid 3months arrears to them . I hate it when any one tries to attract undeserved applause’’Anayo from Umuoji,did not appreciate Okorocha’s efforts and vowed not to vote for him if he plans a second come back. ‘We all witnessed how he rebranded all the Hilux vans in the State to lunch a security outfit to secure our people but yet security situation in Imo State is worsening. Check out the current alarming rate of kidnapping, and armed robbery in the State. Checkout the embarrassing way and manner criminals abduct Imo citizens demanding ransom before their release. This is failure on the side of government. To me with high rate of insecurity in Imo state ,his one year in office is a dead one’’
Sidney,a businessman in Owerri is not on the Okorocha bandwagon. The introduction of a fourth tier Government and appointment of community speakers does not impress Sidney. ‘’I am against formulating policies in the state without due process; policies such as the creation of community speakers without the input of the house of assembly. Our governor knows that it is illegal to impose an unconstitutional process on the people. Nigeria does not have fourth tiers of government.What we have is third tier and it is enshrined in the constitution.We must make the legal local government councils functional in the constitutional way.’’
Okorocha’s words and actions have left some persons feeling a little disillusioned. “I found the governor’s style far more autocratic,” Nnenna said. “Okorocha has governed more like a right-wing extremist. Why must he be relocating workers to their communities? Why must he cripple all Ministries, Department and Agencies of government in the State by starving them of funds. He even made promises we have come to believe are not within his proven capacity to deliver. He promised N100million development fund to each of the LGAs in the State, which till date is yet to be realized. He also promised another N1billion to each of the LGAs which too has not been realised. The so-called N20,000 minimum wage has not been paid to civil servants. N11,000 is what is paid to Imo state civil servants.’
Ijeoma a student said that Okorocha has done well in the area of road construction but that the majority road works are all at their teething stages and should not warrant any self glory or applause. According to her ,he has awarded major road contracts, rehabilitated many,especially in Owerri which gulped into millions of Naira.She however lamented that the award of these contracts did not follow due process.
Iwuji and Jideofor both disliked Okorocha’s approach to free education in Imo State. To them impress to run the primary and secondary schools have not been made available, which invariably affects the quality of the free education in Imo State. Even the N100 a month stipend to public school children was last paid in November 2011. They see the promised free education scheme and mouth-watering bursary for all Imo State undergraduates as mere political sweet talk. They believe that he can never sustain the proposed free education for tertiary schools.
Madu an unemployed graduate, said he cannot praise the governor in his one year in office because for one year now he could not create jobs for Imo youths rather he sacked more than 10,000 Imo State graduates in the State Civil Service. To Madu, he has no reason to sack the workers.He believe that the governor has failed in the area of job creation. “Imo State unemployment rate remains far higher than the national average, our state has been downgraded again, and investors are eager to escape the abysmal business climate. All in all, it is a grim picture this one year.” Madu said .
Now the question on the lips of Imo people is “if Okorocha cannot give good account of one year with surplus money coming from here and there, where will the magic come from, also how can one expect performance from Owelle now that the economy is battered in terms of revenue whereas precious time and money were wasted on frivolous matters.The governor is borrowing too much money and wasting too much on useless jamborees such as the upcoming Imo Youths summit in America.
My friend Herbert Kinsley once asked, who is the rescue government actually rescuing or for whom is effort made in that direction? He also asked who borrowed the N10billion and N50billion respectively in 2011, and which were approved as supplementary budgets by the Imo State House of Assembly? Who borrowed N6billion for repayment of purported loan owed to UBA PLC by the past administration? Who borrowed another N6billion for supposedly counterpart fund for UBE, ETF, MDG, etc? Who, also, borrowed N5billion for fruitless adventure of re-surfacing good and motorable roads in Owerri municipal? Who, too, borrowed a whopping sum of N10billion for phantom infrastructural development? They should not forget that nobody that fails to perform well in public office will escape the wrath of Imo citizens whether you are redeeming, reforming or rescuing.
In spite of concerted efforts by the health authorities and experts in the country to drastically reduce and combat the high rate of maternal and infant mortality nationwide, the number unfortunately still remains among the highest in the world.
The worrisome assertion was dropped at the weekend in Anambra by a health expert and consultant, Prof Bryan Adinma of the College of Medicine Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH), Nnewi.
According to him, more than sixty thousand (60,000) mothers still die in pregnancy-related complications annually in the country.
Adinma who was the former Anambra state Commissioner for Health and Consultant to some agencies of the United Nations and the World Bank, spoke at a workshop on Women Reproductive Health and Rights, organized by the IPAS in collaboration with the Umu-Ada Igbo Nigeria Project, at the weekend in Nri, Anaocha council of Anambra state.
He emphasized that every expectant mother should register at a health institution, “not prayer houses or with quacks under whatever name”, for proper and close attention from conception till delivery. He also took the participants on a journey from the dynamics of male/female reproductive idiosyncrasies, selection of baby’s sex, menstruation, ovulation and menopause.
Mrs Nkem Anyogu, a lawyer also spoke on the reproductive rights of Women in marriage and in the choice of child rearing, when, how and why. These include their rights to decide how many children to have, when, safe motherhood, sexual and gender violence.
The National President of Umu-Ada Igbo Nigeria, Dr Kate Ezeofor in her address noted that the programme was part of the grassroots mobilization and sensitization activities of the Umu-Ada Igbo Project nationwide in relation to a better society through knowledge and awareness.
She bemoaned the current statistics that show a maternal mortality rate of 1000 to every 100,000 live births in South East geo-political zone. Whereas 34,000 women die annually in the country from illegal abortion, obstructed labour and hemorrhage.
His Royal Majesty Eze Obidiegwu Onyesoh, Nri-Enwelani, the traditional ruler of Nri, the fabled ancestral home cum origin of the Igbo race in whose palace the workshop was held urged them to step up the sensitization and mobilization drive, pointing out that that the maternal mortality issue remains a nagging national issue of all ages and class.
The monarch who was represented by his Palace Secretary, Chief Chijioke Ifeka prayed the participants to imbibe and put the teachings into practice. Also, to pass the new ideas and teachings down to others. He thanked the organizers for choosing his community for commencement of the programme.
There it was in black and white, down the bottom of a back page of the Washington Post yesterday. President Barack Obama, it turns out, is an American.
This of course is news to no one except those who will always believe that Obama is a Manchurian candidate from Kenya via Indonesia. The only reason it was in the Post at all was because Arizona’s Secretary of State, Ken Bennett, had just come around to the notion.
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Bennett had made the news last week after declaring that he would not put the President’s name on ballots in Arizona until Hawaii proved – yet again – that Obama was born there.
Hawaii duly provided the evidence, again, and eventually Bennett recanted. The President’s name would appear on the ballot “as long as he fills out the same paperwork and does the same things that everybody else has,” Bennett said. As though Obama had ever planned not to. As though Bennett was making a liberal concession.
“What is so sacred or untouchable about this question that you can’t even ask the question?” he said.
That’s the thing with birthers, they never ask any other candidates to prove their place of birth.
Bennett had perhaps jumped on the birther bandwagon having made the political decision that in Arizona at least, too much radical conservatism is never enough.
He claimed he was not a birther, but was simply responding to thousands of emails he had received from people demanding he remove Obama’s name from the ballot.
Also in Arizona, Sherriff Joe Arpaio, who was first elected in 1992, declared this week that he was not satisfied that Obama had proved his place of birth.
“I’m trying to determine if any fraud occurred and who’s responsible,” said the Sheriff, who has had a cold case posse working on the case for seven months now.
The Sheriff said the verification that the secretary of state received from the Hawaii registrar is not evidence enough. “Let me see the micro film or an original copy of the birth certificate and I’d go home.”
Most Republicans are now embarrassed by the birther movement, which was effectively ridiculed in Arizona this week by an email campaign to have Bennett investigate claims that presumptive Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, was a unicorn.
Meanwhile in Topeka, Kansas a nine-year-oid boy has taken on the Westboro Baptist Church, the mob that for years has been rallying with obscene signs at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the belief that God is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuality.
Josef Miles stood before church members holding their “God Hates Fags” signs with his own sign reading “God Hates No One”.
Asked on Thursday afternoon by National Public Radio how he came up with his slogan he said, “I just thought about it for a minute.”
Drug ingestion as a means of evading arrest has turned suicidal for a 34 year old commercial bus driver in Lagos who met his untimely death over a wrap that ruptured. The deceased, Ozoani Sunny Edwin allegedly returned from Brazil onboard a South African Airline flight at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA).
During screening, he tested positive to drug ingestion and was placed on observation. He excreted 10 wraps of substances that tested positive for cocaine weighing 180 grammes. While still under observation, he complained of stomach pain and was rushed to the hospital where he eventually died. A post-mortem examination revealed that his death was due to one of the wraps of cocaine he ingested that ruptured in his stomach.
Worried by the sudden demise of the drug suspect coupled with other Nigerians in death roll in foreign countries over drug related offences, the Chairman/Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Ahmadu Giade reiterated his call for stiffer penalties for drug trafficking.
According to Giade, “until we get the penalty right, drug trafficking will remain attractive. Every case of drug trafficking involving type A drugs like cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine runs into several millions of naira. We must therefore wield the big stick against offenders to serve as deterrence. I am optimistic that adherence to stringent bail conditions and minimum of 15 years jail term will turn the tide of events”.
Giade described the death as sad and painful. “This death is sad and painful. The deceased would have been alive to face trial and ultimately given opportunity to learn from his mistakes. I urge members of the public to shun drug trafficking and make quality choices that will enable them maximise their destinies” the NDLEA boss opined.
NDLEA Airport Commander, Hamza Umar added that the family members of the deceased have applied for the corpse to be released to them after the autopsy. “Following the sad incident, we made contact with the family members. They also witnessed the operation where the ruptured wrap of cocaine that killed their son was recovered from his stomach. The Agency has also granted their request for the corpse to release to them” Hamza explained.
Preliminary investigation showed that the deceased Ozoani Sunny Edwin travelled to Brazil in search of greener pastures on 3rd of March 2012. He told investigators that the drug deal was not in his plan when he left the country. In the words of Ozoani, “I am a bus driver and I came to Lagos in 2000. I was able to save 850,000 naira that I used in travelling to Brazil in search of better jobs. The condition I met in Brazil was unbearable. I had language problem and also lacked work permit. I suffered until a Brazilian lured me into the drug deal as a last resort because I was almost stranded”.
Ozoani hails from Enugu State. He attended Nwueodobo Primary School Ngwo and Christ High School Abor both in Enugu State. He lived at Ejigbo area of Lagos.
Information available to 247ureports.com indicates a cantankerous fete holds Ebonyi state hostage. This is as six kidnap suspects [Monday Okarie, Friday Nnamonu, Igabor Eze, Monday Ani, Emmanuel Saviour and Saviour Boniface] remanded by the Magistrate Court in Abakaliki on the 10th of December, 2010 for the kidnap Gov Elechi’s political rival’s mother-in-law [Mrs. Mary Nwinya]were mysteriously released by the Chief Judge. Sources believe the Governor of Ebonyi State ordered the release.
As a caveat, the six suspects were charged under no MAB/586C/2010 with kidnap and conspiracy and were remanded in the prison custody December 10, 2010. They were arrested by the Special Anti Robbery Squad, SARS, Enugu state in connection to the kidnap of the mother in-law to the All Nigerian Peoples Party [ANPP] Governorship candidate in Ebonyi state in the last general elections, Senator Julius Ucha.
The victim, a 65 year old woman, Mrs. Mary Nwinya was on the 24th October 2010 kidnapped by the suspects at her home town in Umuhali, Ishielu council area of Ebonyi state just a day after her son-in-law declared ambition for governorship race.
It was gathered that as Senator Ucha completed consultations with stakeholders and informed them of his interest to contest in the Ebonyi state gubernatorial elections of 2011 – he immediately received information that his mother in law had been kidnapped the next day.
The suspects after several days refused to establish contact with the family of the victim on the issue of ransom which heightened the fear that the victim must have been kidnapped by some political enemies of her son in law.
However after several attempts by the police in Ebonyi state to rescue the victim and arrest the suspects failed, Senator Ucha went to SARS office in Enugu where he made entry over the kidnap of his mother in law and they swung into action and arrested the six suspects.
Meanwhile, when the suspects were arraigned in Abakaliki Magistrate court on 10th December, 2010 after reading out their count charge, the court remanded them in prison custody on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction over the matter.
The two count charge reads “that you Friday Nnamonu m’, Monday Okarie m, Igabor Eze, m Monday Ani m Emmanuel Saviour m and Saviour Boniface m on the 24th day of October, 2010 at Umuhali Ishielu village in Abakaliki Chief Magisterial District did conspire amongst yourselves to commit felony to wit: kidnapping and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 515A (1) of the criminal code Act, Cap C38, Vol.4, laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 as applicable in Ebonyi state”
“That you Friday Nnamonu ‘m’, Monday Okarie m, Igabor Eze, ‘m’ Monday Ani ‘m’ Emmanuel Saviour ‘m’ and Saviour Boniface ‘m’ and others now at large on the 24th October, 2010 at Umuhali Ishielu village in Abakaliki Chief Magisterial District did unlawfully kidnap and detained one Mary Nwainya aged 65 years without her consent, imprison her in a such a manner as to prevent her from applying to a court for her release”
However, it was gathered that after the suspects were remanded, the case was billed to commence owing to the state law prohibiting kidnapping and hostage taking which the state Governor signed and is punishable by death, but to the chagrin of many, the suspects were hurriedly discharged and acquitted by the state Chief Judge, Justice Alloy Nwankwo.
In Law N0.007 of 2009 Ebonyi State Internal Security Enforcement and Related Matters Law, 2009, page 5 section (1) A which said kidnap, abduct or unlawfully detain another person, or prevent another person from applying to court for his release or from disclosing to any other person the place where he is held is hostage”
Governor Martin Elechi shortly after the kidnap of his brother in law, Senator Chris Nwankwo in a state broadcast appended his signature to the law prohibiting kidnapping and hostage taking where he said that any person convicted for kidnapping must die.
According to him “we shall not continue to condone the act of criminality, any person that kidnaps or abducts another person, whenever he is arrested and charged tried accordingly, I will be glad to sign his death warrant”
But the release of the six persons standing trial for the kidnap of the mother in law to his closet rival in the last governorship election in the state, Senator Julius Ucha has attracted so many comments and condemnation even as many allege rape of justice.
It was also reported that the state Chief Judge, Justice Alloy Nwankwo during his routine jail delivery hurriedly discharged and acquitted the six suspects even as they have remained in the court without proper trials and were said to have been fed like kings.
Speaking on the development, a lawyer Barrister Ikem Igu described the recent jail delivery by the state Chief Judge as judicial rascality and an abuse of criminal proceedings. “As far as I am concerned, the jail delivery was an abysmal abuse of criminal proceedings because the Chief Judge should have looked into the magnitude of these people’s offence before setting them free”
“those people were standing trials for kidnapping for crying out loud, why should a Chief Judge discharge such people, there are so many other people who are in the prison for one flimsy excuses or the other, the Chief Judge should have gone through their files before discharging them” he said.
When asked if the jail delivery was politically motivated to get the suspects off the hook, Barrister Igu said “I don’t want to go into that area but all I am saying is that the jail delivery was ill timed and very ill motivated. For any reason why Chief Judge discharged them, I don’t know but for me, it was a very bad exercise considering the security of the state”
Also in his own reaction, Senator Ucha lamented what he called high level of judicial impunity in the state, adding that the hasty release of the suspects who kidnapped his mother in law portends danger to the safety of the people of the state and that of his mother in law in particular.
According to Senator Ucha “the level of judicial impunity in the state is very high and I want to use this opportunity to call on the Inspector General of Police to order the re-arrest of the suspects and commit them to trial because if such people are allowed to be moving freely in the streets, the security challenges we are currently facing will be worse”
All attempts by our reporter to get the reaction of the Ebonyi state Chief Judge, Justice Alloy Nwankwo proved abortive as he refused to answer his calls and numerous text messages were not replied while a top aide in his office who pleaded anonymity said that it was the constitutional duty of the Chief Judge and did not need to consult anybody.
“what the CJ did was in exercise of his constitutional duty as the Chief Law officer in the state and does not owe anybody any apology because everything he has done were within the ambit of the law and moreover, the six persons that you press are reporting were not just discharged, the trials continue, so I don’t understand your interests in this case. It has nothing to do with the political rivalry between Governor Elechi and Senator Ucha or between PDP and ANPP” he said.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay
HARARE – United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has urged Western countries to suspend sanctions on Zimbabwe and its president – Robert Mugabe – to give the country a chance to implement reforms. The call came as Pillay ended her landmark five-day visit Friday.
Navi Pillay, a former South African High Court judge who has also served on the International Criminal Court, told reporters here in Harare Friday that sanctions imposed on President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party leadership are hindering economic progress in Zimbabwe.
“While it is difficult to disentangle the specific causes of Zimbabwe’s major social and economic ills, there seems little doubt that the existence of the sanctions regimes has – at the very least – acted as a serious disincentive to overseas banks and investors,” said Pillay. “It is also likely that the stigma of sanctions has limited certain imports and exports. I would urge those countries that are currently applying sanctions on Zimbabwe to suspend them, at least until the conduct and outcome of the elections and related reforms are clear.”
The United States and European Union laid sanctions on Mugabe and his Zanu PF party leadership in 2002 – following reports of election rigging and human rights abuses. The disputed 2008 elections only solidified Western concern. Mugabe claimed victory, but was forced by regional powers into a coalition with the opposition MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister.
Mugabe actually extended the invitation to former jurist Pillay, in the hope of clearing his government from persisting allegations of rights abuses ahead of the next crucial elections.
The call to lift sanctions may be a boost for the Zimbabwe president, but the rest of Pillay’s visit did not deliver all the desired results. She did not support his call for elections this year to replace the divided coalition government. Instead she sided with MDC Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, saying human rights abuses continue and legal reforms were needed before there could be a fair vote.
“Unless the parties agree quickly on some key major reforms, before the next election – which should be held some time in the coming year – could turn into a repeat of the 2008 elections which resulted in rampant politically motivated human rights abuses, including killings, torture, rapes, beatings, arbitrary detention, displacements and other violations,” she said.
On a more positive note, several people told me they believe that, if the country can get through the next 18 months or so without another political and human rights problem, it could finally turn the corner towards renewed stability and prosperity.”
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told reporters that the targeted sanctions should be lifted unconditionally and not suspended for elections, as recommended by the UN chief.
He says Pillay has no right to dictate when the Zimbabweans could hold elections. “When elections are to be held is an internal Zimbabwean matter,” said Chinamasa. “I just wish outsiders could keep away from commenting on our internal processes. Parties are agreed to have elections soon after completion of a new constitution process. If that process becomes protracted to a point where it is difficult to hold elections this year, then there might be parting of ways between that process and elections…”
Besides calling for reforms, the UN rights chief warned the Army – which has openly supported Mugabe – to remain neutral in the next election. Pillay also called on Zimbabwe’s government to repeal laws that restrict the rights of activists and journalists. Zimbabwe must hold elections by June 2013. But delays in ratifying a new constitution because of political infighting has put that deadline in doubt.
Analysts say the Zanu-PF wants to hold elections sooner rather than later, while the 88-year-old Mugabe is still strong enough to campaign.
So the grand Barack Obama administration foreign policy strategy of trying to square the circle between an Iranian nuclear deal and getting the eurozone economy back on the road slouches towards … what exactly? (See War and cheeseburgers Asia Times Online, May 22)
Not even Zeus knows. At least what was on the table this week in both Baghdad and Brussels has kept the ball rolling further on down the road in Moscow and Paris/Berlin.
The story in Baghdad
The much-anticipated meeting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, China, Russia, Britain and France plus Germany (P5+1) with Iran in Baghdad at least
produced a result; a third round of negotiations in Moscow next month.
It couldn’t be any other way. A divided P5+1 (the US and the Europeans on one side, BRICS members China and Russia on the other) wanted Iran to totally halt their uranium enrichment to 19.75% – to which it has a right, as it subscribes to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In exchange, the P5+1 offered a “sanctions-lite” package, allowing the sale of US aircraft spare parts and a vague “assistance” in developing Iran’s energy sector.
Tehran was unmoved; to succeed, this P5+1 package had to be “significantly revised and reformed”, according to the IRNA news agency. Tehran’s ultimate objective in these negotiations is to soften the Security Council sanctions. For the leadership, a schism is very clear between the UN as a whole and the wall of mistrust involving any US government. Both Russia and China support Iran’s position.
Tehran even accepts, in principle, the idea of a foreign supply of 19.75% enriched uranium for the production of medical isotopes at its medical reactor. And it might even agree with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspecting the military base in Parchin (although that is not part of the IAEA mandate).
But the key point is still that the P5+1 has turned the NPT into dust. The mantra since 2006 has been the same; Tehran must stop all sorts of uranium enrichment. This is being enforced by a nasty financial blockade whose ultimate aim is essentially to paralyze the Iranian economy – by preventing it from selling oil using the international banking system.
Unfair doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Then steps in the European Union (EU) – with its extra sanctions cum oil blockade, to be in effect in theory by July 1, in fact going beyond the Security Council sanctions, and virtually illegal to boot. This is compounded by a US law in effect on June 28 forbidding any foreign bank to be involved in payment for Iranian oil.
Yet the Obama administration needs a deal – be it in Moscow, or beyond. That will be essential for Obama to milk as a foreign policy triumph – in fact much more substantial than the milking of the Osama bin Laden raid (see Osama re-elects Obama Asia Times Online, May 25). If there is no deal, the Obama administration will have to exert much pressure for the EU to scrap, at least until the end of 2012, the ban on insurance of tankers carrying Iranian oil (EU companies control most of the global maritime insurance industry).
Who’s suffering with the sanctions? Not the suspected “regime change” target – the Tehran leadership. The military dictatorship of the mullahtariat stays comfortably in place with oil above $54 a barrel (Brent crude is at around $106, and West Texas Intermediate at $90). Moreover, Tehran is selling energy in every currency from yuan to Indian rupees, and is engaged in wholesale barter with its customers – especially Asian.
The bottom line though is clear; the EU will have to scrap its absurd Iranian oil blockade to avoid badly hurting itself and also, by extension, the US economy.
The story in Brussels
It was up to German weekly Der Spiegel [1] to gleefully register the birth of Merkollande.
New French President Francois Hollande drew a monster crowd during his first press conference after a EU summit – starting way beyond 1 o’clock in the morning and speaking for over an hour; for her part German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced a half empty room for five minutes.
The stage is set for a Gotterdammerung-style clash. Hollande will go no holds barred to prove to Merkel that issuing euro bonds is the only way out of the eurozone disaster.
Hollande insists that would be a mighty help to hyper-troubled Spain, for instance, in terms of saving on huge interest payments and using the money on productive investment. Hollande is supported by Spain, Italy, Ireland and Austria.
Merkel’s argument is the troika (European Central Bank, European Commission, International Monetary Fund) argument; euro bonds violate EU law. She is supported by Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands. Yet even Hollande admits EU treaties would have to be modified to accommodate euro bonds – and that would be a mess, as Britain and the Czech Republic already rejected an amendment to the treaties late last year.
The whole situation is immensely complex. Hollande let it be known that some EU members would accept euro bonds only in a distant future; some may accept them for a very specific purpose; and some reject it outright.
European bankers, for their part, take refuge in a fuzzy “debt sustainability” concept; somebody’s got to pay, and it’s basically the bulk of the salaried population. No wonder Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz is fuming with the “pontifications” of “those who, at the helm of central banks, finance ministries and private banks, steered the global financial system to the brink of ruin – and created the mess”.
No one seems to be betting on multi-year subsidies of core European countries to the periphery, most of them part of the Club Med. At the same time, everyone knows there’s never been an “exit” sign on the euzone. Now, though, the unthinkable is already thinkable.
Anyway, what is being described as a Orwellian “growth package” will only be decided on at the next formal EU summit in late June – after two crucial events on June 17; the French parliamentary elections, and the possible victory of the left-wing Syriza party in Greece, whose key platform point is to renegotiate the country’s bailout imposed by Berlin/Brussels.
Incidentally, EU political leaders have absolutely no clue what to do with Greece. While they reassure the god of the market saying Greece will never leave the euro, they threaten Greece saying, “If you don’t vote the right way, you will be out of the euro.” No wonder the Obama administration is perplexed. Compared to this, killing Osama was a piece of cake.
The country is losing about 180,000 barrels of crude oil daily to thieves, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has said.
The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mr. Austen Oniwon, who said this on Thursday when members of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) paid an oversight visit to the corporation in Abuja, also solicited the assistance of the National Assembly to combat the menace of illegal oil bunkering and crude oil theft.
The NNPC boss said, “The first challenge, which I will like the House to help us with is the high level of insecurity of oil and gas facilities. As at today, our operations have been severely handicapped by the activities of these criminals.
“We are losing almost 180,000 barrels of oil per day to criminals. If you reflect back that the total amount of crude being produced per day in Ghana and which sustains the whole country is about 120,000 barrels, yet, as a nation, we lose more than that to criminals.”
Beyond the financial damage to the national treasury, illegal refineries built by oil thieves, according to him, are causing near permanent environmental damage to the Niger Delta region where they are located.
Oniwon warned that if left unchecked, the environmental damage wrought by the activities of oil thieves and illegal refineries could make the Ogoniland pollution saga look like a child’s play.
“These people drill into the pipeline, take what they want, and at the end of the day, they just leave the pipeline to gush out its content into the environment. The case is even worse for those who engage in illegal refining. They just take crude oil into drums, put fire underneath, boil it and whatever boils off it is what they take,” he said.
According to him, about 25 per cent of the crude oil that the illegal refiners take is utilised, while the remaining is poured on the soil, thus leading to massive pollution of the environment.
Oniwon said, “And because hydrocarbon can stay in the ground for decades and even centuries, it means that in practical terms, it will take generations before the land can be recovered and made productive again.”
“A United Nations report indicates that oil has penetrated 30 metres deep into the soil; so, even if you want to remediate the environment, you cannot scrape 30 metres of top soil and replace same. So, we are looking at a near permanent damage to the environment.” On exploration activities at the inland sedimentary basins, particularly the Chad Basin, the NNPC GMD lamented what he termed paltry appropriation from the National Assembly, which he said was slowing down the tempo of oil search in the area.
“Last year, we proposed a budget, but we got just $230,000, which is totally inadequate. This year, we proposed a budget of $269m for 2012; we only got $75m. So, our desire to explore for oil in the inland basins is being defeated because of poor budgetary allocation. But we will continue to try our best so that we can open up the inland basins to produce more crude and gas for this country,” he said.
Oniwon also called on the House to speed up work on the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill.
The Chairman of the committee, Mr. Muraina Ajibola, pledged the readiness of the committee to work with the NNPC as part of its statutory oversight function in such a way as to ensure that Nigerians benefited adequately from the proceeds of the nation’s hydrocarbon resources.
