Students told to cover up

14/06/2004 21:09  - (SA)  

News 24

Lagos - Authorities at the University of Lagos, Nigeria's largest campus, on Monday banned what they called an indecent "bare-it-all" trend in the clothes worn by female students.

In the statement spelling out a new dress code, the senate of the university warned that students should not attend lectures in clothes revealing their busts, chest, stomach, upper arms, back or buttocks.

The new code also bans party clothes, beachwear, bathroom slippers, skirts with a slit above the knee, skimpy "spaghetti tops" and "show-me-your-belly" crop tops, the statement added.

The new rules came into force just two weeks before classes resume after a two-month vaction.

The university has a student population of about 40 000.

Edited by Tisha Steyn

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=5462873

Nigerian Warlord Says Vote Fraud Fuels Conflict

Sat Jun 19, 2004 02:13 PM ET

By Tom Ashby

OLD CALABAR RIVER, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian warlord said on Saturday he took up arms to fight for control of the Niger delta's oil wealth because the government had thwarted peaceful change by stealing elections.

Flanked by militia wearing charms and holding Kalashnikov assault rifles in a fishing camp close to the oil city Port Harcourt, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari said his group now controls three local councils in Rivers state, one of the main oil-producing states of southern Nigeria.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and its leading oil producer but its resource wealth has fueled political division, violence and corruption.

Asari, who recently stepped down as president of the ethno-political group the Ijaw Youth Council, has been declared a wanted man by the state for alleged "cult" activities, a local term for gangsterism.

But he says the government is trying to discredit the delta people's fight for a fair share of the region's huge oil wealth.

"I believe that the only path to self determination and resource control is the path followed by people in South Africa, in Chechnya, in Kosovo -- the path of armed struggle," he said in an interview with Reuters in a tin-roofed shack hidden in the mangrove forest.

Asari, who is based in the eastern side of the Delta's vast region of swamps and river channels, said he uses oil siphoned from pipelines to finance a huge arsenal, including rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and "hundreds" of Kalashnikovs, and an army of 2,000 men.

"We will take our oil and whatever resources are available to us to sustain our struggle and we have no apology to anybody. We are not stealing it, it belongs to us. People are stealing our resources."

DISENFRANCHISED

Asari, once a leading public figure in the Ijaw activist scene, said he was driven underground soon after the Ijaw Youth Council publicly rejected the April 2003 election result, which gave President Olusegun Obasanjo a second term and his PDP party a huge majority in Rivers state.

"Our people were disenfranchised. They were not allowed to vote," he said.

The State Department said the elections were "marred by serious irregularities and fraud."

Since the poll, Asari says he has been attacked several times by paramilitary groups supported by the government. State information commissioner Magnus Ngei Abe denied the state government gave any support to militia.

Then in early June, hundreds of army, air force and navy descended on Asari's stronghold at Buguma, near Port Harcourt, where about 20 were killed.

"The government is sponsoring a counter-revolutionary group to thwart the efforts of the popular movement," Asari said.

Asari is one of a long line of self-styled freedom fighters in the Niger delta, who have tapped popular discontent with the government's failure to provide basic services and relieve poverty despite the region's huge oil wealth.

Last year, thousands of Ijaw militants staged an uprising in the western part of the delta around the city of Warri in an attempt to win more political and economic power.

The fighting briefly forced oil companies to shut about 40 percent of the OPEC nation's oil output, until it was crushed by the deployment of about 5,000 troops who remain there today.

ILLICIT OIL

Asari said the electoral fraud and militarisation of the delta showed that the path of negotiation, pursued by many other Ijaw activists, had failed.

"It is only violence that brings tyrants to their senses because tyrants survive by violence."

Oronto Douglas, a leading Ijaw activist and human rights lawyer, said the rise of Asari was an indictment of government's policy toward the impoverished delta region.

"The rise of Asari is a clear manifestation of the government's refusal to adopt a dialogue of reason and respond to the needs of the local people," he said.

"But whether the mass of the people support Asari's decision to take up arms remains to be seen."

Oil companies blame criminal gangs for stealing between 50,000 and 100,000 barrels per day from the maze of pipelines criss-crossing the delta's mangrove swamps.

Asari said he was against taking oil workers hostage, but supported the closure of oil production in the delta.

The state government said Asari's political rhetoric was just a cover for a criminal engaged in turf wars over lucrative river routes used by oil smugglers to export stolen crude.

Asari says his army, known as the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, is clearly distinguished from criminal gangs.

Like many Niger delta activists before him, Asari questions the legality of the Nigerian state and wants a referendum of Niger delta people to decide it they want to opt out of the federation.

Muslims Mark Empire's 200 Years in Africa

Sunday June 20, 2004 7:16 PM

By GLENN McKENZIE

Associated Press Writer

SOKOTO, Nigeria (AP) - Saluted by sword-waving Muslim warriors on horses and camels, African presidents and emirs on Sunday celebrated the 200th anniversary of a holy war that launched the sub-Sahara's greatest Islamic empire and urged an end to rising Christian-Muslim violence that has killed thousands here.

Appeals for peace - evoking six years of fiery religious rampages by machete-waving mobs in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation - overlaid a day of musket-blasting pageantry in Sokoto, capital of the 19th-century Sokoto caliphate, or kingdom.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian from the south, condemned culprits of both faiths for the rising bloodshed in the nation's modern day holy wars.

``Anyone who burns houses or places of worship, either mosques or churches'' is an ``infidel,'' said Obasanjo, who wore the brown embroidered caftan and towering white headdress of northern Muslims in a gesture of Muslim-Christian conciliation.

Obasanjo's 1999 election, ending 15 years of repressive junta rule, unleashed religious, ethnic and political turmoil that since has claimed more than 10,000 lives in Nigeria.

Explosions of Muslim-Christian violence have killed hundreds this year alone - most recently last month in Adamawa state, where dozens died in clashes over the height of a mosque's minarets next to the palace of a Christian tribal chief.

In May, religious slaughter led Obasanjo to declare emergency rule in one state for the first time in his six-year effort to cement civilian rule.

On Sunday, Obasanjo recalled the successes of the long-ago African empire, before the advent of the West.

``Contrary to the misrepresentations of some ... we were already a highly organized people before the arrival of the adventurers of colonization,'' the Nigerian leader added.

Sokoto, in Nigeria's north, stood until British colonial rule as the center of a Muslim kingdom that spanned parts of six modern African nations - Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo, Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Itinerant preacher Shehu Usman dan Fodio had catapulted the kingdom into being with a 1804-1808 holy war launched against infidels and wayward Muslims.

The June 19, 1804, battle of Tafkin Kwatto, a village about 60 miles from Sokoto, was widely seen as the war's turning point.

The victory of what some historians term West Africa's ``French Revolution'' sparked copycat jihads across the arid savannah plains of Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic and Sudan.

In Sokoto's central square on Sunday, Muslim Hausa and Fulani fighters in flowing robes and medieval battle garb paid fierce homage to that history.

Riding tasseled horses and camels, hundreds of warriors clutching swords, spears and battle axes saluted Obasanjo, three former Nigerian presidents, and the leaders of Ghana, Chad and Niger.

In rare public comments, the current sultan of Sokoto declared that the 19th-century jihad fighter's cause had nothing to do with the rampages of today.

``I wish our own leaders would hold these values close to our hearts and entrench unity and peaceful coexistence,'' Sultan Mohammed Maccido told the crowd and the warriors.

He mourned ``the loss of intolerable numbers of lives, and destruction and loss in property'' in Nigeria's religious violence.

Sokoto today is part of 12 predominantly Muslim states that have adopted strict Islamic Shariah laws since 2000. Christians in Sokoto are few.

Dan Fodio is still widely revered by Muslims as a hero for spreading piety and Arabic literacy. Yet some Christians remember his uncompromising attitude toward nonbelievers, for whom he was once quoted as saying ``there is no free place of the intellect.''

Battle sites and burial grounds for Dan Fodio and his followers have been turned into monuments and mausoleums.

``He fought for Islam. He captured many places and spread knowledge,'' said Muhammadu Tambari, Dan Fodio's great-great-great grandson, an ostrich farmer.

``The jihad we are doing now is teaching and preaching to our children and the children of others. Spreading Islam,'' Tambari said. Modern day religious violence had no value, the jihad fighter's descendant said - only ``creating more problems.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4225756,00.html

Nigeria: Soldiers Kill Two Villagers in Plateau State

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

NEWS

June 24, 2004

Posted to the web June 24, 2004

Abuja

Two villagers were shot dead and several others injured by soldiers searching for weapons in Nigeria's volatile Plateau State, witnesses said on Thursday.

The soldiers were in the village of Mabudi, in Langtang South district, investigating reports of villagers hoarding illegal weapons, according to one local resident, Justin Kampak.

A crowd of villagers was attracted by the commotion caused by soldiers who were shooting their guns in the air, he said.

"Fearing they were about to be attacked by the crowd the soldiers fired at them, killing two people and injuring a number of others," Kampak explained to IRIN.

Troops were deployed in Plateau State under emergency rules imposed following Christian-Muslim violence that left hundreds dead and tens of thousands displaced.

Plateau State police commissioner, Innocent Ilozuke, confirmed the incident to reporters on Wednesday, but declined to make further comment, saying "it is a military affair".

A military officer at the Rukuba Barracks in the state capital, Jos, also confirmed the shootings and added that three people were injured, one of whom was an off-duty policeman. All the injured are receiving treatment at the barracks hospital.

In May, President Olusegun Obasanjo fearful of the violence spreading, declared a state emergency in Plateau State; sacked the elected governor and legislature and appointed retired Major-General, Chris Alli, state administrator.

Alli subsequently gave warring Plateau State residents until 7 June to turn in their weapons for cash payments of US $1,515 for every automatic weapon and US $189 for locally made rifles.

The response was lukewarm and the authorities believe large quantities of illegal weapons are still in the hands of local militias.

Christian-Muslim relations have worsened over the last four years as 12 overwhelmingly Muslim states in northern Nigeria adopted strict Islamic Shari'ah law.

Many Christians in this country of 126 million people fear that Muslims are seeking hegemony over the whole of Nigeria through the introduction of Shari'ah.

The Islamic legal code prescribes harsh punishments for many offences, including public flogging for drinking alcohol, stoning to death for adultery and the amputation of limbs for stealing.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200406240797.html

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Warri: Ijaw, Itsekiri Leaders Join Peace Deal

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

June 24, 2004

Posted to the web June 24, 2004

By Onwuka Nzeshi

Warri

The march towards peaceful co-existence and cessation of all ethnic hostilities in Warri yesterday received further boost as leaders of both the Ijaw and Itsekiri ethnic groups signed a new peace accord. The accord was signed after six months of consistent dialogue.

Leaders of both ethnic nationalities have been holding peace talks geared toward ending the conflict over the ownership of Warri since January 14, 2004. Yesterday's resolution came barely three weeks after the youth militia groups signed a similar accord declaring a total cease-fire across the troubled area.

A joint press statement issued by the Ijaw of Warri/ Itsekiri Peace Forum disclosed that both parties have agreed that disagreements were never truly resolved through the barrels of the gun but through dialogue.

Chief Gabriel Mabiaku, the Iyasere of Warri who addressed a news conference on behalf of the two ethnic groups said even when people go to war and ignore dialogue, they soon find their way back to the negotiation table where the issues that led to the war are finally resolved.

"In pursuance of peace, both ethnic groups have resolved in the words of Prophet Isaiah to beat their swords into ploughshares and spears into prunning shears' and sing a new song - a song of peace and brotherly co-existence.

"Both ethnic groups agree to abhor violence as a means of solving political or any other problems. Both ethnic groups are committed to dialogue as the only means of peace in all situations," Mabiaku told newsmen at the Senior Officers mess NNS Delta, Navy Base, Warri, venue of yesterday's peace declaration.

Titled: "The Dawn of a New Era," the joint statement signed at yesterday's press conference, THISDAY gathered, was an abridged version of the report of deliberations and agreements between the two ethnic groups during the course of the six month dialogue.

Delta State Commissioner for Inter-Ethnic Relation and Conflict Resolution, Comrade Ovuzuorie Macauley, who was chief mediator at the bi-party dialogue said the full text of the report would be submitted to the state government before some of the salient parts of the peace accord could become manifest.

Macauley, a former chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and subsequently chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Delta State disclosed that the peace accord was not an end in itself, but a means to an end. He added that peace was truly in sight given the calibre of persons behind the present accord and the fact that the agreement was entirely produced by the feuding groups.

"Unlike in the past, this is the first time the warring groups have been allowed to enter into genuine dialogue devoid of government interference or the intimidatory atmosphere of security agencies as it were during the military days," Macauley re-assured newsmen who had questioned the authenticity of the new accord since similar peace accords had been discarded shortly after they were signed.

It was also gathered that though the six-month dialogue was not without the usual outpour of emotions and anger from the two age-long foes, an atmosphere of peace, cordiality and friendly disposition dominated the round-table talks.

Among signatories to the new peace deal were, Chief Wellington Okrika (Ijaw), Chief E.E. Ebimami (Ijaw), Chief Abel Ugedi (Ijaw), and Chief Jonathan Ari (Ijaw). There were also Chief Isaac Jemide (Itsekiri), Mr. J.O.S. Ayomike (Itsekiri), Chief O.P. Edodo (Itsekiri), Rev. Sam Ken (Ijaw) as well as Mr. A.S. Mene (Itsekiri).

Only on June 1, leaders of Itsekiri and Ijaw ethnic militias in Warri declared total cease-fire.

In what observers described as the immediate consequence of the special security operation lauched recently by the Delta State Governor James Ibori, leaders of the militias pledged to pursue a new initiative geared towards peaceful co-existence and re-integration of the feuding nationalties.

Kingsley Otuavo, an Ijaw who read the 'testament of peace', stated that the era of bloodshed and unbridled violence was over.

"We members of the Warri Itsekiri/Ijaw Grassroots Peace Front (WIIGPF), a coalition of grassroots leaders from both ethnic groups; on behalf of our people, are happy to announce to the Nigerian nation that we are greatly concerned about the failures occasioned by the protracted violence in the area (Warri) and vehemently express our discontent with the state of affairs and hereby convey our collective resolution to chart a new course in the interest of our treasured future. We yearn for a halt to the violence and look forward to a new dawn.

"We come before you today as a people who have been entangled in a vicious cycle of violence for nearly a decade. For years now, we have depleted huge human and natural resources, relentlessly scared away investments, recklessly rendered our people homeless and in fact ushered in a period of unrest characterised by a rise in crime rate including armed robbery, piracy, rape, and high mortality rate, just to mention but a few," said Otuavo.

The violence, kidnapping and killings in Warri area led to the suspension of the production of about 140,000 barrels per day of Nigeria's crude oil by ChevronTexaco, which in monetary terms translated to a daily loss of $4.76 million revenue.

The violence in the Warri area is also responsible for the loss of about 60,000 bpd of oil production by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC). Militant youths in the area blew up the Escravos crude pipeline, which cut supply to the Warri and Kaduna refineries output and the eventual closure of the plants.

The Federal Government said the country was losing on the average $10 billion revenue yearly to the crises in Warri and other Niger Delta areas.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200406240311.html

Nigerian articles posted elsewhere.

Nigeria Paralyzed by Strike Over Fuel Prices

Shell says it unwittingly fed conflict in Nigeria

SEC Investigating Halliburton

The Nigerian Threat

Beneath Nigerian unrest, complex layers of tension

Nigeria: HIV/Aids Eradicating Military - Study

Shell Staff Begin 2-Day Warning Strike

Hector Igbikiowubo |Port Harcourt , Nigeria

| June 22, 2004

(allafrica)Staff of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) commenced a two day warning strike Monday in the Lagos, Port Harcourt and Warri offices bringing activities at the company to a temporary halt.

FG Evacuates 17,000 Nigerians From Cameroon

Oghenekevwe Laba | Lagos, Nigeria |June 22, 2004

(allafrica)The Federal Government has set a machinery in motion to repatriate no fewer than 17,000 Nigerians who fled the country to Cameroon in 2001 due to communal disturbances.

Nigeria: Freedom of Information Bill still elusive

Sam Olukoya  | IPS | 22 June 2004

(Mail & Guardian)In recent decades, Nigeria has acquired the unhappy reputation of being one of the world's most corrupt states. It would also earn a high ranking in a list of the most secretive nations.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200406280191.html

 *Bakassi: Nigeria Takes Over 12 Camerounian Towns in July *    

Vanguard (Lagos)

NEWS

June 27, 2004

Posted to the web June 28, 2004

By Victoria Ojeme

NIGERIA is due to take over about twelve former Camerounian towns and villages in line with the World Court judgment in the border dispute in Bakassi and other border areas.

The exercise that will be carried out under the auspices of the Nigeria/Cameroun Mixed Commission will have Cameroun formally ceding the towns to Adamawa, Borno and Taraba from July 14.

Confirming this development at the weekend, the resident information officer of the National Boundary Commission, Mr. Charles Dafe, disclosed that both Nigerian, Camerounian officials of the recipient states will be on hand to witness the handover ceremony.

Speaking with Sunday Vanguard exclusively in Abuja, Dafe said, " From July 14 some towns and villages will be formally handed over to the Nigerian Government. This handover will take place in the border towns in Adamawa, Borno and Taraba states"

" Towns and villages which will revert to Nigeria include, Nyame, Bourha, Vamngo, Batou currently occupied by Cameroun, while towns of Sepeo, Jumba, Leinde, Tipson and Gangwoni contested in the World Court by Cameroun are confirmed as Nigerian towns"

He added that "the Court's boundary alignment transferred Wula Hanko into Cameroun, while the status of Mogode and Roumzou which may encroach into Cameroun will be determined during the demarcation exercise"

The World Court judgment on the disputed oil rich Bakassi and other border areas between the two neighbouring countries had ruled on both countries claims to the disputed areas in November 2002, following which a Mixed Commission chaired by a United Nations Representative was set up to ensure a peaceful implementation of the judgment.

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Copyright © 2004 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2289150.htm

FEATURE-Islamic jihad yields to Nigerian politics

28 Jun 2004 01:03:06 GMT

By Dino Mahtani

SOKOTO, Nigeria, June 28 (Reuters) - Firebrand Muslim preacher Hussain Yusuf Mabira attended the 200th anniversary celebration of Islamic holy war in Nigeria, and was sickened by the display.

Thousands flocked to the northern town of Sokoto to remember the 19th century Islamic scholar, Usman dan Fodio, whose empire conquered swaths of West Africa and ruled northern Nigeria for 100 years.

Mabira said the ceremony had become just another tool for secular politicians, eager to hide their failings and paper over the sectarian divide -- which has killed thousands -- in the country's young democracy.

"The celebration is an innovation. It has nothing to do with Islam, it is only a political gathering," said Mabira, one of a growing number of Nigerian preachers pushing for an Islamic state in the world's seventh largest oil exporter.

As if to prove the point, the born-again Christian president Olusegun Obasanjo wore the costume and towering headdress of an emir to address the gathering of clerics, traditional kings and West African presidents assembled for the event.

Below his podium, horsemen in colourful flowing robes charged past kicking up dust, followed by drummers and footmen in medieval dress brandishing clubs and swords in a mock display of battle.

Only "infidels" would destroy a house of worship such as a church or mosque, said former military ruler Obasanjo, in a reference to a surge in ethno-religious violence that has killed more than 1,000 Nigerians over the past two months.

"We all belong to one entity, and that entity is Nigeria," he told the crowd. Outside the enclosure, armed policemen horsewhipped the swelling crowd into line.

CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS

Oil rich Nigeria's population of 130 million, the biggest in Africa, is almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims who have competed for dominance since the country's creation by the British 90 years ago.

Dan Fodio's bloody religious campaigns which pushed from the dry Sahel to the rainforested southern coastal regions of Nigeria, still reverberate across the huge West African country two centuries later.

Last month, fighting over fertile farmlands in the central state of Plateau killed hundreds of Muslims, sparked reprisal killings of Christians in the northern town of Kano and prompted Obasanjo to declare a state of emergency in Plateau.

The surge in religious conflict has accompanied the country's return to civilian rule since 1999, when Obasanjo's election ended 15 years' rule by the military, dominated by Muslim generals.

Pogroms in different parts of the country against minorities, both Christian and Muslims, have spread as tribal and religious communities compete for wealth and political power amid economic stagnation.

SECULAR KINGMAKERS

Usman's Sokoto Caliphate ceased to wield real power after independence from Britain in 1960, when the central and state governments became the "kingmakers".

In a famous case of meddling, the late military dictator Sani Abacha replaced the Sultan in 1996 over a disagreement related to an inheritance and replaced him with another of dan Fodio's descendents.

"The caliphate does not exist anymore," said Dr. Abubakar Siddique Muhammed, head of political science at the Ahmadu Bello University, the northern region's premier tertiary institution.

"But by giving the impression that it does as before, it can be used as a device to ensure unity for the north against southerners in order to mobilise support for their own politicians," he said.

Indeed, senior politicians from across Nigeria arrived at the ceremony, their motorcades thundering past bewildered cattle herdsmen, in search of cementing old alliances and fostering new ones ahead of the 2007 general elections which are expected to produce a northern Muslim president.

ISLAMIC LAW

Since the return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999, the northern ruling elite has become increasingly hostage to radical Islamic scholars such as Mabira, who attract thousands of faithful to their Friday sermons across the region.

Politicians introduced Muslim sharia law to the criminal courts across 12 northern states in 2000, and now push for more complete implementation of the code, including alms giving for the poor and stoning and amputation for adulterers and thieves.

Even some of those who support sharia privately feel that it is being used for the wrong reasons in Nigeria, where northern governors depend on religious leaders to deliver votes.

"They are playing to the gallery and the common man. If you uphold a man's religion he is more likely to follow you," said one Muslim government worker in Sokoto who asked not to be named.

For Mabira the politicisation of Islam precludes a true Islamic state.

"Full sharia cannot be implemented under a democratic dispensation, especially this one," he said in a shabby roadside cafe, sitting under a tattered calendar displaying a half naked woman.

"The Sultan is a government stooge, there to help a corrupt government perpetuate itself. Just look at the amount of money spent on this celebration."

Nearby, in the "Low-Cost" neighbourhood of Sokoto, a piece of graffiti scrawled on a wall of a crumbling brick shelter read "Down with the U.S.A., Bin Laden rules the world".

 

Jul 2, 2004

Polio Outbreak Reported in Nigerian State That Shunned Vaccination

The Associated Press

KANO, Nigeria (AP) - A suspected polio outbreak was reported Friday among children in a heavily Muslim Nigerian state that had boycotted immunizations campaigns.

Officials in the Kano state city of Rogo said there have been dozens of suspected polio cases in recent weeks.

The World Health Organization said it couldn't confirm the outbreak until a team that it has sent to the area finishes an assessment.

Kano was on of several states in northern Nigeria that had shunned polio vaccination drives over suspicions the vaccines were part of a U.S.-led plot to render Muslims sterile.

Nasril Dalha, city council vice chairman, told local Freedom Radio that the city is seeking help from Kano's state government.

"If this is not addressed quickly, I'm afraid more children will be affected," he said.

WHO officials in Geneva said this week that they expected immunization to resume in Kano within days. Local officials in Kano have not yet publicly committed to a date.

Since Kano suspended polio immunization, there has been a resurgence of cases across 10 African countries previously polio-free, with strains traced to Nigeria.

Nigeria has reported 259 polio cases this year. The figure represents more than 60 percent of the 339 cases reported worldwide.

AP-ES-07-02-04 2238EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBPIHM47WD.html

Go Back To The Story

Polio surfaces in Nigeria: spread by rumour

Fear that immunizations were part of an American plot to make Nigerian Muslims sterile and spread HIV has led to a large outbreak of polio among children in the country's most heavily populated state, Kano.

Medical news agencies report that the outbreak is concentrated in the city of Rogo.

Kano is among the Nigerian states that have adopted the Sharia code of law, in which offences against the faith can be punished by death, flogging, amputations and shunning.

According to News.Medical.Net, local officials say they have recorded dozens of suspected polio cases in the last few weeks. Rogo is 80 kilometres southeast of the state capital Kano.

Late last month, epidemiologists of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative warned that west and central Africa is on the brink of the largest polio epidemic in recent years and that the Sudan had been reinfected with the disease.

In Nigeria, up to the last week of June, 197 children had been paralyzed as a result of the disease since the government suspended polio immunization campaigns in northern Nigeria late last year.

Dr David Heymann, the World Health Organization's Representative for Polio Eradication, said that the growth in polio infections in Africa was a crisis.

"At the beginning of 2003, only two countries in sub-Saharan Africa were polio-endemic. Today, however, Africa accounts for nearly 90 per cent of the global polio burden, with children now paralyzed in ten previously polio-free countries across the continent."

At the beginning of the month, the governor of Kano said the state would resume oral polio immunization in July but according to AllAfrica.com, it now says it cannot set a firm timetable for the resumption of vaccinations.

On July 1, according to the International Herald Tribune, the World Health Organisation advised all travelers to Nigeria to be fully immunized against polio.

According to the IHT, Nigeria, with 259 polio cases, now accounts for 77 per cent of polio cases in the world, and health officials are awaiting findings from tests on an additional 85 paralyzed children.

The polio virus has also spread from Nigeria to 10 formerly polio-free countries elsewhere in Africa, the IHT reported.

AllAfrica.com reported that WHO's "Kick polio out of Africa" campaign had cut polio infection on the continent to just one case a day last year from 205 cases a day in 1996.

3-Jul-2004

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040708_1300.html

Total Reaches Deal in Nigeria Oil Shutdown

Energy Giant Total Reaches Deal to End Shutdown of Oil Gas Production in Nigeria

The Associated Press

LAGOS, Nigeria July 8, 2004 -- A subsidiary of energy giant Total reached a deal with labor groups to end the shutdown of its oil and gas production in Nigeria, Africa's largest exporter, a company spokesman said Thursday.

Production was to resume later Thursday, according to a spokesman for Elf Nigeria. Labor officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

On Friday, the subsidiary stopped pumping the 235,000 barrels of oil and 187 million cubic feet of natural gas it normally produces each day. It feared violence and sabotage if workers staged a threatened strike.

The shutdown accounts for roughly 10 percent of Nigeria's total production of 2.5 million barrels a day.

Analysts said the amount lost represented roughly 10 percent of the world's excess capacity at a time of disruptions in supply from Iraq.

The reported deal followed meetings among government, management and union officials in the southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt.

The accord covers most major points of contentions between labor and management, the Elf Nigeria spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He declined to elaborate apart from saying that some smaller issues still needed to be settled.

The company informed clients Tuesday that it was unable to meet obligations for deliveries of oil and gas exports from Nigeria.

Nigeria is the world's seventh-largest oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports. The West African country is facing growing labor unrest in its oil sector, with several major strikes threatened later this month

July 9, 2004, 11:04PM

Firms admit Nigerian bribery

Two units gave over $1 million to influence deals

By NELSON ANTOSH

Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

A guilty plea in a Houston court this week detailed how an oil-field services company paid $1.1 million in bribes over five years in Nigeria.

ABB Vetco Gray, a Houston-based subsidiary of ABB Ltd. of Switzerland, and its United Kingdom counterpart, ABB Vetco Gray of Aberdeen, Scotland, each agreed to pay fines of $5.25 million.

These deals bring the penalty to $16.4 million for the parent company after it agreed to surrender more than $5.9 million in profits and interest.

The U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission began their investigations after ABB disclosed the payments last year.

ABB Ltd. is in the process of selling its two subsidiaries. Putting the bribery investigation behind it is a major step toward closing the deals, an ABB spokesman told Bloomberg News.

The subsidiaries are being sold to investment firms. At one point last year, Houston's Cooper Cameron was thought to be a lead bidder for Vetco Gray, which makes equipment for oil and gas exploration and production.

In its complaint, the SEC said that from 1998 through early 2003 the U.S. and foreign-based subsidiaries of ABB that were doing business in Nigeria made illicit payments totaling more than $1.1 million to government officials. There also were suspicious payments in Angola and Kazakhstan.

From at least 1998 through 2001, employees of Vetco Gray U.S. and Vetco Gray UK provided cash and gifts to officials of the National Petroleum Investment Management Service, the Nigerian state-owned agency responsible for overseeing investment in oil and gas.

The payments were part of a scheme to influence the agency's consideration of Vetco Gray bids on projects, according to the complaint.

At least five other Nigerian contracts involved illicit offers and payments, the SEC charged.

The largest of these payments totaled $845,300, the SEC said, and involved the Bonga Project, a contract to provide equipment for drilling Nigeria's offshore Bonga oil field. Vetco Gray was selected, and the Bonga project alone generated revenues of about $187 million. The Bonga project payments were made through an intermediary.

Most of the payments were made directly in the United States in the form of cash and gifts, by an employee of Vetco Gray U.S. The money came from cash advances on the employee's corporate credit card and were reimbursed by Vetco Gray U.S., and Vetco Gray UK, which listed them as consulting fees.

The employee, whose last payment was reimbursed in February 2002, was not identified.

In particular, said the SEC, the payments were intended to reward Nigerian officials for giving Vetco Gray an edge by disclosing its evaluations of competing bids.

These employee payments were improperly recorded as ordinary business expenses in ABB's books, the SEC said. Part of the payments happened after ABB entered the U.S. market and came under the purview of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bans such payments.

nelson.antosh@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2672209

Itsekiri Protest Seizure of Orugbo Village by Soldiers, as Ijaw Allege Missing of 100 People

Vanguard (Lagos)

NEWS

July 16, 2004

Posted to the web July 16, 2004

By Kingsley Omonobi

Warri

THE Itsekiri are protesting the continued occupation of Orugbo in the Warri South local government area of Delta State by soldiers purportedly in pursuit of killers of ChevronTexaco workers, two American, and two naval men.

The Ijaw community of Ogbinbiri in Delta State, however, alleged yesterday that about 100 people were missing following Sunday's invasion by soldiers.

Also, the Ijaw National Congress (INC) said yesterday that for peace to reign in Warri, the Federal and Delta State governments should create a distinct local government each for the Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo in the area.

However, Commander of the Joint Security Task Force, Brigadier-General Elias Zamani, yesterday vowed to flush out sea pirates and other bandits in the riverine, saying attempt to slow down the outfit would fail.

The Iwere (Itsekiri) Development Association in a statement said the people of Orugbo "want to go back home as their wives and children are the ones left in the town," and appealed to the Military Task Force in Warri to "allow them return home peacefully as they are neither the killers of the oil workers in Benin River or involved in sea piracy."

The group frowned at "the connection between the soldiers search for the killers of ChevronTexaco Oil workers episode and the Itsekiri/Ijaw peace accord. The peace accord is between the Itsekiri and Ijaw wanting peace as a result of the lingering crisis since 1997. The peace accord is supposed to usher in peace and economic well-being of both the Itsekiri and Ijaw.

"On the other hand, the soldiers are doing their work to effect law and order. It is, therefore, ironical to say what Zamani and his soldiers are doing will breach the Itsekiri /Ijaw peace accord. Instead, the work of the soldiers should complement the peace accord."

100 missing at Ogbinbiri

The Ogbinbiri community in a statement alleged that dozens of corpses littered the area while about 100 were missing following Sunday's alleged invasion by soldier.

Some of the missing persons were identified as Kaku Akpasibewei (student), Mrs. Victoria Edeku (house wife), John Pabiri, Helen Dawari and Mr. Diewari Aruplani. Among the dead were two children of the same parents: Augustine and Okumagbeni Lombiri, Cecelia Dimadi and Seimokumo Yinkori, a house wife.

The Amaokosuwei of the community, Chief Bresibe Sayami, and four other leaders in a statement, in Benin asked the Federal Government to "as a matter of urgency rescind its decision of brutality, killing, maiming and extinction of Ogbinbiri people and communities as reports on ground have never implicated or incriminated any of its members in the circumstances that culminated in the death of the expatriates."

The community stated that it was yet to understand the rationale for the indiscriminate killings and destructive military raids adopted by the Joint Military Task Force, tagged Operation Restore Hope, to the overall detriment of Ogbinbiri communities and enjoined both the Federal and State Governments to immediately put a machinery in place to rehabilitate and resettle displaced persons as well as stop further attack on Ijaw communities and people.

"All Ogbinbiri communities that have been razed down for no justifiable reason should be rebuilt and the socio-economic life of the people restored. To forestall further death and hardship, the Federal and State Governments should immediately send relief materials to the affected communities and persons.

How to achieve peace--Mamamu

However, Chairman, Western Zone of the INC, Chief Samson Mamamu, speaking in Warri said the creation of a distinct council each for the Ijaw, Itsekiri amd Urhobo "can be done by bringing all the Ijaw to Warri South-West local government with headquarters at Ogbe-Ijoh while all the Itsekiri will be under Warri North local government and have their headquarters at the Koko. The Urhobo can have their own headquarters at Okumagba Layout if they wish.

"Since it has now become clear that the purported peace accord was a sponsored one, we will suggest a way forward for peace to be regained. It has been a long time that the Ijaw and the Urhobo have been looking for political freedom, after they had been under serious political inconvenience for a long time.

"So, the divine message from the past commissions of enquiry including our present demand is separate local government areas for each of these ethnic groups. And since there is no further constitutional provision for the creation of new local governments as contained in the Ciroma Committee report, we are now compelled to advise both the Federal and State Governments to put heads together to infuse these ethnic groups into already existing three Warri local governments areas.

"That means, bringing all the Ijaw to Warri South-West with headquarters at Ogbe-Ijoh. The carving will include NPA right and left to Bowen Avenue, step down, South Warri with all lands at the right hand side down to Odion road to catch up with Cemetery road.

"For the Itsekiri, they can have Warri North consisting Ugborodo, Ogidigben, Orere and such areas like Ajamimogha, Ugbuwangue, Ugbori, Ekurede Itsekiri up to Warri North. If they desire, they can put their headquarters in Ugbori or Koko. The Urhobo have Agbara, Okere and Okumagba Layout."

Reminded that some Ijaw settlements are in Warri North, Chief Mamamu said: "The adjustment and separation will be a simple one to do as Ogbe-Ijoh, Saba, Diebiri and Gbaramatu clan were sometimes in Warri North for six years. So, no government should think of any geographical contiguity. We urge government to put this in place immediately for the real peace to come. In fact, the government can put in place another peace and reconciliation committee.

"But this time, the peace and reconciliation committee will be one embracing all the affected traditional rulers, known and respected political chiefs and leaders of thought with more straight forward thinking outside politics to establish solid peace."

On the arrest and flushing out of criminals which the Joint Task Force embarked upon, Chief Mamamu said: "The purported leaders of peace accord should not arrogate to themselves the achievement of sweeping the criminals from Warri. It was peace-loving Ijaw of Warri that came out of their own free will to assist the Task Force to flush out the bandits in their midst."

Zamani vows to flush out pirates

Speaking against the backdrop of reports that six villages were razed last weekend and several people killed when his men went for criminals and suspected pirates who have been terrorising Warri and the waterways, Gen. Zamani said the allegations were cooked up by certain people to cover their tracks.

He dismissed speculations in Warri that the Task Force had declared a member of the Egbema United Front wanted, pointing out that "if I had done anything like that, would you not know since it is through the media that we would declare them wanted. It is their conscience that is worrying them. They know that what they are saying is not right."

The commander then vowed that the security outfit would not relent until it had cleared the riverine and Warri of criminals. "And let me emphasize that the attempt to link the pursuit of criminals and sea bandits who have been making life miserable for people of these areas to the peace process would not work," Zamani said.

The Public Relations Officer of the Task Force, Major Said Ahmed, had earlier said contrary to reports that several people were killed, the Task Force men only went for cordon and search operation tofish out pirates and other bandits.

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Kano Govt Now Okays Polio Vaccine

Vanguard (Lagos)

NEWS

July 16, 2004

Posted to the web July 16, 2004

Kano

THE Kano State Government has told local opinion-formers that tests it conducted on oral polio vaccines have proved it is safe for distribution to children, delegates at a stakeholders' meeting said.

Although a spokesman for the state government refused to reveal the results of tests conducted by local medical experts -- saying only that an official statement would be made "very soon, perhaps by the end of the week" -- some of those at the meeting said they expected immunisation to restart rapidly.

"From the way the issues were discussed at the meeting, the government may have agreed to restart the exercise," said Kano businessman Ta'ambu Abdullahi, one of a group of influential figures invited by the state government to review its tests on the vaccine.

The densely populated city of Kano is at the centre of the world's largest and fastest growing outbreak of the polio virus, a contagious disease which strikes infants under six years old and often leaves them crippled.

Last year influential Muslim preachers in the region alleged that vaccines distributed by United Nations' health agencies to combat the disease were laced with chemicals designed to leave African girls sterile, as part of a US-led plot to depopulate the continent.

Governor Ibrahim Shekarau banned all immunisation work and commissioned a series of expert committees to conduct their own tests and to seek out a new source of "safe" drugs from a Muslim Asian country. International health experts dismissed the allegations and condemned the ban, warning that polio has now spread from Kano to re-infect African countries once free of the disease and has undermined attempts to eradicate the illness worldwide by the end of the year.

But Abdullahi Saleh Pakistan, an Islamic preacher who attended yesterday meeting said that most of his fellow clerics on the panel have been convinced by the local tests conducted on a batch of vaccine imported from Indonesia that the drugs were safe.

"From what we were told at the meeting, the committee said that polio vaccines to infertility ratio has been exaggerated, and it cannot cause harm to mothers. Almost all the Ulema (Muslim scholars) at the meeting are convinced of the need to urgently restart polio vaccination," he said.

The businessman, Abdullahi, agreed. "Even though I did not understand most of the medical jargon of the committee, I'm convinced that the polio vaccination should go on," he told AFP. However, despite the enthusiasm of those at the meeting, a spokesman for Shekarau refused to release the results of the nine-man medical committee's study of the test results or to give his government's reaction to them.

"The stakeholders were adequately briefed ... on the implications of the polio vaccine and comments were invited. The government will now very soon make an official pronouncement on its stance," spokesman Sule Ya'u Sule said.

"I don't want to be specific, but it's possible the pronouncement might be made by the end of the week. We have never said we will never be part of polio immunisation. We only suspended it to verify complaints of contamination of the vaccine," he added.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organisation and the UN children's agency UNICEF said that with 257 cases, Nigeria now accounts for more than three quarters of all the new polio infections in the world. Forty-four new cases of polio believed to be linked to the Kano outbreak have been recorded elsewhere in West Africa in regions once thought safe from the disease, the agencies said.

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3 Ijaw Groups Back Warri Peace Accord

Vanguard (Lagos)

NEWS

July 19, 2004

Posted to the web July 19, 2004

By Kingsley Omonobi & Neville Amorighoye

Warri

THE peace accord between Ijaw and Itsekiri was boosted, weekend, when three Ijaw groups decided to embrace peace in Warri, Delta State. The trio of Price Collins Eselemo, President, Warri National Congress (WNC); Richard Debekeme, Secretary, Meinbutus and Michael Iyoro, spokesman, Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) Western Zone led their groups to insist on a peaceful resolution of the numerous problems afflicting Ijaw/Itsekiri relationship. In the meantime, some other Ijaw leaders have said the controversial peace accord did not take the plights of the Ijaw into consideration.

A communique issued by the three groups said: "Not unmindful of the numerous problems afflicting Ijaw/Itsekiri relationship, they choose dialogue and not bloodshed in resolving them," adding that "any leader who wishes to cause any crisis is free to recruit his sons or daughters and family members for such demonic exercise." They called on Chief E. K. Clark and S. Y Mamamu to support the on-going peace effort between Ijaw and Itsekiri in the three Warri local government areas.

It would be recalled that on July 12, 2004, 11 of the 14-member Ijaw delegation supported the peace accord with the Itsekiri saying that the accord was intact and acceptable by the Ijaw irrespective of the blackmail by some groups and persons. "Our resolve to support the peace accord is based on our conviction that there is no alternative to peace. No crisis can be resolved by the barrel of the gun. Crisis can only be resolved at a round-table and we are determined to remain on the path of peace," the 11 members said.

However, the three Ijaw groups said in a communique that "the representatives of Ogbe-Ijoh, Egbema, Isaba and Diebiri clans of the three Warri local government areas, without prejudice to the withdrawal of Gbaramayu representatives, restate our resolve to stand by the report of the dialogue with the Itsekiri. We shall continue to work with our Itsekiri neighbours, the state and Federal Governments as well as well-meaning persons and organisations in the task of finding lasting solutions to the Warri crisis.

"We condemn opposition to the peace meeting and decisions so far taken at the round-table conference which brought not only a cease-fire to hostilities but immense benefits to Ijaw and Itsekiri. It is not true that the Ijaw were overshadowed by their Itsekiri counterparts at the peace meeting. We don't need to use AK-47 or bazooka to fire at the Itsekiri to create local government areas."

They absolved the Itsekiri of blame in the creation of new local government areas for the Ijaw, saying the Itsekiri are not the government and neither any of their agencies responsible for creating wards or local government councils.

However, the angry Ijaw leaders said they were irked by the purported peace accord because it did not give any concession to the Ijaw while the Itsekiri had a field day. "For instance, the area that says we should accept all court judgements of the Itsekiri. What type of agreement is that? If we are to accept such court judgements, even when they are suspicious, where would Gbaramatu, for instance, get its own local government council."

Coordinator of Ijaw communities in Delta State, Chief Bare Etolor, who gave the explanation in Warri, wondered if the leaders that signed the accord for the Ijaw did it for their personal interest or were ignorant. Said he: "Our people (leaders) are the ones confusing us. Around February and March last year, the elders agreed that we go for peace and drop hostilities. We all supported the peace process. But we have seen now that we are the fools not the Itsekiri. What I am saying is that, they ought to bring the contents to the Ijaw people whom they say they were representing. Nobody will trust them again.In fact, we are ashamed of these leaders. If their conscience was clear, they ought to stand by the agreement they signed. Why should some boys threaten you and you chicken out?"

Chief Bare Etolor, while explaining the seeming violence among the Ijaw ethnic nationality, said: "It is the frustration of the Ijaw that caused it. The Ijaw are the most deprived people. We are very slow to anger. We are so respectful to the extent that people see us as very primitive people."

Expatiating on the call for the Federal Government to probe the killing of 29 suspected pirates in the riverine Ijaw communities by the Joint Task Force, Chief Etolor said: "We suspect that these people were killed by youths armed and supported by the military. I want Gen. Zamani to probe where the people were killed. In the first place, why kill them without trial? These youths that killed them, will they not turn to sea pirates or armed bandits tomorrow if they are denied logistics, guns and other rewards? So, Zamani must investigate who killed those people."

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Jul 20, 2004

Royal Dutch/Shell Appoints First Nigerian to Lead Subsidiary in Africa's Oil Giant

By Dulue Mbachu

Associated Press Writer

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group named a Nigerian national Tuesday to head the firm's biggest African subsidiary - the first appointment of a Nigerian to the post.

The appointment of Basil Omiyi followed months of pressure by Nigerian labor unions who threatened production shutdowns to get Nigerians in senior positions with the company.

Omiyi, 58, will become managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Co. of Nigeria Ltd. on Sept. 1, the company said. Omiyi is the first Nigerian ever appointed to lead a major oil multinational subsidiary in Nigeria.

He also is the first African to hold such a senior industry post.

Shell is the biggest oil company in Nigeria, accounting for half of the 2.5 million barrels Africa's oil giant produces daily. Nigeria is the seventh-largest oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.

"I am honored to be the first of what I expect will be many Nigerians to hold the post. I look forward to the opportunities and challenges which lie ahead," Omiyi said in a statement.

He will succeed 48-year-old Briton Chris Finlayson, who will retain the role of "country chair for Nigeria" and assume the role of chief executive officer of Shell Exploration and Production in Africa. He will remain in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, assuming his new duties from outgoing Netherlands-based chief executive Brian Ward, 57, who is retiring.

Omiyi, Shell's incoming Nigeria managing director, joined the multinational in 1970 as a petroleum engineer and currently is production director of Shell's Nigerian subsidiary. He has worked in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Union leaders celebrated the news after threatening to shut down Nigeria's oil industry over demands for more senior positions for Nigerian nationals.

"That's cheering news. That's exactly what we've been fighting for 40-something years, that a Nigerian should head the operations of a major multinational here," said Brown Ogbeifun, president of the nation's main white-collar oil workers' union.

"It's a victory for all of us."

Ogbeifun, however, did not rule out a national oil workers' strike threatened for next week over other issues - pensions and demands Nigeria's government-owned oil refineries to be repaired.

AP-ES-07-20-04 1103EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBSW8P5WWD.html

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Six Foreign Oil Workers Kidnapped in Bayelsa

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

July 20, 2004

Posted to the web July 20, 2004

By John Iwori

Yenagoa

alamieyeseigha Cuts Short Overseas Trip

A resurgent siege on oil workers hit the industry yesterday after about six expatriate staff of an oil services firm, Conoil Limited, a subsidiary of Consolidated Oil Limited, were held hostage by suspected Ijaw youths at Sangana in Brass Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.

Although the cause of the youths action and the nationalities of the foreign workers could not be immediately ascertained, THISDAY checks revealed that the hostage taking incident might not be unconnected with the youths' demand on the oil service company for employment and contract opportunities.

The development, coming barely three months after four oil workers, including two Americans, were killed in the Niger Delta area, forced the Balyesa State Governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, to cut short his trip to the United Kingdom.

It was learnt that the irate youths took over the facilities of the oil service firm late yesterday following the breakdown of negotiations with the company's management.

Sources said while the youths militants demanded full employment in the company as long as its contract lasts, the management of Conoil Ltd insisted that they do not have the requisite experience and qualifications to work in the company. The youths insisted that the oil company's position was "unbearable and unacceptable".

"That is why they went into negotiations with the management of the company but when this did not yield the desired results, the aggrieved youths took over the oil facilities and held the workers on duty hostage", the source explained.

It was gathered that while the embassies of the affected expatriate staff had been contacted, President Olusegun Obasanjo was also said to have contacted Alamieyeseigha and his deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Alamieyeseigha who was on the entourage of Vice President Atiku Abukabar to United Kingdom was asked to return to the country immediately.

Already, a rescue team made up of top government functionaries from the area has been put together by the state government.

The team will be leaving the state capital, Yenagoa this morning to Sangana.

"The rescue team mission is to secure the release of the abducted oil workers with minimal involvement of security agents," another source said. The state government was said to have taken the option of using prominent indigenes of the area to secure the release of the workers to avoid any confrontation between the irate youths and security operatives which may lead to loss of lives.

Sangana, Fish Town, Ezetu I and II, Kolokuama I and II in Bayelsa State are the host communities to American oil giant, Chevron-Texaco.

Disagreements between the management of the oil company and the people of the host communities over the implementation of memorandum of understanding (MOU) had often led to the abduction of oil workers in the past.

Yesterday's incident was the latest in the act of kidnapping of oil workers by militant youths in the oil-producing Niger Delta region to press demand for cash, jobs and contracts.

Mid last year, seven foreign oil workers were kidnapped by suspected Ijaw militants who demanded N46 million as ransom to release their hostages. The workers including two Colombians, a Briton, one Australian, a Russian and a Scot, were abducted while testing an evacuation boat.

The kidnap was preceded by an earlier fierce battle between Nigerian Navy personnel and Ijaw youths over the rescue of 16 oil workers held hostage by Ijaw militants on two ChevronTexaco oil platforms offshore in Bayelsa State. The act led to the loss of 23,000 barrels of oil per day. One of the militants was killed while another youth and an oil worker were wounded during the operation.

Militants also took hostage - nine oil workers employed by Shell. The contract workers were ambushed while ferrying supplies by barge to Shell's Forcados/Yokri oil and gas facility in the Niger Delta.

In April 2003, about 100 Nigerian oil workers took 170 Nigerians and 97 of their foreign colleagues hostage during a wildcat strike over transportation and other demands. The rigs were about 25 miles off Nigeria's southern coast.

The nation and the oil industry was visibly shaken when militant youths attacked a boat carrying some oil workers on the Benin River last April, killing seven people including four oil workers and three naval personnel.

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FG Unveils Strategies for Re-Branding Nigeria

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

July 23, 2004

Posted to the web July 23, 2004

By Tokunbo Adedoja And Tunmise Adekunle

Lagos

In its bid to promote the image of the country abroad and re-orientate Nigerians, the Federal Government yesterday unveiled strategies to be employed in achieving the objectives.

Explaning the strategies at a briefing of media executives in Lagos, Minister for Infor-mation, Mr. Chukwuemeka Chikelu, said the project would involve both the private and the public sectors.

Noting that the nation's image abroad has been dented by unscrupulous Nigerians and some foreigners, Chikelu said government was determined to ensure that Nigeria's image abroad improved.

The strategy, which has been divided into two parts, namely informational agenda and orientational agenda, he said, would involve both the print and electronic media, public relations practitioners and advertising agencies.

Also, a strong campaign against certain activities such as the Advance Fee Fraud (a.k.a 419) which has battered Nigeria image abroad would be embarked upon while positive aspects of the nation would also be highlighted for all to see.

As a way of achieving the project, Chikelu said government has identified some countries that are of strategic importance to the nation's interest and information about Nigeria's potentials would be made readily available in those countries.

One of the locations where such informational materials would be circulated, according to him, are the entry points in those countries such as airports.

Under the project, countries like the United States of America, Jamaica, Egypt, United Kingdom, South Africa, France and China are classified as primary centres. Also, countries like Canada, Belgium and Japan are grouped as secondary centres, while Brazil has been classified as tertiary.

The minister also said outstanding Nigerians that have made the country proud in various fields of endeavour would be given recognition and promoted as role models.

The minister added that the National Orientation Agency (NOA) would also be actively involved in the project that would include the promotion of the nation's values, resources and cultural heritage.

Describing Nigeria as a country with limitless potentials, Chikelu said the image problem created for the country by some unpatriotic Nigerians and greedy foreigners is responsible for the fears which some genuine investors entertain about their safety in the country.

He noted that most of the foreign companies operating in the country, have high returns on their investments, such that cannot be matched by those operating in other parts of the continent.

Describing Nigeria as an emerging market, the Minister said the country has the fastest growing telecommunication sector in the world.

Chikelu also said any investor that is not operating in Nigeria cannot be said to have entered the African market.

While allaying fears about what would become of the project after the expiration of the tenure of the present administration, the minister expressed confidence that the project would outlive the Obasanjo government. He added that unlike similar projects in the past, it would be packaged, not as a government initiative, but as a Nigerian plan.

President Olusegun Obasanjo had last week, during a presidential forum for captains of Industries and Commerce, disclosed that government has approved the inclusion of over N600 million in this year's budget for promoting the nation's image.

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Nigeria: Piracy Report Says Nigerian Waters the Most Deadly

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

NEWS

July 27, 2004

Posted to the web July 27, 2004

Lagos

Nigerian waters were the most deadly during the first half of 2004 according to a new piracy report, and analysts are blaming the proliferation of weapons in the coastal oil-rich Niger Delta region where armed gangs trade stolen crude.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said on Monday that half of the 30 deaths recorded in pirate attacks around the world between 1 January and 30 June occurred in Nigerian territorial waters.

In terms of the number of attacks, Nigeria ranked third with 13 attacks, behind Indonesia (50) and the Malacca Straits (20).

"Both the increased number of attacks in this area and the degree of violence being used is of grave concern and we will be putting pressure on the Nigerians to step up anti-piracy measures," IMB director Pottengal Mukundan said in a statement.

Industry watchers, like Gbenga Olumide of oil research firm Rigs Concerns, say Nigeria's growing prominence for piracy can be traced back to its economic lifeblood and the illicit ciphoning of crude oil to sell to vessels offshore.

"The trade has in turn funded further arms procurement and been behind the spawning of a wide range of criminal activities, including sea piracy," Olumide told IRIN on Tuesday.

Gangs, armed with automatic rifles and increasingly with rocket-propelled grenades, cruise along in speedboats and barges, finding cover in the maze of creeks and rivers intertwined with mangrove swamps that make up the delta where the River Niger empties into the Atlantic Ocean.

According to Olumide, their activities have drawn illegal oil buyers and arms traders to the Gulf of Guinea coast off Nigeria, making the region, which has always had high volumes of shipping traffic including oil tankers and general goods vessels, more dangerous.

Self-styled rebel leader, Asari Dokubo of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, is one of the militants who wants to end the federal government's stranglehold on the 2.5 million barrels of oil produced each day in the region.

In an interview with IRIN this month he admitted to availing himself of crude from the pipelines of oil multinationals to fund his struggle. And he confirmed the presence of illegal arms dealers along the coast, saying he had enough weapons at his command -- AK47s, general purpose machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades -- to equip 2,000 men.

"We are very close to the international waters and it's very easy to get weapons," Dokubo said.

Industry analysts say that decades of corruption and mismanagement by successive Nigerian regimes has left the oil-rich Niger Delta one of the most impoverished regions across the country. Massive unemployment is just one of the manifestations with a myriad of knock-on effects.

"The consequences of unemployment are numerous," said a recent report commissioned by oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell and written by WAC Global Services. "Youths become involved in criminal activities (e.g. illegal oil bunkering, thuggery, kidnapping, piracy, etc.) and recruited into crime cartels and armed militias."

The report estimates that the 10 percent of Nigeria's daily output or 100,000 barrels stolen every day is worth about US$1.5 million and would buy enough weapons to sustain a force of 1,500 youths for two months.

Captains complaining

Emeka Okoroanyanwu, editor of Lagos-based Maritime Quarterly, told IRIN that waters within and just outside Nigeria's territory posed problems.

"Many of the attacks occur on the high seas as ships approach Nigerian waters," he explained. "An equally large number of attacks occur within Nigerian waters as well and ship captains are complaining."

Okoroanyanwu said one almost certain consequence would be higher shipping costs for Nigerian and other Gulf of Guinea destinations as shippers begin to factor higher insurance premiums into their pricing.

The IMB said it had issued a warning to ships in the vicinity of Nigeria and advised seafarers to be on their guard.

The maritime group also noted that security problems on land were diverting the resources of the Nigerian authorities from security at sea.

"The IMB believes the increased ferocity and number of attacks is linked to law and order problems ashore that criminal gangs of pirates are using to their advantage, knowing that the authorities are under pressure and so unable to respond adequately to attacks at sea," it said.

But Nigerian security forces say that without their crackdown on militia groups and other armed gangs in the Niger Delta over the past year, the tally of piracy deaths would have been considerably higher.

Security officials told IRIN that navy troops patrolling the coastal wars in four ships donated by the U.S. Defence Department had impounded more than 20 ships in the past year and arrested 90 people, including 37 foreigners, accused of dealing in stolen crude oil.

A military spokesman, who did not want to be named, said that troops had been successful in destroying several criminal gangs operating in the Niger Delta following an incident in April in which gunmen attacked a boat belonging to ChevronTexaco, killing seven people, including two American oil workers.

"Troops have killed at least 30 pirates in gun-battles in the past two months and dismantled their infrastructure, including sophisticated communication equipment," he said but declined to provide further details.

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Aug 8, 2004

Ethnic, Criminal Bloodletting Over Oil Wealth Has Nigeria's Petroleum Industry Reeling

By Glenn McKenzie

Associated Press Writer

OMADINO, Nigeria (AP) - The sound of speedboats on the otherwise calm rain forest creek was enough to send villagers fleeing.

"They were afraid. They just ran away," said Gabriel Walter, 42, the only resident of Omadino who stayed to meet journalists and soldiers visiting the oil-rich swamps of Nigeria's volatile Niger Delta. Entire families fled into surrounding forests with laundry still hanging on the line and pots gurgling on cooking fires.

Walter would not say whether it was Nigerian security forces or ethnic militants that the townspeople feared. Both groups are known to go on killing rampages.

Nigeria's oil industry - Africa's largest and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports - is likewise concerned for its future. A yearlong spree of bloodletting has killed more than 1,000 people in the delta - unrest comparable in scale to Chechnya and Colombia.

The growing insecurity in Nigeria's most lucrative industry comes as oil prices briefly hit a record intraday trading high Tuesday of $44.24 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange following a heightened U.S. terror alert and supply concerns in Russia and OPEC, of which Nigeria is a key member.

Major oil companies hope to double production in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, estimated to hold up to 10 percent of the world's oil reserves. The United States, Europe and Asia are increasingly looking to the region's oil as an alternative to crude from the Middle East.

Yet residents of Nigeria's southern oil-producing delta complain their elected leaders have failed to fight poverty in the region. Tensions over oil revenues have aggravated ethnic strife. Kidnappings and sabotage have escalated, forcing costly shutdowns by companies pumping crude.

The Nigerian subsidiary of San Ramon, Calif.-based ChevronTexaco Corp. is among the companies hit hardest by Nigeria's worsening oil-related violence, suffering an estimated $750 million in costs from sabotage to its wells, pipelines and other facilities since March 2003.

Sixteen months later, the company still can't restart production at pipeline pump stations and wells considered unusable or unsafe, resulting in production losses estimated at more than $1 billion.

Royal Dutch/Shell, Nigeria's largest oil operation, which produces half the 2.5 million barrels Nigeria exports daily, also is reeling.

A confidential 93-page security report commissioned by Shell in December 2003 and obtained by The Associated Press and other news organizations warns that mounting attacks by criminals and ethnic militants could force the oil giant to abandon its onshore operations in the delta by 2008.

Shell spokesman Simon Buerk rejects the possibility of a company pullout.

"We don't agree with that conclusion. We are committed to our operations in Nigeria," Buerk told the AP.

Other company officials concede, however, that the firm is increasingly turning its attention to offshore oil fields because it considers them safer from attack by bandits and activists.

Buerk declined to discuss the confidential report's other conclusions: that Shell "exacerbates conflict" in the way it gives cash and contracts to delta residents and offers "stay-at-home pay" to disgruntled youths.

Such "lack of transparency" encourages villagers to fight Shell - and each other - for a share of the oil money, the report's authors concluded.

Multinational companies encourage crime through "corruption in the contracting process and the payment of ransoms that make crime lucrative," the study warned, adding that Shell's "social license to operate is fast-eroding."

Indeed, delta residents, most of whom earn less than $1 a day despite the region's petroleum wealth, accuse oil companies of colluding with Nigeria's government to foment divisions between rival community groups in a strategy to deprive them of oil earnings.

Addressing such allegations, the Shell-commissioned report's authors say there is "no evidence" companies have these sinister motives. Yet the authors warn that some oil company employees do "engage in criminal activities" that deprive residents of benefits.

Oil companies are feeling the backlash from militants and other groups, which increasingly use sophisticated equipment to syphon oil from pipelines for resale to tankers bound for Europe, Asia and South America. Nigeria's government estimates the industry loses up to 300,000 barrels a day - the equivalent of 15 percent of total exports.

Another growing concern for oil multinationals, company officials privately acknowledge, is the possibility of being blamed for killings, robberies or other abuses inflicted by Nigerian police and soldiers trying to control the restive delta.

Earlier this month, security forces raided five delta villages, leaving 15 people dead and ransacking and burning homes, according to witnesses and militants. The operation was part of an effort to combat attacks on multinational oil operations, the security forces said.

In March, a U.S. federal judge in San Francisco ruled that ChevronTexaco could be made to stand trial for civil damages in the United States on allegations that its Nigerian subsidiary was linked to the deaths of nine people allegedly shot by soldiers during protests on an offshore oil platform in 1998. ChevronTexaco has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

Similar U.S. cases are pending against other oil concerns. A lawsuit brought by members of Nigeria's ethnic Ogoni tribe in New York accuses Shell of colluding with Nigeria's former military regime to cause the hanging of nine activists, including author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Saro-Wiwa, in November 1995. Shell contends it lobbied Nigeria's government to free the activists.

Many residents of the delta, increasingly awash with automatic weapons and rocket launchers, say they have given up hope of a peaceful resolution to the conflicts between armed gangs, soldiers and oil companies.

One group led by Alhaji Dokubo Asari, a self-styled warlord in the jungle creeks near the oil city of Port Harcourt, openly challenges President Olusegun Obasanjo's government in what activists call an "armed struggle" for territory and crude.

"If we had guns, we wouldn't be running," said Walter, the resident remaining in Omadino after all his fellow villagers had fled.

AP-ES-08-08-04 1921EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBPSNUSNXD.html

http://allafrica.com/stories/200408250207.html

Senate Directs Shell to Pay Ijaws $1.5bn Compensation

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

August 25, 2004

Posted to the web August 25, 2004

By Kola Ologbondiyan

Abuja

Senate yesterday unanimously directed Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria Limited (SPDC) to commence the payment of the sum of $1.5 billion to the Ijaws Aborigines of Bayelsa State as compensation. The money was for the severe health hazards, economic hardship, injurious affection, avoidable deaths and sundry maladies which the people have suffered as a direct or indirect consequence of multiple spillages occurring in SPDC's facilities across the eight local government areas of the state since the company commenced operations in 1956.

The upper legislative house approved that $1 billion is payable forthwith while the $500 million be paid within five years period in five equal installments of $100 million per annum commencing not later than one year after the payment of the initial $1 billion aforementioned.

The Senate mandated its committees for Petroleum Resources (Upstream) and its Niger Delta counterpart to ensure SPDC compliance, even as it resolved that "the recommendations of the Legal Advisory Panel on the Investigative Hearing of Petition by the Ijaw Aborigines of Bayelsa State against Shell Petroleum Development Company Limited (SPDC) as presented to the Federal House of Representatives on 24 February 2003 be implemented."

These resolutions were predicated upon a motion entitled "Enforcement of the Recommendation of the Panel on the Petition by the Ijaw Aborigines of Bayelsa State Against Shell Petroleum Development Com-pany," brought by Senators Lee Maeba, David Brigidi, Inatimi Rufus Spiff, John K. Brambaifa, James Manager and Ibiapuye Martyns-Yellowe.

Maeba, who moved the motion which was seconded by Senator Sanni Kamba, recalled that the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions received a petition from a body known as the Ijaw Aborigines of Bayelsa State, dated 8 December 2000 against SPDC.

He noted that the House Committee conducted public hearings on the said petition and received oral and documentary evidence from the petitioners and the respondent respectively.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200408300105.html

12 Killed in Fresh Cult War in Rivers

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

August 30, 2004

Posted to the web August 30, 2004

By Okon Bassey

Port Harcourt

Twelve people were believed shot dead in a bloody exchange between people suspected to be cultists and a combined team of military personnel in Port Harcourt yesterday.

THISDAY gathered that the gunmen had overrun the Marine Base in the city and killed about five residents before the team of security personnel swooped on them and gunned down about seven of the cultists.

The invasion which occurred at about 5am Sunday morning along the Marine Base, Amadi Creek, close to the state police headquarters on Moscow road also left more than 80 cars badly damaged while kiosks along the water front were burnt down.

The latest attack on the Marine Base, coming a week after a similar event occurred at the Njamanze water front in which 10 people died, has led to mass exodus of non-indigenes residing at various water fronts in the state.

Prior to this incident, THISDAY checks reveal that the gunmen had served notice to residents living along all water fronts in the state including areas called Abuja, Creek road, Dockyard to quit. The cultists had claimed that they were not allowed to stay or operate from water fronts in the state..

The attackers, another source said, are suspected to be from Diobu area and those living in a section of the city popularly called 'Town'.

Residents in the area told THISDAY that they woke-up in the morning to an intensive exchange of gun fire between 5am and 9am.

According to sources, police succeeded in killing some of the gunmen after pilots of the flying boats the cultists used for the invasion were shot.

As at the time of filling this report, residents in the affected areas were seen packing their properties and fleeing the environment.

Ambulance and some other vehicles were also seen conveying corpses of the victims from the Marine Base just as a combined team of more than 60 mobile policemen and soldiers have completely cordoned off the area.

The Rivers State Police Commissioner, Mr. Sylvester Araba, confirmed the report but said only three people were killed. He said the violent clash was between armed men suspected to be members of rival cult groups operating in boats along Marine canals and water ways.

Following the sporadic shooting and invasion of water fronts by the combatants, he said anti-crime policemen have been deployed to fortify all Marine jetties, beaches and wharfs to counter the hoodlums and prevent their possible incursion into Port Harcourt metropolis. "Three suspects have been arrested in this connection while a contigent of the Rivers State joint security operations have been deployed to cordon off and protect all vulnerable points," the police commissioner stated.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200408300106.html

Shell Plans $9bn Five-Year Investment

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

August 30, 2004

Posted to the web August 30, 2004

By Mike Oduniyi

Lagos

Moves Headquarters to Port Harcourt January

Shell Petroleum Develop-ment Company (SPDC) is planning to invest another $9 billion in the Nigerian oil and gas sector, over the next five years.

The investment covers the company's joint venture projects with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NN-PC), oil exploration and production in the deep offshore and the expansion of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant.

Already, Shell has awarded a $43 million contract for the exploitation of non-associated gas from its Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 35 and 46. The gas will be supplied to the Bonny LNG plant from 2008.

Speaking in Lagos at a dinner in honour of staff of the company appointed into senior positions at the weekend, the outgoing Managing Director of SPDC, Mr. Chris Finlayson, said the investment plan will ensure that Shell maintains its position as the largest foreign investor in Nigeria.

Finlayson said that the investment represents Shell's long-term commitment to Nigeria.

"Coming at a time when there was some speculation about Shell's future in Nigeria, this development is a resounding demonstration of Shell's long-term commitment, quite apart from the further $9 billion that Shell intends to invest through SPDC, SNEPCO and NLNG over the next five years," he said.

Projects that will benefit from the investment include, the NLNG Train Six, Soku gas plant expansion, Offshore Gas Gathering System (OGGS) and the Bonga Southwest deepwater field with capacity of 145,000 barrels per day (bpd).

The commitment, according to him, was also demonstrated by the recent designation of Lagos as the Headquarters of Shell Exploration and Production Africa, where 30 percent of its leadership will be in Nigeria.

Finlayson will assume the position of Chief Executive Officer of Shell Exploration and Production (Shell EP) in Africa with effect from October 1, 2004. He will be succeeded as head of the Nigerian operations by Mr. Basil Omiyi, a Nigerian.

Finlayson announced that SPDC headquarters will be fully relocated to Port Harcourt next January, as part of a major restructuring in the company.

He said despite the location of Shell's African regional headquarters in Lagos, the incoming managing director of SPDC, "will have exactly the same freedom of action and responsibilities as I have had as MD."

SPDC had appointed Mr. Mark Corner, as deputy managing director in addition to holding the portfolio of the Production Director. According to Finlayson, oil and gas production remains the heart of the company's business. "The aspirations of the Federal Government and the current favourable oil price environment both represent unique opportunities for the industry to grow," he said. Also speaking at the occasion, the SPDC managing director designate, Omiyi, said he would on assumption of duty on September 1, this year, be leading a new team that would deliver on Shell's commitment as operator of the NNPC/Shell/Total/Agip Joint Venture. The immediate focus of the team, according to Omiyi, will be to reposition the business to be able to deliver real value to stakeholders, achieve a gas flare down by 2008, pay more attention to sustainable community development and work closely with the government to eradicate criminality in the oil producing areas, especially oil theft. Shell said it was currently losing on the average, 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) to crude theft. "We will therefore continue to depend on governments at local, state and federal levels, as well as community leaders to address the situation. "The challenges posed by SPDC's importance to the national economy and the sensitivities surrounding oil and gas production mean there has never been and would never be a dull moment for us," he said.

Nigeria launches new offensive on delta criminals

02 Sep 2004 16:36:16 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Austin Ekeinde

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The governor of Nigeria's oil-rich state of Rivers has ordered top members of his government to leave office in what his spokesman said on Thursday was a purge of public figures linked to criminal gangs.

Governor Peter Odili made the order on Wednesday after cutting short his holiday to tackle escalating violence by gangs backed by political and ethnic leaders in the eastern Niger delta.

Odili vowed to eliminate the gangs who are involved in stealing an estimated 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day from pipelines and wellheads which they sell to buy weapons.

Clashes have killed at least nine people since the weekend, officials said on Thursday.

Odili said he had asked his state executive council to leave office in line with a directive he had issued in June following earlier fighting in the Niger delta.

Spokesman Emmanuel Okah said the move was to purge public figures linked to criminal gangs known as "cults".

"If any public officer is linked to any cult, he or she will no longer find safe haven in the government. There is going to be a state of reorganisation," he said.

The gangs, many of whom were originally armed to fight turf battles on behalf of politicians during last year's elections, have stepped up attacks in the swamps and mangroves of the eastern Niger delta in recent weeks.

"We have therefore given instructions that all necessary steps should be taken to decisively rid our state of these undesirable elements," said Odili, in a statement dated Sept. 1, obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

Security forces have already begun 24-hour patrols in and around the state capital and oil hub Port Harcourt.

Odili said patrols would be intensified on all waterways.

At least four people died in weekend violence and police said another five were killed in fighting between rival gangs in Port Harcourt on Tuesday night. Nigerian media reported at least 18 killed.

The chronic ethno-political conflict in the delta has threatened oil operations in Nigeria, the world's seventh largest oil exporter with an output of 2.5 million barrels per day.

Although the violence in the eastern delta has not halted exports, ethnic clashes in the western delta last year forced oil multinationals to temporarily shut in 40 percent of output.

The United States agreed recently to help Nigeria with military training in the region.

At least 11,000 people have been killed in sectarian fighting since Nigeria emerged from 15 years of military rule in 1999.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02321656.htm

09/04

Sackings over Nigeria's oil war

The governor of Nigeria's River State has axed his cabinet after renewed violence in the oil-rich southern city Port Harcourt left seven dead.

Gunmen walked into a restaurant on Tuesday night and opened fire, despite increased army and navy patrols after two weeks of clashes.

Peter Odili cut short his leave to deal with the escalating militia war.

Gangs vying for territory in the area are involved in the lucrative business of siphoning oil from pipelines.

The governor said the gangs amassed sophisticated weapons to defend their illegal activities and usually targeted each other in their struggle for supremacy.

"Unfortunately these dastardly acts often take place within the town and innocent citizens are caught in the crossfire," Mr Odili said, promising to do everything necessary to rout the militias.

Political dimension

According to the BBC's Sola Odunfa in Port Harcourt, people believe the gunmen were initially recruited, armed and funded by politicians to fight their opponents during the last year's elections.

Anyakwe Nsirimovu, head of a local human rights group says the politicians have now lost control of their private armies because gang leaders had not received their promised pay-offs.

"The initial contracts which they reached [with gang leaders] were not fulfilled, and they are rebelling," Mr Nsirimovu told AFP news agency.

However, Governor Odili said the gangs have always existed, but, he acknowledged that some people will go to all lengths to win elections.

Several hundred people have fled the spiralling violence, most of which is taking place on the waterfront of Port Harcourt, the capital of Nigeria's oil industry.

Shell, Nigeria's biggest oil producer, is in the process of moving its corporate headquarters from the commercial capital, Lagos, to Port Harcourt.

This move is putting pressure on the state government to deal decisively with the militias, our correspondent says.

Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil exporter, but the Niger Delta region - the centre of the country's oil industry - is one of the most underdeveloped areas of the country and is prone to violence.

Sometimes armed militant youths kidnap oil workers and hold them to ransom for money.

But most of the time armed gangs roam the swamps and creeks stealing crude oil from pipelines.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/3621364.stm

 13 Sep 2004 14:36:00 GMT Source: Reuters

LAGOS (Reuters) - The death toll of a bloody clash between Christian and Muslim mobs in the northeastern Nigerian state of Adamawa in June has been revised upward to 132, a government spokesman said on Monday.

The Red Cross earlier said 37 people were killed in six hours of mayhem sparked by sharp disagreements over the rebuilding of a minaret in the riverside town of Numan, a year after the mosque was razed in similar violence.

"The committee that investigated the clashes submitted its report on Thursday, saying 132 people died in the violence," the spokesman said, by phone from the state capital, Yola.

The clash was the latest episode of ethno-religious violence that escalated this year in Africa's most populous country, and calmed only after President Olusegun Obasanjo assumed emergency powers in the troubled central state of Plateau in May.

Officials previously said it was difficult to give an exact toll of the fighting in Numan because several bodies were dumped in the river.

The police confirmed only nine deaths at the time, while authorities in Adamawa said scores were killed.

The report said 557 people were injured, many of them critically, 3,925 people were displaced and 1,754 houses were destroyed at Numam 50 km (30 miles) northwest of Yola.

The violence erupted after youths from the predominantly Christian Bachama ethnic group, enraged by the rebuilding of a minaret overlooking the palace of their local chief, attacked the workers.

More than 11,000 people have died in religious, communal and political violence in Nigeria since 15 years of military rule ended in 1999. The country's population of 130 million is roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24623618.htm

Nigeria: Intelligence Services Raid Independent Magazine, Arrest Two Staff Members

16 Sep 2004 17:58:46 GMT

Source: HRW

Armed members of the Nigerian intelligence services, the State Security Service (SSS), broke into the offices of Insider Weekly magazine with sledgehammers and arrested two of its staff last weekend, in flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press, Human Rights Watch said today. (London, September 7, -004) Armed members of the Nigerian intelligence services, the State Security Service (SSS), broke into the offices of Insider Weekly magazine with sledgehammers and arrested two of its staff last weekend, in flagrant violation of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has written to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo asking him to launch an immediate investigation into the actions of the SSS and to release the two men unconditionally, unless they are charged with a recognizable criminal offence and tried according to due process.

"The Nigerian government claims to respect human rights and uphold freedom of the press. At the same time, journalists are arrested and intimidated for publishing stories critical of the government. This latest attack exposes the absurdity of the government's claims," said Peter Takirambudde, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Africa Division.

On Saturday September 4, around fifteen members of the SSS carrying firearms raided Insider Weekly magazine's offices in Lagos and seized copies of documents, equipment, and cash. They arrested the magazine's production manager, Raphael Olatoye. They seized all copies of the magazine from the printing press and ordered for no further copies to be printed. They returned to the magazine's offices the following day, arrested Cyril Mbamanu, a staff member in the marketing department, and seized computers and copies of the magazine. The two men's whereabouts are still not known. A despatch rider who went to the magazine's offices on September -, unaware of the events of the previous two days, was also reported to have been arrested.

The SSS reportedly said they were acting on the orders of the President. They have since issued a statement justifying their actions on the basis that Insider Weekly magazine had consistently been "attacking, disparaging and humiliating" the President and other government officials. The statement describes the magazine's attempts to "continually distort facts and misrepresent noble ideas of the present administration to the innocent public [as] not only libelous, seditious and subversive but also treasonable." It mentions an article in the current edition of the magazine which criticized the government in the context of a draft law to reform the Trade Union Act.

"Journalists should be allowed to carry out their legitimate work without fear of intimidation or harassment," said Peter Takirambudde. "The use of force, arbitrary arrest, and criminal prosecution are never justifiable methods of responding to public criticism."

There are fears for the safety of other staff of Insider Weekly after the SSS asked for their home addresses when they raided the office. Many have gone into hiding.

Insider Weekly is one of a number of Nigerian magazines and newspapers which have been critical of government policies. In November -003, three of its editors, including editor-in-chief Osa Director, were detained by the police for two days and charged with sedition and defamation of character in connection with an article alleging corruption by senior government officials. However, the latest incident was characterized by an even more brutal approach.

Numerous other journalists, activists, and government critics have been targeted by the government and the security forces for voicing criticism of government policies. In December -003, Human Rights Watch published a report "Nigeria: Renewed Crackdown on Freedom of Expression" describing many such cases.

When Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth met President Obasanjo and other government officials in Nigeria earlier this year, they repeatedly stated that freedom of expression and freedom of the press were guaranteed in Nigeria.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HRW/c874bfcf142c404a260d2db4b9839881.htm

http://allafrica.com/stories/200409170420.html

Debt Relief: Obasanjo Berates U.S. On Nigeria

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

September 17, 2004

Posted to the web September 17, 2004

By Samuel Famakinwa And Kunle Aderinokun

Abuja

Seeks Support for Peace in Gulf of Guinea

President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday chided on the United States government over what he described as the country's discriminatory policy on granting debt relief to debtor countries which favour even richer countries.

Similarly, he sought from the US support for Nigeria's effort at maintaining peace, security and stability in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea where even America has vested interests.

Addressing participants at the Nigeria-US Investment Conference in Abuja, the president queried the basis for which the US extended special dispensation for debt relief to countries like Russia and Iraq and declared that "I find this very very absurd."

He added that since the US could give special dispensation for debt relief to countries like Russia and Iraq that have more resources than Nigeria, "I don't know why Nigeria cannot get the same treatment."

At the conference organised by the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) and the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), Obasanjo said that he found it very uneasy to believe that Russia which has the "same population as Nigeria and produces nine million barrels of crude oil per day which is even more than three times Nigeria's oil output per day, would get special dispensation for debt relief from the US yet Nigeria would not get."

He added that "Iraq whose income from oil is six times more than that of Nigeria even got special dispensation for debt relief and Nigeria would not get. I find this very very absurd and I hope this issue would be discussed at this conference."

"The total debt that is between us and the United States is under $1 billion. When we talk about it, I get agitated a bit. I find it a bit uneasy for me to talk about it. Nigeria's population is about 150 million, Russian population is about 150 million, Russian oil production is about 9 million barrels a day, Nigeria is not even producing 1/4 of that and yet Russia got special dispensation for debt relief, Nigeria did not get.

"Iraq whose per capital income in oil term is six times that of Nigeria is getting special dispensation for debt relief, Nigeria did not get. I find this absurd. And I say to my self, if we say we are joint guarantors, what is of paramount importance to both of us, shouldn't we do something to show it," he asked.

Obasanjo said that credit extended to Nigeria for development of different sectors of the economy could be managed jointly with the United States and other respective United Nation's agencies to see if the Federal Government genuinely apply the funds for the sought purposes with a view to granting the nation debt relief.

"I suggested that in the area of debt relief, we could tie it to development projects. I am not asking you to write it off but let's put it in health, education, etc. We could call it. Debt for health or debt for education and we can jointly manage it. Look at our budget for the year 2004 and in 2005 see if we have genuinely put $30 million on higher education. You can do that in arrears or even in advance, put our credit in an escrow account, you and ourselves and ADB, or the international organization in that respect. If it is education, UNESCO, if it is health, WHO, if it is agriculture, FAO. I believe that there are many ways that we can get to see ourselves as true guarantors and partners of things that are really dear to us," he said.

In the same vein, Obasanjo tasked the US government in supporting Nigeria's effort in maintaining security, peace and stability in the Gulf of Guinea since both countries as well as the countries in the region have vested interests.

According to him, "If we are going to be joint guarantors of peace, security and stability, we also have to be mutually supportive." The President pointed out that energy will be a major factor in driving the Nigerian and American economy, as well as that of the world and that an area that was becoming more and more important as a source of energy to the world was the Gulf of Guinea and therefore the need to maintain security and stability.

He stated that he had spear-headed the establishment of the Gulf of Guinea Commission to embrace all countries within the area. "One of the things to ensure security is the way we resolve our issues. We have indicated in the way we resolve maritime boundary issue between Nigeria and Sao Tome.

We've also been able to resolve the maritime and boundary issue with Equitorial Guinea and by the grace of God, we will soon resolve that of Cameroun. These efforts should be strongly supported by the US knowing fully well that whatever we do to ensure peace and security is of primary importance to us, the world need it and the US needs it. I believe that we should work together in economic and strategic relation. But he noted that "we cannot talk about working together when we are not seeing the type of involvement that we should see in our partners.

We know that we have to have peace and security in Africa. We have said we are ready to play our own role. We have done it in Sierra Leone, we have done it in Liberia and we are doing it in Darfur. But what we lack is the capability. Help us in this area that we are lacking so that we can move more swiftly in terms of conflict resolution." Meanwhile, Obasanjo said the Federal Government had since on assumption of May 29, 1999 embarked upon an aggressive development and rehabilitation and improvement of infrastructure especially electricity, roads, and water as well as development of human capitals.

He therefore said that the investments have paid off given recent statistics that showed that the economy is on the upbeat with "gross domestic product growing at 10.2 per cent in 2003 as against an average of 2.9 per cent in the immediate past decade." He added that on sectoral basis, the agricultural sector grew by 7 per cent in 2003. This, according to him, "represents a marked departure from the positions in 1999.

The manufacturing sector also grew by 10 per cent in 2003 in contrast to less than 1 per cent; capacity utilization rose from 35.9 per cent in 1999 to 60 per cent in 2003; and our target by the end of 2004 is to achieve no less than 65 per cent industrial capacity utilization," he said. He pointed out that the dividends of such response manifested in the GSM telecommunications where the teledensity has risen from 1.125 in 1999 to about 1.40 in 2003 and made the sector one of the fastest growing with over 50 per cent growth rate in 2003.

Obasanjo said all these achievements are expected to be consolidated by the Natonal Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) with key objectives as wealth creation, employment generation, poverty reduction and value re-orientation. In his welcome address, Chairman, NESG, Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, stated that Nigeria's range of choices and alternatives have multiplied because of the openness that characterizes democracy, adding that the country now engages the world in a host of collaborative endeavors and provides strong leadership to Africa. He recalled that the Nigeria was six years ago dislocated and disconnected from the global economy but enthused that today the government has taken bold steps to create a competitive and market oriented economy.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200409170071.html

Amnesty International Alleges Killing of 500 in P-Harcourt Clashes

Vanguard (Lagos)

NEWS

September 17, 2004

Posted to the web September 17, 2004

Lagos

Rivers govt dismisses report

AMNESTY International claimed yesterday that up to 500 people were killed in clashes between rival armed gangs in Port Harcourt in the past month. "Up to 500 civilians are thought to have been killed and an unconfirmed number of persons were injured in fighting between rival armed groups, as reported to Amnesty International by reliable sources," the international rights body said in a letter to Governor Peter Odili.

In recent weeks, two gangs have been fighting in the city and in several villages in the surrounding Niger Delta swamps. "In the last three weeks, there has been a spate of violence in the riverine community of Ataba in Andoni local government area on August 15, as well as in the Njemanze waterfront on August 22, the Marine base, Amadi creek on August 29 and the attack on the Platform Restaurant on August 31 in Port Harcourt," Amnesty said.

Armed gangs involved in the fighting used AK-47 submachines guns, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, other sophisticated weapons and dynamite, it said. "Most of the victims were civilians, including an unconfirmed number of women and children, who had taken no part in the fighting and were killed or injured as a result of being targeted or indiscriminately shot at by members of the armed groups," it said.

The organisation said the police had grossly played down the death toll. "The official number of deaths as confirmed by the Rivers State police command is 13 in the incident in Ataba, five persons in the incident at the Njemanze waterfront, three persons in the incident in the Marine Base, but no official figure was reported relating to the incident of the Platform Restaurant," it said.

The Platform Restaurant is a guest house in Port Harcourt where members of an armed gang hacked off the hand of a senior armed forces officer early this month. "Amnesty International's analysis on the other hand, as based on international and national media reports combined with statements from reliable sources, points to a figure of up to 500," the organisation added.

Govt dismisses report

State officials have dismissed the Amnesty claims. "The 500 death toll is absolutely untrue and totally false. It is a report without foundation. The figure released by the police is what the government stands by," Emmanuel Okah, spokesman for Governor Odili, said.

He said the decision to deploy troops was aimed at stopping the violence. "The government has a duty to protect lives and property. This explains the decision to send soldiers to complement the efforts of the police," he added.

But Oronto Douglas of the Environmental Rights Action group, a local non-governmental organisation, condemned the military action. "The military option is not the best. It has created insecurity rather than security. Soldiers, by their training and temperament, don't have respect for human rights and dignity," he said.

He recalled the incidents in Odi, in Bayelsa State, in 1999 and Zaki-Biam in Benue State in 2001 where soldiers killed thousands of civilians in attempts to track down criminals. He said rather than turning to military action, the police should be properly equipped to combat crimein the country.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200409220570.html

'Talibans' Kill 4 Policemen, 2 Others in Borno

Vanguard (Lagos)

NEWS

September 22, 2004

Posted to the web September 22, 2004

By Sadiq Abubakar

Maiduguri

ARMED Islamic fundamentalists, Monday night, attacked two police stations in Borno State, killing four policemen and two civilians. Several other people were injured. Among the dead were a police area commander and a police woman.

Attacked were the Bama police station and that of Gwoarza. The two towns are 40 kilometres apart. The Talibans first struck in Bama before proceeding to Gwoarza.

The state Police Commissioner, Mr. Ade Adekanye, told reporters in Maiduguri that about 60 fundamentalists called Talibans opened fire on the police stations and the policemen. As soon as they completed their task, they reportedly fled.

The state deputy governor, Alhaji Adamu Dibal, on an assessment visit to the scenes expressed shock at the development which he said was beyond human comprehension. He called for security to be beefed up in the state to safeguard life and property. The Deputy Governor's Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Adamu Jiri, in a statement said the Talibans would have caused more havoc but for the timely intervention of vigilante groups in Gwaorza which gave them a chase. They were said to have killed a member of the vigilante group and abducted four.

The Talibans were believed to be trapped on the Gwaorza Hill and surrounded by villagers and vigilante groups.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200409220669.html

Nigeria Ready to Handover Taylor

Concord Times (Freetown)

NEWS

September 22, 2004

Posted to the web September 22, 2004

By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah

Freetown

Special Court Chief Prosecutor, David Crane, has expressed optimism that Nigeria would soon transfer former Liberian president, Charles Taylor to the Special Court for trial, a press release_(posted below)_ from the Court states.

"As evidence mounts that Taylor is an obstacle to lasting peace in Liberia, I am optimistic that Nigeria will continue to support the Liberian peace process by transferring him to the Special Court," David Crane said, adding, "there can be no true peace in the sub region if Taylor is not brought to the Court for trial." Crane commended the Nigerian government for its support to the Special Court and commitment to peace in the sub region.

He says Nigeria sits on the Special Court's Management Committee at UN headquarters in New York and is the largest African donor to the Court since its establishment.

Taylor faces a 17-count indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict in Sierra Leone.

------------------------------------------------

Prosecutor David M. Crane Calls Taylor a Continuing Threat to Regional Peace

Special Court for Sierra Leone (Freetown)

By Office of the Prosecutor, David M. Crane

Freetown

Prosecutor David M. Crane has welcomed comments by UNMIL SRSG Jacques Paul Klein to the Security Council last week, in which he reported that "Charles Taylor's shadow still looms over Liberia."

"We have specific information that Charles Taylor continues to interfere in Liberian affairs and we share Mr Klein's concerns." said Mr. Crane. "There can be no true peace in the region until Charles Taylor is brought to the Special Court for Sierra Leone for a fair and open trial," Mr Crane added.

Mr. Crane expressed optimism that Nigeria would eventually transfer Taylor for trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

"Nigeria has shown consistent interest in supporting the Liberian peace process, beginning with the Nigerian government's leadership in removing Charles Taylor from Liberia in August 2003. As evidence mounts that Taylor is an obstacle to lasting peace in Liberia, I am optimistic that Nigeria will continue to support the Liberian peace process by transferring Charles Taylor to the Special Court for Sierra Leone."

The Prosecutor said Nigeria has a strong record of support for the Special Court. Nigeria sits on the Special Court's Management Committee at UN headquarters in New York; Nigeria is the largest African donor to the Special Court; and from its beginning, the Court has been guarded by the Nigerian contingent of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).

Charles Taylor faces a 17-count indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the conflict in Sierra Leone. The charges include terrorising the civilian population, unlawful killings, sexual violence, physical violence, forced conscription of child soldiers, abductions, forced labour, looting and burning, and attacks on UN peacekeeping personnel.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200409220613.html

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2321446.htm

Nigerian helicopter gunships fire on delta militants

23 Sep 2004 16:59:08 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Austin Ekeinde

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Nigeria has targeted rebel militia in the Niger delta with rockets fired from helicopter gunships, an army spokesman said on Thursday, describing the escalating battle in the oil-rich region.

The attacks on rebel strongholds in the vast, inaccessible delta are the latest in a two-week operation in Africa's top oil exporter to hunt down warlords who have been fighting bloody turf wars in the southeastern Rivers state.

Army spokesman Onyema Kanu said fighters loyal to rebel warlord Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who says he is fighting for self-determination of the oil-rich region, were holed up on a mangrove island about 10 miles (16 km) west of the state capital Port Harcourt.

"We used (Russian combat) MI-35 helicopters for the operation to the island ... It is a place completely inhabited by Asari and his group. We know this because we monitored the place for at least three months," Kanu said.

"In fact on four times they shot at our reconnaissance team who flew there. This shows that it was a militant base."

Fighting in the creeks around Port Harcourt, which is home to multinational oil giants such as Royal Dutch/Shell <RD.AS> <SHEL.L>, ENI <ENI.MI> unit Agip and Total <TOTF.PA>, has forced hundreds to flee their homes in the last month.

The army announced earlier this month that it took over security in Rivers state from the police to "cleanse the state of all forms of armed banditry". Hundreds of extra troops have been deployed to the city and waterfront locations that had seen regular violence.

Amnesty International estimated up to 500 people were killed in gang fighting in the three weeks to mid-September, although the government says nowhere near this number died.

More than 11,000 people have been killed in political, ethnic and religious fighting in Nigeria since democracy returned to Africa's most populous country in 1999.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Nigeria has come under pressure to improve its human rights record after similar crackdowns in 1999 and 2001 prompted accusations of excessive force and unlawful killings.

Kanu denied accusations by the militant ethnic group Ijaw National Congress that the military had used chemical weapons in last week's attacks. INC president Kimse Okoko said several people suffered blistering on their skin after the attack.

"It is not true that we used chemicals to attack our targets. In the first place we don't have access to chemicals of any kind. We use purely conventional weapons like rockets and conventional guns," Kanu said.

Asari, who leads a militia called Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, says he is fighting for impoverished delta residents who see little benefit from the huge volume of oil taken from their traditional tribal lands.

The state government says he is a bandit fighting over lucrative smuggling routes used by oil thieves.

Human rights groups accuse the state government of fuelling the conflict by arming warlords to rig last year's elections, which saw the ruling party win a second term.

Anyakwee Nsirimovu, director of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Port Harcourt, said the military escalation was no solution.

"It might not be possible to shoot our way out of this," he said. "The problem was created by politicians in the state government -- they gave arms to Asari and (rival warlord) Ateke Tom to win the elections -- so the best solution is dialogue."

Oil companies say their output from the Port Harcourt area, which represents about half the country's total 2.5 million barrels per day, has been unaffected by the latest violence. An uprising by Ijaws in the western delta last year forced companies to shut 40 percent of the OPEC nation's production.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB5HZ9IIZD.html

Clashes Between Security Forces, Islamic Militants, Kill 29 in Nigeria

By Dulue Mbachu Associated Press Writer

Published: Sep 24, 2004

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - A gunbattle between security forces and Islamic militants fighting to create a Taliban-style state in northern Nigeria left 29 people dead, most of them militants, police said Friday.

In the southern oil region, meanwhile, clashes between troops and tribal militia fighters forced oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell to evacuate two facilities, the company said. Shell said there was no disruption to its production and exports.

Security forces have been battling militants in the north this week after Islamic fundamentalist gunmen launched their first attack since January, assaulting police stations Monday in the towns of Bama and Gworza. Four police officers and two civilians were killed.

Since then police and army troops have pursued the militants and on Thursday engaged in a gunbattle in the Gworza hills, near the border with Cameroon, killing 27 militants and two police, said Ade Ajakaiye, police commissioner for Borno state.

Security forces recovered 22 assault rifles and large quantities of ammunition. Five militants who fled into Cameroon were arrested by authorities there and will be returned to Nigeria, Ajakaiye said.

Nigerian army spokesman Col. Mohammed Yusuf confirmed that troops of the army's 21st Armored Brigade were involved with police in the operation to flush out the militants.

"We will get rid of them whether they're in the hills or the valleys," Yusuf said.

The radical sect known'as Al-Sunna wal Jamma comprises mainly university students seeking to create a Taliban-style state in Africa's most populous nation.

It launched its first wave of attacks Dec. 31, targeting several police stations in northeastern Yobe state. Its uprising was put down by a government offensive in January that killed 20 militants and led to the arrests of 40 more.

Although the group lacks popular support, it was the first armed push for a strict Islamic regime in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north since 12 states in the region - including Yobe and Borno - began adopting Islamic law in 2000.

Nigeria, a nation of more than 126 million people, is made up of a majority-Muslim north and a heavily Christian south and is frequently rocked by sectarian violence.

In the south, the military was launching an offensive against militia fighters around Sombreiro River, said army spokesman Capt. Ogbonna Kanu.

Shell evacuated the Soku gas platform and the Ekulama oil pumping station as a precaution because of clashes nearby. Shell accounts for about half of Nigeria's daily exports of 2.5 million barrels.

In fighting Friday, militia fighters pushed back government troops along the river, said militia leader Moujahid Dokubo-Asari.

"They were forced to withdraw. We also withdrew because daylight was approaching and we wanted to avoid raids by helicopter gunships," Dokubo-Asari told The Associated Press by satellite phone.

He said his fighters suffered no casualties, but he could not say whether any soldiers were killed.

Dokubo-Asari's Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force claims to be fighting for self-determination for an estimated 8 million ethnic Ijaws, the largest tribe in the impoverished oil region. Residents accuse the government and oil companies of cheating them out of wealth produced in their land.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,11319,1312465,00.html

Rebels threaten Nigeria's oil wells

Rory Carroll, Africa correspondent

Saturday September 25, 2004

The Guardian

A rebel group battling rival militias and government forces in Nigeria's oil-rich delta has threatened to target oil installations in an escalation of the conflict.

Production in Africa's biggest oil exporter has not been disrupted by the fighting which has turned much of the region into a war zone.

But that may change after one of the most powerful militias, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, vowed this week to target wells and pipelines unless the government halted its offensive. Such attacks could increase global oil prices, since about half of Nigeria's 2.5m daily barrels comes from the Port Harcourt area where the militia operates.

"If this war on the Niger delta people is not stopped, oil installations will be attacked," a militia commander named Abiye told Reuters.

The militia, also known as the Egbesu Boys after the Ijaw god of war, has hundreds of fighters, a fleet of speedboats, heavy machine guns and intimate knowledge of the waterways and swamps. But since fighting flared two weeks ago it has been under pressure from attacks by the government's helicopter gunships.

Few doubt their ability to disrupt the oil industry: an uprising last year shut down 40% of Nigeria'sproduction.

No official announcement has been made but oil companies are rumoured to be considering moving all production offshore to escape the fighting.

The latest round of mayhem was partly blamed on rivalry between the Egbesu Boys and other militias, with names such as Icelanders, Greenlanders and KKK, which compete for oil wealth and their own ethnic group's ascendance.

About 500 people have been killed, according to Amnesty International, though authorities put the toll at a few dozen. Army troops and aircraft have reinforced the police but analysts question how effective they would be; the Egbesu Boys' leader, Alhaji Dokubo- Asari, reportedly has connections to senior political and military officials.

In a separate development, security forces in the north of Nigeria claimed to have killed 29 Islamist guerrillas who this week attacked police stations in bordering Cameroon.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Posted 09/24/04 09:46

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nigeria Finds Missing Oil Tanker MT Jimoh: Navy

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, LAGOS

Nigerian naval authorities have found an oil tanker missing since several weeks ago, a navy spokesman told Agence France-Presse on Sept. 24.

The tanker, MT Jimoh, was found Sept. 21 near the southern oil city of Port Harcourt, navy commander Kabir Aliyu, said in a telephone interview, confirming a statement issued Sept. 23 by Rear Admiral Ganiyu Adekeye.

"It is true. The missing ship has been arrested," said Aliyu.

The ship, now renamed MT Lord, was found at Dutch Island, close to Port Harcourt, by officers of the Eastern Naval Command, Adekeye was quoted in Sept. 24 newspapers as saying at a press briefing in Port Harcourt.

After the ship went missing several weeks ago in Lagos, its detailed description was widely circulated, and that helped the authorities to find it again, he said.

The new name had been freshly painted on the ship, and three suspects found on board were arrested, he also said.

The ship, along with a Russian oil tanker, the MT African Pride, went missing earlier this month after being seized on suspicion they had been used to smuggle crude oil out of Nigerian. The navy and the police are currently trading blame over the missing ships.

The disappearance of the Russian tanker, laden with crude oil, from the custody of Nigerian authorities is a national embarrassment, the head of the parliamentary committee investigating the case said Sept. 19.

The MT African Pride was seized last October by the Nigerian navy. along with 13 Russian sailors on suspicion of smuggling, but disappeared last month along with its cargo of 11,300 metric tons of crude oil worth 345 million naira ($2.6 million/two million euros) from waters off the coast of Warri at the heart of the oil-rich but troubled Niger Delta.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=371609&C=navwar

---------------------------------------------

Nigerian navy questions officers over missing Russian oil tanker(MT African Pride)

LAGOS (AFP) Sep 27, 2004

The Nigerian navy is questioning officers over the disappearance of a seized Russian oil tanker which was accused of smuggling stolen crude oil from the west African country, a spokesman said Monday.

The MT African Pride was seized in October last year by the Nigerian navy along with 13 Russian sailors.

The crew is on trial accused of attempting to smuggle 11,300 tonnes of crude oil worth 345 million naira (2.6 million dollars / two million euros) from waters off the coast of Warri at the heart of the oil-rich but troubled Niger Delta.

The vessel was brought to Lagos in January and placed under the custody of security agents, including the navy and police pending the trial, but later disappeared.

more at: http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040927130332.52iefwkx.html

------------------------------------------------

 

from the October 01, 2004 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1001/p06s02-woaf.html

Why Africa keeps fighting over oil

Peace talks continued in Nigeria Thursday between the government and the leader of a militia group.

By Michael Peel | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

LAGOS, NIGERIA - At one of the main forest bases of Nigerian militia leader Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, the man partly responsible for pushing world oil prices over $50 a barrel this week, a small television was set up last month next to a pile of DVDs. The titles varied from action movies like "Mortal Kombat" to a film on the French Revolution.

The selection gives a sense of both the violence and the spirit of resistance characterizing a conflict over the control of oil fields here and the benefits from them. The country's Niger Delta region, which produces nearly 2.5 million barrels of oil a day and accounts for 10 percent of US crude imports, is infused with a deep popular anger over pollution and the failure of oil revenues to bring development. Mr. Dokubo-Asari, who claims to command 2,000 armed fighters, earlier this week called for the immediate withdrawal of all foreigners from the delta until the resolution of political issues, including control of the country's oil resources. Peace talks continued Thursday between Dokubo-Asari and the Nigerian government.

The dispute over natural resources is at the heart of some of the most intractable conflicts in Africa today, from Sudan to Congo to Nigeria. Even amid international efforts to bring greater transparency to the continent's resource exploration, the recent strife here is a microcosm of widespread theft and mismanagement, which observers attribute to a combination of colonial-era intervention, corrupt governments, and cynical behavior by Western policymakers and multinationals.

"Sub-Saharan African governments will receive more than $200 billion in oil revenues over the coming decade," according to Catholic Relief Services, a nongovernmental agency. "But ordinary Africans will see no such improvements so long as revenues generated by the current oil boom continue to be piped into governments lacking accountability."

International attention has focused on Dokubo-Asari since he threatened to launch an offensive known as "Operation Locust Feast" to coincide with today's 44th anniversary of Nigeria's independence from Britain. He condemned the behavior of foreign oil companies and the Nigerian government and said he would not be responsible for the safety of foreigners in the delta. ChevronTexaco, the country's third-largest oil producer, said it took the threat "quite seriously" and Royal Dutch/Shell, which pumps almost half the nation's daily output, evacuated some 250 staff and shut down 28,000 barrels a day of production.

Opinions about Dokubo-Asari's motives vary, but he and his movement campaign for self-determination and resource control for the Ijaw people, the delta's largest ethnic group. His argument that the country's oil revenues have been stolen and mismanaged by politicians in Abuja, the capital, is widely echoed across the country.

Despite more than $250 billion in oil revenues since independence in 1960, Nigeria is one of the world's poorest, and a fifth of its children die before the age of 5, according to the World Bank. It is regularly judged one of the world's most corrupt countries, according to watchdog Transparency International.

The chaos in the delta is one of many contemporary African conflicts that, in part, stem from disputes over resources. In Sudan, analysts say that rebels in the south, insurgents in Darfur in the west, and opposition supporters in the east are unhappy that the benefits of the country's oil industry, which produces 300,000 barrel a day, have hardly been felt outside Khartoum, the capital. In Congo, a conflict that began in 1998 has been sustained by the desire of armed factions to control large reserves of gold, diamonds, copper, and other minerals.

One of Dokubo-Asari's most striking demands is that Nigeria should hold a national conference to decide whether it is a viable nation. The country comprises hundreds of ethnic groups speaking hundreds of languages and was formed by British fiat in 1914, triggering difficulties between the regions, including a destructive tension between the oil-rich south and the arid but politically powerful north.

Observers say arbitrary colonial boundaries underlie many resource-based disputes in Africa, not least in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea on which Nigeria sits. "We never bargained for Nigeria," Dokubo-Asari says.

Since independence, Nigerian regimes have been widely accused of large-scale plunder and have proved unwilling to end colonial legacies that encourage corruption, such as providing cars and housing to minor government officials. Since the return of civilian rule in 1999, the country has begun taking such antigraft measures as saving surplus oil revenues and publishing how much money is given to state and local governments. But critics say this limited progress by a small group of reformers is outweighed by a continuing culture of corruption at the federal, state, and local levels.

The government of President Olusegun Obasanjo has been vocal in its pursuit of money stolen by the late dictator Gen. Sani Abacha and his associates, but activists ask why the authorities have failed to confront living members of other notoriously corrupt military and civilian regimes.

Western multinationals are also widely accused of helping sustain graft. A report published in July by the US Senate found that US oil companies in Equatorial Guinea made payments to government officials and their relatives and formed joint ventures with companies linked to members of the country's repressive ruling clan. A consortium of Western companies including a subsidiary of Halliburton is under investigation in the US, France, and Nigeria over allegations that it made more than $150 million of illicit payments to Nigerian officials and expatriates.

Concern about corruption has resulted in a number of international initiatives to increase disclosure of payments between resource companies and governments, including the Publish What You Pay coalition of campaign groups backed by George Soros, the billionaire financier. Nigeria is among the countries that have expressed support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a project first announced by the British government in 2002. Activists have expressed disappointment at the slow initial progress on the EITI work, although British officials say participation among developing countries and companies is improving.

For Dokubo-Asari, who declared a cease-fire Wednesday pending further talks with the government, progress cannot come too quickly.

"Oil is part of it but our dignity as a people is more," he says. "We want our dignity restored."

BEHIND OIL SPIKE, rebels with a cause Militiamen from the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force patrolled near Port Harcourt, Nigeria, earlier this week as tensions over oil rose. Page 6.

GEORGE ESIRI/REUTERS

Democracy, oil, and terrorism

Five of sub-Saharan Africa's longest-serving heads of state are either major oil exporters or are partners in America's war on terror. (Year leader took power is in parentheses.)  

1. Togo: Gnassingbe Eyadema (1967)
   
   
2. Gabon1: Omar Albert-Bernard Bongo (1967)
   
   
3. Equatorial Guinea1: Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo (1979)
   
   
4. Angola1: Jose Eduardo dos Santos (1979)
   
   
5. Cameroon1: Paul Biya (1982)
   
   
6. Mauritania1,2: Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya (1984)
   
   
7. Guinea: Lansana Conte (1984)
   
   
8. Uganda2: Yoweri Museveni (1986)
   
   
9. Swaziland: King Mswati III (1986)
   
   
10. Mozambique: Joaquim Chissano (1986)
    

1 Significant oil exporter

 2 US partner in the war on terror

Nigerian warlord takes peace message to the streets  

By :  

Date : 05 October 2004 0245 hrs (SST)  

URL : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/110048/1/.html  

OKRIKA, Nigeria : Ateke Tom, a warlord, who battled another gang for supremacy over Nigeria's oil wealth located in the restive Niger delta, preached a new message of peace to his teeming supporters.

"Peace is necessary for development. We can only free our people from the shackles of poverty under a peaceful atmosphere," the factional rebel leader said during a rally here.

Dressed in a white sports T-shirt and white trousers and accompanied by hordes of aides, Tom was cheered by dozens of jubilant supporters and villagers.

Many motorists and motor-cyclists parked their vehicles as a mark of respect for a man they worship as a god. Men and women, young and old, bowed and were prostrate on the ground as Tom made his way through the crowd.

As he gave his speech, a group of stern-looking and gun-wielding policemen and soldiers looked on, in apparent approval of the event.

There was much drumming, dancing and singing by a cultural group in the town. Some of them had "Ateke wants peace" written on their almost naked bodies.

The rally, the first in a series, was organised to mark the end of hostilities between Ateke Tom's group -- Niger Delta Vigilante Service -- and the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, led by arch rival Mujahid Dokubo Asari.

"We will hold a similar peace rally in Port Harcourt and other places. I will go to Buguma to meet my brother, Asari and he will also come here to pay me a visit," Tom said.

"We thank Obasanjo for his prompt intervention to restore peace to Rivers State. We will never allow this ugly incident to repeat itself," he said, referring to Friday's ceasefire and disarmament deal in Abuja.

The two gangs signed the agreement, brokered by President Olusegun Obasanjo, to sheath their swords after months of violence for the control of oil in the region.

Asari had made a similar pledge during a rally at Amadi-Ama on the outskirts of Port Harcourt, the hub of Nigeria's oil industry, on Sunday.

"Ateke is our brother, our son. He has regretted for allowing himself to be used by enemies of the Ijaw nation and we have forgiven him," he told the gathering.

"He has dropped his guns and we have dropped ours. If picks the guns again, we will pick ours," he warned.

A community leader in Okrika commended the peace initiative of the two Ijaw members.

"Both of them are our sons. I am sure there was a misunderstanding somewhere. But now that they have agreed to work together, we will support them as a people," Tamunoseipirbie Kiri told AFP.

Some 500 people were killed and many more injured in Port Harcourt and its environs in August following fighting between the two armed groups, Amnesty International said in a report.

The unrest raised concerns about oil supplies from Nigeria, causing prices to reach an all-time high of 50 dollars last week.

Most of the 2.5 million barrels produced daily by Nigeria, fifth largest oil supplier to the United States, comes from the Niger Delta.

- AFP

Peace Imperatives in the Niger Delta

This Day (Lagos)

OPINION

October 17, 2004

Posted to the web October 18, 2004

By Tai Ojo

Port Harcourt

Rather than report the positive spin-offs of the rapprochement between the federal and state governments and the dissident leaders in the Niger Delta, the foreign press chose to see the peace negotiations as the capitulation of duly constituted authorities to hoodlums.

Yet, it was these same foreign media that reported with malicious glee and roundly condemned the military reprisals against insurgent youths in Odi town which had murdered law enforcement agents.

It is obvious that the governments and people of Africa can never do it right as far as these fault-finding self-appointed international overseers are concerned. What is wrong with a democratic government reaching out to aggrieved citizens with a view to re-reintegrating them into the national development process? Methinks it is all part of running an inclusive, participatory and people-oriented government.

At any rate, peace is so important and the cost of violent conflicts in Niger Delta so steep that the stakeholders in the peace process of that area should not allow themselves to be distracted by detractors, both foreign and local.

We are all witnesses to the infamous disruptive and criminal activities of restive youths and militia groups in the Niger Delta, including attacks on innocent oil company workers, sacking of oil flow stations, vandalization of oil pipelines, hostage-taking and assassination of oil company executives! Thus, the Niger Delta area has become known as an enclave of intense social strife.

The political economy of the youth restiveness and agitations in Niger Delta is all too familiar. There is mass poverty, pervasive ignorance, widespread unemployment and general discontent as a result of many years of neglect and exploitation of the people and natural resources of the Niger Delta. While the people stoically bore their frustrations under the jackboots of military dictatorship, they naturally rediscovered their voices with the advent of civilian governments.

Local efforts by state governments to pacify and engage the youths have only slightly blunted the edges of their irredentism. In fact, such efforts have sometimes emboldened the youths and stirred up more concerned groups to make demands and ask for more economic and political concessions from government. To stem the tide of discontent and associated violent agitations, the Federal Government established the Niger Delta Development Commission as well as acceded to the sharing of 13 per cent of oil revenues among oil-producing states of the federation. These major concessions have not satisfied the aspirations of the youths and elites of oil-producing areas. Agitations for total resource control by oil-bearing states and right to self-determination continue to spread and escalate with time.

Yet, there is no substitute to peace in the Niger Delta. It is a reality that the area because of its petroleum deposits constitutes the treasure trove of the nation. The exploitation of this natural resource for the benefit of people of Niger Delta and other Nigerians cannot be done if violence and strife become the order of the day in that enclave. No meaningful rural development and business activities can be carried out if chaos or anarchy becomes the prevalent feature of the Niger Delta.

While the oil companies as good corporate citizens should bend over backwards to share the comforts of civilization such as electricity, pipe-borne water, telephone and recreational facilities which they enjoy in their flow-stations and platforms with their host communities, the youths, elites and traditional rulers of Niger Delta should see the wisdom in peaceful coexistence with other Nigerians. They should not continue to rebuff the olive branch offered to them by the Nigerian state or government.

No Nigerian stands to benefit from ethnic conflicts or civil wars. Our brothers and sisters in the Niger Delta should appreciate the genuine and concrete concessions being granted them by the Federal Government in exchange for their loyalty and enduring peace in the Niger Delta. The government should continue with its policy of appeasement and containment. It is however self-delusion for oil-bearing states to agitate for total resource control or outright self-determination. The Nigerian federation as it is currently constituted has a right to state sovereignty and will not watch idly while it is factionalized in the name of right to self-determination.

Those who are bent on fomenting crises and conflicts in the Niger Delta should spare a thought for the genesis and the aftermath of the conflicts in Rwanda, Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The implication of a failed state (where there is total anarchy and no recognized political authority) is too dismal for us to contemplate in Nigeria. There is no country big enough to contain the possible refugees from a war-torn Nigerian federation. Let reason prevail in the right quarters and minds. There is no price too high and no sacrifice too big for peace in the Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200410180425.html

www.registerguard.com | © The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon

OPINION

October 24, 2004

Nigeria has potential to be next Afghanistan

By Princeton Lyman and Scott Allan

For The Baltimore Sun

It may seem insignificant to Americans that an extremist Islamic militia attacked two Nigerian police stations Sept. 20, killing five people. But whether the United States cares to notice may have dire consequences.

In September of 1991, the State Department's special envoy to Afghanistan, Ambassador Peter Tomsen, cabled Washington with a prophetic warning: Afghanistan was ``a receding issue in U.S. global interests'' and American neglect ``would be a blow to U.S. objectives in combating terrorism.''

Unfortunately, the world's attention waned and Tomsen's worries turned into reality when the Taliban regime rose to power and provided Osama bin Laden with a refuge to coordinate and train al-Qaeda terrorists.

Similar warnings are being voiced about the situation in Nigeria.

With Washington's focus so heavily centered on Iraq and Afghanistan, it is important not to overlook other regions that could descend into sanctuaries for the next generation of terrorists. In its report, the 9/11 commission called on the U.S. government to take steps in remote regions, such as West Africa, to prevent the rise of future sanctuaries.

Indeed, Washington should be seriously concerned about Nigeria, a principal supplier of oil to the United States and Africa's most populous country. Nigeria has about 66 million Muslims (more than Egypt), most of whom have provided a strong center of moderate Islam in West Africa. There is no history of virulent anti-Americanism.

But Muslims in northern Nigeria feel politically marginalized and suffer from extreme poverty. Religious fervor offers an outlet for these frustrations: Since 1999, 12 northern Muslim states in the country have adopted the Sharia penal code, to popular acclaim. Islamic extremists have begun to link northern frustrations to the United States and its policies in the war on terrorism.

The Islamic militants who attacked Nigerian police stations last month appear to be aligned with Al-Sunna wal Jamma, which is made up of mostly university students who seek to create a Taliban-style state.

Still small, such extremist groups are nevertheless tapping into a wider atmosphere of frustration and feelings of neglect.

Nigeria's troubles in the Muslim north are coupled with serious unrest in the oil-rich, largely Christian south, where economic rather than religious grievances are the driving force. Disruptions in the oil industry in Nigeria have been growing in severity over the past year as insurgents have become better armed and more aggressive.

For example, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group had to evacuate two offshore oil rigs Sept. 25 because of attacks from a local rebel group, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force. The violence helped push oil past $50 a barrel in world trading.

Washington cannot afford to confront an entrenched Taliban-type movement in Nigeria. Should Nigeria, or even part of it, become more open to this or a similar movement, it could provide an enormous, resource-rich haven for al-Qaeda.

Washington should seek to ``pre-empt'' the rising radicalism, not with military force but through diplomatic and economic engagement.

The State Department fills senior posts in Nigeria with junior or at best midlevel officers. None specializes in Hausa, which is the primary language spoken by Nigeria's Muslims. Aid levels declined in the past four years, and Nigeria's appeals for debt relief have been ignored. Intelligence collection in the region has dropped significantly since the Cold War.

As with Afghanistan in the early 1990s, troubling signs are emanating from Nigeria; it is not fair to Nigerians or Americans to again ignore a rising Taliban.

Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Scott Allan was a counsel to the 9/11 commission focusing on Afghanistan and the Taliban.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/10/24/b4.ed.col.nigeria.1024.html

http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/business/b326102004.html

Just 1% of  Nigeria' s population gets 80% oil/gas revenue -- World Bank

By Hector Igbikiowubo

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

PART of a World Bank report contained in the revenue fact sheet of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has disclosed that about 80 per cent of Nigeria's oil and natural gas revenues accrues to just one per cent of the country's population.

The other 99 per cent of the population receive the remaining 20 per cent of the oil and gas revenues, leaving Nigeria with the second lowest per capita oil export earnings put at $212 (N28,408) per person in 2004.

The 2004 per capita earning when compared to $589 per person earned in 1980, the peak year for Nigerian oil export revenues (in inflation-adjusted terms) shows a decline of more than 50 per cent. A recent survey conducted by an anti corruption watchdog, Transparency International (TI) disclosed that oil wealth is often a breeding ground for corruption while estimating that billions of dollars are lost to bribery in public purchasing with the Nigerian oil sector among other nations as a particular problem.

Mr. Eigen, a spokesman for TI, explained that in some oil producing countries including Nigeria, public contracting in the oil sector is plagued by revenues disappearing into the pockets of Western oil executives, middlemen and government officials. "As the Corruption Perceptions Index 2004 shows, oil-rich Angola, Azerbaijan, Chad, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen all have extremely low scores," said Mr. Eigen.

Mr. Eigen pointed out that oil companies could help check corruption in the sector by ensuring that they publish details of the payments made to governments and state-controlled oil firms, periodically.

"Access to this vital information will minimise opportunities for hiding the payment of kickbacks to secure oil tenders, a practice that has blighted the oil industry in transition and post-war economies," Mr. Eigen said.

However, another dimension to the frittering away of oil and gas resources in Nigeria is the incidence of crude oil theft which is currently put at over 100,000 barrels per day, with state officials accusing faceless highly placed Nigerians of being the masterminds.

While upstream oil industry operators continue to lament the rising incidence and its impact on their operations, government has shown it is incapable of checking the trend with its security agencies bandying blame over complicity.

Probes revealed that the oil war lords operating in the Niger Delta area have also been engaged in illegal bunkering activities and an official in the presidency had disclosed that at a meeting brokered to discuss peace in the area, one of them had asked that he be allowed to carry on illegal bunkering activities unhindered.

While further probes indicate that the presidency may have reserved its response to the war lord's request to avert aggravating an already tense situation in the Niger Delta, there are indications that illegal bunkering activities will continue without a firm response from government.

OPEC projection indicates that Nigeria's net oil export revenues are expected to increase 29 per cent or to $27 billion in 2004, compared to $20.9 billion in 2003 and $16.5 billion in 2002.

This represents a big increase from 1998, when the country earned less than $9 billion amidst a period of political and social turmoil.

However, there are indications that given the rising prices of crude oil in the international market and increased oil exports, Nigeria could net over 33 per cent or $32 billion in oil export revenues by the end of this fiscal year. Nigeria's real GDP is estimated to have grown by 4.2 per cent in 2003, with forecast growth of 3.6 per cent in 2004 and 3.1 per cent in 2005. Although Nigeria was expected to export around 2.2 million barrels per day of crude oil in 2004, up from the 1.9 million barrels per day it exported in 2003, the country began exporting over 2.5million barrels per day since the beginning of the third quarter.

Nigeria's 2004 budget reportedly is based on an assumption of $23 per barrel (for Nigerian oil), about $11 per barrel below EIA's oil price forecast for Nigeria for 2004. However, Nigeria's sweet crude prices have averaged about $40 per barrel this year.

Nigerians on Trial in Coup Plot Demand Evidence By VOA News

28 October 2004

Lawyers for at least three Nigerians charged with plotting a coup against the government have demanded prosecutors hand over all evidence against their clients.

The lawyers said Thursday the state has failed to provide them with much of the evidence that allegedly implicates the men.

In response, the prosecution asked for more time to study the defense's application and the judge adjourned the trial until November 15.

At least three Nigerians, including the former security chief to late dictator Sani Abacha are accused of plotting to shoot down President Olusegun Obasanjo's helicopter and overthrow his government.

Reuters news agency says the government has dropped charges against two additional men.

Some information for this story provided by AP and Reuters.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2004-10-28-voa52.cfm

BACKGROUND:-----------------------------------

Nigerian coup revealed, plotters charged with treason

Lagos: The Nigerian government for the first time yesterday publicly disclosed a foiled coup plot, charging four military officers and a civilian with conspiring to topple the government by shooting down a helicopter carrying President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Maj Hamza al-Mustapha, former chief of personal security to late military dictator Gen Sani Abacha, and four others, were each charged with two counts of treason in a federal high court in Lagos. If convicted, all five could face the death penalty.

Abacha was the last in a line of military dictators who have repeatedly seized power in Nigeria, which has known only 15 years of democracy since independence from Britain in 1960.

The years of often corrupt and dictatorial rule have left Nigeria destitute, despite the fact that it is Africa's largest oil producer.

According to court documents released yesterday, the military officers engaged in a conspiracy "for the purpose of overthrowing the Federal Government of Nigeria by force of arms" and had sought to buy a "Stinger surface-to-air missile to be used in shooting down the president's helicopter with the president on board".

The documents did not say when the attack was to take place, but the three of the five charged yesterday were among dozens of military officers arrested and interrogated by Nigeria's security agencies in April over what the government described at the time as "a security breach".

Al-Mustapha, who has been in detention since 1999 over a series of assassinations of political opponents during Abacha's years in power, was questioned in April by military intelligence officials in connection with the security breach.

Al-Mustapha, Lt Col Moham-med ibn Umar Adeka and civilian Onwuchekwa Okorie pleaded not guilty.

Two other suspects - Navy Cmdr Yakubu Kudambo, who escaped following his April arrest, and Lt Tijani Abdallah - remain at large and were charged in absentia.

Judge Dan Abutu set the next hearing date for October 28 and ordered the accused to remain in military custody. - Sapa-AP

Published on the web by Daily News on October 22, 2004.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=501&fArticleId=2271117

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Charges over Nigerian coup plot

Three military officers and a businessman have been charged with plotting to assassinate President Olusegun Obasanjo by shooting down his helicopter.

Best known is Major Hamza al-Mustapha, the former security chief under late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha.

Despite being in custody over a murder case, the prosecution allege he held prison meetings to plot the coup.

The men pleaded not guilty to treason.

Rumours

The charges are the first official confirmation of a coup plot after months of speculation in Nigeria about an incident described by the government in April as a "serious breach of national security".

All troops were recalled to barracks and all leave cancelled when the reports first emerged.

Court documents accuse Major Mustapha of financing efforts to buy "a Stinger surface-to-air missile to be used in shooting down the president's helicopter with the president on board."

Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 - following years of military dictatorship.

Major Mustapha has been in prison since then - accused of the attempted murder of a newspaper proprietor who criticised the Abacha regime.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/3764112.stm

Published: 2004/10/21 16:08:17 GMT

----------------------------------------------

NIGERIA: Five charged with planning to shoot down Obasanjo's helicopter

22 Oct 2004 15:46:15 GMT

Source: IRIN

LAGOS, 22 October (IRIN) - Four military officers and a civilian have been charged with plotting to kill Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo by shooting down his helicopter with a missile.

Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, the former head of personal security of the late military ruler Sani Abacha, Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Umar Adeka and a civilian, Onwuchekwa Okorie, appeared at the federal high court in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos on Thursday to face two count charges each of treason.

All three men pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Two other military officers, Navy Commander Yakubu Kudambo and Lieutenant Tijani Abdallah, were charged in absentia.

All five could face execution by firing squad if convicted of the alleged offences.

According to the charges, Al-Mustapha gave various sums of money through Okorie to Abdallah between November 2002 and March 2004 "for the purpose of purchasing a Stinger surface-to-air missile to be used in shooting down the President's helicopter with the President on board".

Abdallah subsequently made several trips to Togo and Cote d'Ivoire in an effort to acquire the US-made shoulder-fired missile, the charge sheet said.

Meanwhile, Kudambo prepared the draft of a coup speech outlining a new regime to replace Obasanjo's elected government, it added.

After the charges were read out and the pleas were entered, presiding judge Daniel Abutu ordered the accused to be remanded in military custody.

He then adjourned the case until 28 October.

Thursday's court appearance constituted the government's first blunt admission that a coup plot against Obasanjo had been uncovered since dozens of military officers were arrested and interrogated in April this year.

At the same time, Al-Mustapha, who had been in detention since 1999 in connection with the murder of several opponents of General Abacha, was transferred from prison to the custody of the Directorate of Military Intelligence.

There he was made to answer questions over what the government described at the time as "a security breach".

Abacha seized power in 1993 and ruled Nigeria with an iron fist until his sudden death from apparent heart attack in June 1998.

Abacha, who is generally viewed as one of the most corrupt rulers in Nigeria's history, jailed Obasanjo for 15 years for plotting to topple his regime.

General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who was the most senior military officer at the time of Abacha's death, succeeded him as head of state.

Abubakar rapidly initiated reforms to return Nigeria to elected government after 15 years of military rule.

He freed Obasanjo from jail and Obasanjo, a retired army general who served an earlier stint as military head of state between 1976 and 1979, went on to contest and win the presidential elections of 2000. He was re-elected for a second four-year term in April last year.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/6b32b8f703315d1b31543079457ecdcb.htm

Nigeria: Let US Build Together, Catholic Cleric Urges Muslims

Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)

NEWS

November 3, 2004

Posted to the web November 3, 2004

Nairobi

A Catholic cleric in Nigeria has sent a goodwill message to Muslims during their month of fasting, urging that both Muslims and Christians work together to build their "ailing" nation.

Fr Felix Femi Ajakaye, Director of Social Communications at the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria, said in his greetings that no one should use religion to foment trouble.

The Holy Month of Ramadhan began on October 14, and ends on November 15, 2004, with a public holiday in some countries, including Kenya.

"During this year's Ramadhan, both Muslims and non-Muslims, particularly Christians, are to be united in words and deeds in their prayers to fashion out ways of healing our ailing country, Nigeria," Fr Ajakaye told CISA.

"Undoubtedly, both Islam and Christianity have their members as majority in government, but generally, life has continued to be unbearable for the citizens," said the cleric. "Daily, people are losing faith in the government because of its many inconsistencies and lack of credibility."

Therefore, he concluded, there is need for sincerity of purpose, if any meaningful development is to take place in Nigeria or in any society.

He pointed out that shortly after the Muslims end their month of fasting, Christians will be preparing for Christmas: "It is indeed remarkable too that just after the month of Ramadan this year, we get into the mood of Christmas. . . the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace."

"We should then use this opportunity to retrace our steps in the light of seeking for true peace in Nigeria. We have to be genuine in preaching peaceful co-existence, rather than fomenting trouble in the name of religion," he explained.

Fr Ajakaye said that in times of crisis, "be it religious or ethnic, it is the poor people, particularly women and children, who are always at the receiving end. During and after this important period of Ramadan, let us tread on the path of new life where there will be no room for injustice, corruption, deception, violence, destruction of lives and property."

http://allafrica.com/stories/200411030500.html

Woman sentenced to be stoned appeals

Rory Carroll, Africa correspondent

Thursday November 4, 2004

The Guardian

A lawyer for a woman sentenced to be stoned appealed before an Islamic court in northern Nigeria yesterday against her conviction for adultery.

Daso Adamu, 25, contested her conviction on the basis that the father of her six-month-old child was a husband she divorced in 2001. Her lawyer, Abdulkadir Suleiman, argued that sharia law allowed for five years between conception and birth, and that the conception could thus be considered to have taken place during her marriage, Associated Press reported.

The court in Ningi village in Bauchi state was expected to rule next month. If the conviction handed down in September is upheld, Ms Adamu can make a second appeal to a higher court. The state governor's consent is then needed; no such execution has ever gone ahead.

According to her lawyer, Ms Adamu had confessed to adultery (a capital offence under sharia law) only because the former husband made it a condition of his remarrying her. After admitting having had sex with the 35-year-old man 12 times, she was briefly jailed with her baby. At the same time as she was convicted, a pregnant woman in the Tafawa Balewa area of Bauchi state, Hajara Ibrahim, was convicted of adultery, with her capital sentence suspended until after she gave birth. Yesterday Ms Ibrahim lodged an appeal in the Dass upper sharia court; its judgment is due on November 10.

Since 12 northern states introduced sharia law in 2000 there have been at least 10 death sentences; only one, the hanging of a murderer, is known to have been carried out. Of dozens of people sentenced to amputations for stealing, three have lost limbs. There have been no amputations for three years, reflecting a trend towards successful appeals and an ebbing in the enforcement of sharia law.

President Olusegun Obasanjo openly disapproves of a brand of justice which divides Africa's most populous country, a volatile balance of around 130 million Muslims and Christians which periodically flares in religious riots.

Appeal judges and state governors have proved reluctant to sanction stonings, floggings and amputations in the face of outcries from the federal government and foreigners, and also because the political value of such sentences has dwindled. Analysts attributed the rise of sharia partly to northern politicians seeking to tap Muslim discontent with Christian elites and a slow, corrupt judicial system. As those politicians became less popular, so did the sharia they championed.

The New York-based group Human Rights Watch warned in a report last September that sharia was being abused, and infringed human rights.

Suspects were often tortured into confessing, lacked legal representation and faced judges who did not inform them of their rights, claimed the report. Women especially were vulnerable since pregnancy could be evidence of adultery, an accusation that male suspects shrug off.

"State governments and sharia courts have not only failed to respect international human rights standards, they have also disregarded what many Muslims argue are key principles of sharia itself," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa division.

"They have concentrated on the harsh aspects of Islamic law while ignoring its principles of generosity and compassion."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1342657,00.html

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

November 11, 2004

Posted to the web November 12, 2004

By Josephine Lohor, Joseph Ushigiale and Charles Onyekamuo

Abuja/Awka

Obasanjo convenes security council meeting

The state of anarchy which was re-enacted in Anambra State on Wednesday continued yesterday as about seven persons were feared killed and strategic government buildings including the Governor's Office, State House of Assembly and state broadcasting houses in both Awka and Onitsha were burnt.

In an apparent reaction to the resumed violence in the state, President Olusegun Obasanjo will today meet with the nation's security chiefs in Abuja to deliberate on the issue.

Like Wednesday's attack during which hoodlums torched two radio stations, burnt the gate of the Government House and the Anambra State Independent Electoral Commission (ANSIEC) building, vandalised several vehicles, the hoodlums yesterday targeted strategic buildings belonging to all the three arms of government in the state.

The group of invaders were said to have entered Awka yesterday morning from Onitsha where they had burnt down the Anambra television station.

Mr. Martins Uzeh who identified himself as an ex-officio member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Onitsha South said yesterday that he and some members were holding a meeting at the council secretariat when the hoodlums stormed the area and shot seven people.

He said the incident had been reported to the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Ogbaudu. He said the corpses had been deposited in an undisclosed hospital morgue.

Though there was no official police confirmation, a senior police officer at the state command who craved anonymity said the police received the report of the deaths in Onitsha but that investigation showed that only one person died while some other people were wounded.

Uzeh said the daring youths regrouped and headed for Awka, the state capital after leaving Onitsha. At Awka, the party consisting of youths between the ages of 18 and 25 numbering over 300 went straight to the Governor's Office and torched a section of the building.

They also set ablaze the office of the permanent secretary in the Government House, Mr. Uche Udedibia, located opposite the Governor's Office.

From there they left for the House of Assembly building and the judiciary complex adjacent to it where they also wrecked havoc.

Dr. Alex Ekwueme park in Awka was also set ablaze.

The hoodlums made bonfires around the Aroma Junction on the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway and shot sporadically into the air. People within the junction and its environs scampered for safety while the invaders had a field day. They danced, smoked and beat their drums unmolested.

The group of gun-totting youths also armed with matchets and axes later headed to the Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS) building close-by and set it on fire.

They also burnt down the government owned Ikenga Hotels and the Women Development Centre, located some two kilometres away from the ABS station.

Members of the Anambra State House of Assembly had as at yesterday afternoon taken to their heels leaving their quarters at the Iyi-Agu estate to appear like a ghost town. But the majority leader, Mr. Ozo Ughamadu, said that before they left, the legislators met at the house of the Speaker, Mr. Mike Balonwu, with the mace and reviewed the situation.

He denied that the state was in crisis. The attackers came from outside the state to attack people and vandalise properties.

He accused those he called members of the Uba group of using the PDP rally to flag-off the campaign for the December 18 council polls to cause mayhem so that a state of emergency would be declared.

Also, Governor Chris Ngige speaking through his aide, Mr. Fred Chukwuelobe, said his absence from Awka was not in connection with the on-going mayhem and should not be interpreted to mean that he has abdicated his responsibilities.

He explained that he is still in Abuja to straighten out some undisclosed issues with Federal Government officials. He has however not given a date for his return.

The security meeting called at the instance of President Obasanjo was scheduled after Ngige came to the State House yesterday afternoon to report to the President that there was a security problem in his state.

Those expected to attend today's meeting are the National Security Adviser, Lt. General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, Inspector General of Police, Balogun, Ngige and other security chiefs.

The Senior Special Assistant on Media Matters to the President, Mrs. Oluremi Oyo, who disclosed the news of the security meeting while briefing State House Correspondents yesterday stated that "President Obasanjo has called for a high-level security meeting tomorrow morning (today), to discuss the security situation in Anambra. The decision followed the briefing that he got this afternoon, (yesterday) from Governor Ngige."

"It was for this that the President ordered this urgent security meeting on the situation because it is essentially a security problem.

"I want to place on record that the President has met several times with all those who are stakeholders in Anambra. I am not talking of the era of former Governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju. I am talking of the era of this current governor."

Oyo added that "the President has done all that is humanly possible and has spoken several times. He has held separate and joint meetings with all the stakeholders in Anambra. It is in continuation of his responsibility to the country and to the people of Anambra and their government that he has again set to have this meeting," Oyo stated.

Meanwhile, the eldest son of the late Owelle of Onitsha, Chief Chukwuma Azikiwe has implored the Ngige and Uba factions of the PDP to embrace dialogue.

Azikiwe, who regretted that the sudden outbreak of fresh violence in the state capital has caused the postponement of this year's Zik annual lecture, said the postponement was necessary in order not to jeopardise the safety of visitors to the event.

On whether the activities of the hoodlums have caused sufficient breakdown of law and order in the state to warrant the imposition of a state of emergency, Azikiwe said "none of the conditions exists for now. What we have is a random act of destruction being perpetrated by some hoodlums who can be arrested by law enforcement agents."

However the Anambra State police command has stated that the situation in the state capital has returned to normal. The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Kolapo Shofoluwe insisted that not only is the police capable of handling the situation, it has brought the mayhem under control.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200411120380.html

Nigeria oil delta polls delayed amid violence fear

26 Nov 2004 17:58:50 GMT

Source: Reuters

(Recasts with elections postponed)

By Dino Mahtani

LAGOS, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Nigeria postponed local government elections set for Saturday in the Niger Delta oil city of Warri for "logistical reasons" amid fears vote rigging in favour of one ethnic group could provoke violence.

The poll in three Warri local government areas was first postponed in March because of fears of violence by members of the Ijaw ethnic group, who complain they have been deprived of political power by their rivals, the Itsekiri.

"The election has been postponed until next Thursday. They will definitely take place at this later stage," said James Omo-Agege, chairman of the Delta State Independent Electoral Commission late on Friday.

An uprising by the Ijaw last year temporarily forced multinationals to shut down 40 percent of the OPEC nation's 2.5 million barrel-per-day oil output and prompted the deployment of thousands of troops to the wetlands around Warri.

Election officials said the ruling People's Democratic Party, which has been accused by independent observers of widespread rigging in previous polls, had not yet published any candidate lists a day before the election was due to be held.

The Ijaw are in a majority in the Niger Delta, and outnumber the Itsekiri even in the three Warri areas, but Ijaw leaders say the PDP intends to field only Itsekiri candidates as chairmen of the Warri local governments.

These offices are keenly contested because they have access to a slice of Nigerian oil revenue and power over who gets government contracts in the area.

"They are trying to cut the Ijaw people out of governance despite sourcing the wealth from our lands. We will take mass action in the name of democracy," said Bello Oboko, president of the Federated Niger Delta Ijaw Communities.

Political rivalry between the Ijaw and Itsekiri around Warri exploded into violence in 1997 when the state handed the Itsekiri control over the Warri South-West local government area by creating additional electoral wards.

Fighting reached a new peak last year in the run-up to general elections, when the Ijaw staged a broad-based revolt against the Itsekiri, the government and foreign multinationals, sabotaging oil wells and cutting off supply to world markets.

The three local governments have been administered by bureaucrats since then.

THREAT TO OIL FACILITIES

The rising political temperature in Warri, in the western side of the delta, follows a crisis in the eastern delta in September when a militant Ijaw group threatened to blow up oil facilities in a dispute over oil money and political power.

Militant leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari has since withdrawn his threats and a fragile ceasefire holds in the eastern delta.

Western diplomats say President Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a former military ruler, has failed to live up to hopes for clean democratic governance since his 1999 election which ended 15 years of military dictatorship.

The U.S State Department said last year's general elections were "marred by serious irregularities and fraud, including political violence".

Local government elections in March were subject to widespread fraud, according to monitors, and violence which killed at least 100 people across Africa's most populous nation.

At least 11,000 people have been killed in political, tribal or religious violence since Obasanjo took office.

(Additional reporting by Tom Ashby)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L26328779.htm

$100m Claim: Senate Threatens Shell Officials With Arrest

Vanguard (Lagos)

December 8, 2004

Posted to the web December 8, 2004

Emmanuel Aziken

Abuja

THE Senate Committee on Downstream Petroleum has threatened legal officials of Shell Petroleum Development Compnay with arrest should they continue to keep away from defending a $100 million (N13.5 billion) claim made against the multinational by the Ogoni community in Rivers State for a 1993 oil spillage.

The threat came on a day Total Nigeria Limited passed the buck on the circumstances surrounding the turn around maintenance of the Kaduna refinery to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

At an appearance before the Senate Committee on Downstream Petroleum, Mr. Christian de Closieres, the Managing Director of Total Nigeria said its obligations and responsibilities in the $214.98 million contract which it supervised ended in August 2003 when it transferred its rights and obligations to the NNPC.

The Senate's threat against Shell came when its legal team failed to appear in defence of the $100 million claim instituted by the Ogoni community following the 1993 spillage from a Shell oil pipeline. The claim is in respect of loss of earnings for 11 years to 87,000 citizens and immediate soil treatments to enable the petitioners move back to their farmlands which they said had become unproductive since the spillage.

The Shell team at yesterday's session led by Chief Larry Ossai, the company's top government liaison officer had rendered an apology on behalf of the legal team who he said missed their flight connections from Lagos.

Committee chairman, Senator Emmanuel Azu Agboti was, however, not convinced saying: "If your lawyers fail for any reason to honour our invitation, we will issue a warrant of arrest. We have done it before. We need your legal advisers to answer the questions. Now that they are not here, it does not make any reason continuing with this issue."

Senator Agboti, before drawing the session to a close charged Shell to boost its rank of indigenous workers among local communities in its production areas.

"We may recommend that when you people appoint people to oversee a community, let it be people from that community so that they can negotiate properly with the local chiefs," Senator Agboti urged.

more

http://allafrica.com/stories/200412080714.html

Dose of Prevention Where HIV Thrives

Nigerian Brothel Test Site for New Pill

By Craig Timberg

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, December 22, 2004; Page A15

IBADAN, Nigeria -- Crude paintings of women and rows of dimly lit bedrooms make clear the purpose of a shabby building just off a main road in this sprawling city. But for the next year, this brothel will have another function as well: testing a drug that could help stop HIV infections before they begin.

About 125 prostitutes here are pioneers in a U.S.-funded study that will ultimately involve 5,000 volunteers in seven nations. The study seeks to determine whether a single daily dose of an AIDS drug called Tenofovir can prevent infection from taking hold in healthy people, the way birth control pills prevent conception.

If the pills work -- and if such high-risk groups as prostitutes, soldiers and truck drivers can be persuaded to take a pill every day even though they are not sick -- researchers said it could slow a disease that is devastating Africa and much of the developing world. There are roughly 40 million people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and there were 5 million newly infected people in 2003, according to the United Nations.

more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17899-2004Dec21.html

Last Update: Thursday, December 30, 2004. 11:00pm (AEDT)

Nigeria buys 15 patrol boats to combat oil theft

Nigeria has bought 15 new patrol boats from the United States to help Africa's top oil producer crack down on rampant theft of crude from its coastal oilfields, a navy spokesman says.

The boats have a top speed of 50 knots and will be deployed across Nigeria's coastline and in the vast networks of waterways of the Niger Delta, which pumps most of Nigeria's 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude.

"They will be used in the creeks and in the high seas to stop such illegal activity. They are rugged boats, with good communication facilities and capable of inflicting damage," said navy spokesman Sinebi Hungiapuko.

Four of the boats should be delivered by the middle of January and the rest by the end of 2005, he said.

OPEC member Nigeria is the world's eighth largest exporter of oil and fifth largest exporter to the United States.

Oil industry officials say up to 100,000 bpd of Nigeria's crude is siphoned off by criminal gangs who use the proceeds to fuel ethnic warfare in the Delta.

more at:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1274364.htm

Shell Oil Slowly Resumes Production in Nigeria By Nico Colombant

Abidjan

07-January-2005 1401

Colombant report - Download 517k

Listen to Colombant report  

The Anglo-Dutch oil company, Shell, is slowly resuming production at several flow stations in Nigeria that were recently shut down by angry villagers.  Oil industry analysts in Nigeria say little is being done to prevent such protests from recurring.

Officials from Shell say repairs are ongoing at several of the flow stations vandalized during the recent protests near the southern fishing village of Kula, and that full production will not be reached before next week.

They say cargoes to be loaded at export terminals will continue to run more than one-week late throughout the month.

A Lagos-based oil industry researcher, Bismarck Rewane, says the protest, which began December fifth and also targeted U.S. giant Chevron, proved the vulnerability of oil companies.

"What has happened here is that if Shell has shut down 100,000 barrels a day for some time and Chevron shut down 20,000 barrels of oil for some time," he said.  " Nobody wants to do that.  If I can shut you down for one week today, what makes you think, I cannot shut you down for one month next time?  You can adopt the approach of buying time and say, `OK we have gotten away with it.'  How are you sure you will get away with it in the future?"

Mr. Rewane says that unlike most attacks on oil interests in Nigeria, this was not an ethnically-based struggle over local political power, but simply a community trying to have their grievances heard.

"These clashes are symptoms of a much more fundamental problem," he noted.  "And as we go further in this democratic experiment we are going to have more of these clashes until the fundamental issues are addressed, these symptoms are going to continue to erupt."

Mr. Rewane says issues include the poor sharing of national oil wealth as communities near drilling areas have fewer roads, hospitals, and schools than areas where there is no oil.  He also says because local elections are controlled by armed militias, there is little government accountability.

Leaders of the Kula fishing community said their protest, thousands of villagers storming several flow stations, were staged to seek micro-credit programs, protection for their fishing waters and better infrastructure.  They decided to completely end their protest earlier this week after being promised formal negotiations on their demands.

Officials from Shell refused to disclose details of any deal, saying a memorandum of understanding was signed between the community and the Rivers State government, which intervened in the crisis.

Another Lagos-based industry analyst, Bode Olufemi, says the Kula community should not be too hopeful about progress.

"We are not in any way excited because going by the antecedents of the oil companies in Nigeria they are known to breach agreements," he said.  "They never keep agreements.  They operate in a way by which they do not want to respect the local communities.  All they are concerned with is profit, profit and oil."

Mr. Olufemi says communities are confronted with environmental hazards that would not be accepted elsewhere, such as continual gas flares, even throughout the night, forcing many villagers to be uprooted.

"Because here, they can always lobby the politicians, the people in government and they keep on shifting dates to end gas flaring," he added.  "Elsewhere in the world, particularly in the developed parts of the world, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, they do not do that.  You do not just go to a community in the developed parts of the world and you chase them away and tell them that you have signed agreements with the government and that nothing is done to rehabilitate these communities."

Oil companies deny they mistreat villagers, saying they bring jobs and economic activity to production areas.

The Niger Delta where the Kula village is located accounts for nearly all of Nigeria's two-point-five-million barrels of daily exports.  Nigeria ranks among the world's top-10 oil exporters, with most of its crude oil going to the United States.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-01-07-voa25.cfm

NIGERIA: Residents accuse soldiers of burning rural delta town, killing 30

PORT HARCOURT, 24 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - Residents in a rural town in the southern Niger Delta said government troops killed at least 30 people and torched houses during a raid carried out as part of investigations into an oil dispute between two local communities.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45770&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIG
ERIA

Obasanjo: Conference'll Remove Immunity

This Day (Lagos)

NEWS

March 16, 2005

Posted to the web March 16, 2005

By Femi Solaja

Lagos

President Olusegun Oba-sanjo yesterday in London said the National Political Reforms Conference holding in Abuja will remove Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution which guarantees immunity from criminal prosecution for the president, vice president, governors and their deputies out of the nation's legal system.

Obasanjo who was briefing newsmen on the activities of his administration to reposition the country said his government was bent on tackling corruption and any law which shields excesses of government officials will not survive the current efforts to draft a new constitution for the nation.

He said the situation where some public officials siphon public funds abroad is being tackled and that the government expected support from the international community in this direction.

According to him , "we are well on course with the Political Reform Conference and I believe the conference will help us to remove the immunity that we have in our constitution which says that an elected president, governor and so on cannot be charged for any criminal offence."

He said that there are other laws such as declaration of assets by public officials to check corruption. Obasanjo also noted that efforts to recover Nigeria's stolen funds stashed abroad have not been wasted, adding that the British authority can do more in assisting the country in the recovery of dirty money in their banks.

more

http://allafrica.com/stories/200503160395.html