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BNW News Wrap Up for
But an Abuja High Court judge, Lawal
Gumi, decided yesterday that as the offences had not taken place in Three of the suspects -- banker
Emmanuel Nwude, housewife Amaka Anajemba and businessman Nzeribe Okoli -- faced
charges they duped a corrupt Brazilian bank official into sending them 190
million dollars of his employer's cash.
Following the classic tactics, the accused are said to have contacted the
Brazilian and offered him kickbacks on the contract to build The money was siphoned out of Banco
Nordeste of Sao Paolo between 1995 and 1998. When the bank eventually collapsed
in 2001, British investigators found a 242 million dollar black hole in its
accounts. Two more Nigerians, lawyers Ammanuel Ofolue and Obum Osakwe, were
also on trial accused of seeking to bribe EFCC investigators to drop the probe. But in a further blow to the
prosecution, Gumi ruled that the EFCC had no right to investigate bribes to
public officials, that being the job of the Independent Corrupt Practices
Commission, another new anti-graft body. RadioPalmwine.com The federal government is determined to complete the main parts of
its privatisation programme by the end of the current presidential term in
2007, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar said yesterday.In an interview in London, he said it had the commitment and
political will to press ahead with privatisation in the power,
telecommunications, oil, gas and petrochemical industries as soon as it
obtained parliamentary support. Abubakar, who chairs the National Council on Privatisation, made clear
the government was counting on foreign partners, since Nigerian corporations
were unlikely to have the capacity to absorb such large businesses. Responding
to recent World Bank criticism about the pace of privatisation, he admitted
there had been "some slowdown" following top management changes last
year at the Bureau of Public Enterprises. The next step in reforms would be to
"right-size" public services, which he reckoned employed about three
times as many people as necessary. The total public service workforce is
estimated at between 800,000 and 1.2m. "Some resistance" could be
expected, but cuts would be calculated to avoid a "head-on collision"
with labour unions, he said. Abubakar
said he intended to play a "very central" role in the economic reform
programme, aimed at stimulating an active private sector, diversifying the
oil-dependent economy and improving governance standards. He forecast that high oil prices
would enable the government to meet its 5 per cent growth objective this year.
Extra oil revenues would not be used to finance the government deficit, which
he expected to be on target at 2 per cent of gross domestic product this year,
leading to a balanced budget next year.
Abubakar is a leading candidate to succeed President Olusegun Obasanjo at
the end of his current second term. Under an unwritten agreement, the next
president must come, like Abubakar, from the predominantly Muslim north. However, many observers question
whether the 57-year-old Abubakar, who
created a business empire after a career in customs and excise, would be in a
position to tackle deep-rooted corruption. He defended the government's record
on public standards in the last five years. "No other government in the
history of our country has confronted corruption and accountability like this
one."But he admitted the investigative process had been slow in obtaining
convictions. CYBERSCHUULLNEWS V-Mobile bids to calm
fears of 'killer numbers' Nigerian mobile telephone firm
V-Mobile yesterday sought to quash a widespread rumour that users answering
calls from two "killer numbers" had been struck dead on the spot.
Over the weekend
"This is an absolute hoax ...
ignore it," Emeka Oparah, a spokesman for V-mobile, the country's second
largest GSM provider, said in a statement. "We wish to state categorically
that from an engineering point of view, it is absolutely impracticable, and
there is no such record whatsoever anywhere in the world, that anyone has died
or can die from merely receiving or making a phone call on GSM or any other
telecommunications platform", it said. While the first number belongs to a
V-mobile subscriber, the second number is not registered on the network, said
Oparah. Nigeria Today Online attempted to call both numbers but was unable to
get through to anyone. It was not clear if this was a result of Yesterday, a caller to a Obasanjo promises to
protect foreign oil majors from attacks President Olusegun Obasanjo
yesterday promised to protect foreign oil majors from piracy and militant
attacks in the restless Niger Delta, according to a statement from his office. In April this year two US oil
workers, subcontractors for the Houston-based giant ChevronTexaco, were shot
dead near the disputed port city of Warri, where for several months last year
production was halted amid ethnic violence. "President Obasanjo ... gave
an assurance that his government would continue to ensure the security of lives
and property, including oil installations in the Niger Delta," the
statement said.
"He said his government would
also strengthen measures to curb crude oil theft," it said. Obasanjo was
speaking as he welcomed a delegation from Shell --
Since last March's fighting in the
delta swamp west of Warri, Obasanjo's government has sent thousands of heavily
armed troops into the delta in a bid to bring the gangs under control. But the
profits of siphoning crude oil out of illegally tapped pipelines have allowed
local policticians and corrupt business leaders to buy military weapons for the
gangs, who continue to operate freely in many areas.
In the swamps west of the oil city
of Port Harcout a band of fighters who claim to be fighting for the
independence of the Ijaw ethnic group have taken control of several villages,
and gunfights regularly erupt in the city itself. Kano State has agreed to immediately restart a suspended
vaccination drive, its governor announced yesterday. Kano State had halted a
UN-backed campaign to protect millions of Nigerian children against the
crippling virus in August after Islamic clerics alleged the vaccine had been
contaminated in a plot to make African girls infertile.
But yesterday the state governor,
Ibrahim Shekarau, told reporters that local tests on a new batch of vaccine
from mainly-Muslim Indonesia had proved it to be safe, and that innoculation
would resume rapidly. "Our
committee of experts has confirmed that substances found in the polio vaccine
are not harmful and will not lead to infertility at all," he told a news
conference at his government headquarters.
"In view of all the processes
we've undertaken, our government has accepted the report of this committee, and
hence our decision to direct the resumption of the vaccination programme
without delay," he added. Kano was the last Nigerian state still opposed
to polio vaccination, other regions have this year already taken part in a
large-scale immunisation drive. Shekarau said that he had instructed his health
ministry to work with federal health officials to restart the programme, and
that the Abuja government had promised to buy only Indonesian polio vaccine.
The United Nations children's agency
UNICEF -- one of the bodies leading a 16-year-old global drive to eradicate
polio by the end of 2004 -- welcomed the decision. "It's a great day for Nigeria. The
country can now fight polio as a united force, and has a unique opportunity to
spare future generations from this crippling disease," UNICEF spokesman
Gerrit Beger said.
Shekarau's earlier decision to
prevent the innoculation of infants in Kano, the teeming commercial capital of
Nigeria's Muslim north, had been criticised by international health
officials. The World Health Organisation
and UNICEF said that polio, which they had hoped to eradicate globally by the
end of the year, had spread from Nigeria to other African countries once
regarded as safe from the disease. With 257 cases, Nigeria now has more than
three-quarters the world's active polio infections, which strikes babies and
toddlers and leaves them with permanently withered or lifeless limbs, the UN
agencies say.
Forty-four new cases of polio
believed to be linked to the Kano outbreak have been recorded elsewhere in
Africa, as far away as Botswana. Health
officials have been particularly concerned about a case of polio detected in
the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where militia attacks have forced
hundreds of thousands of refugees from their homes. They fear the illness,
which usually strikes children under three, could spread rapidly in refugee
camps both in Sudan and in neighbouring Chad.
Within Nigeria there are also fears
that the onset of heavy annual rains, which are due to last until September,
would further increase what is already the fastest ever recorded rate of polio
transmission. In March this year alone, 85 Nigerian children were struck down
by the virus. Experts believe that for every victim hit by polio symptoms,
between 200 and 300 more children carry the virus.
In Kano last year influential Muslim
preachers claimed that the vaccines being distributed were laced with chemicals
designed to leave girls sterile, part of an alleged plot hatched by the United
States to depopulate Africa. 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 country in Asia,
finally selecting Indonesia. http://www.nigeria-friends.com Nigeria & Benin meet
to re-draw common border Officials from Nigeria and Benin met
yesterday to discuss redrawing the two neighbours' land and maritime borders. "There are about three Nigerian villages
and towns administered by Benin while there are about seven such villages in
Nigeria which ought to be under the sovereignty of Benin," said Charles
Dafe, spokesman for Nigeria's National Boundary Commission.
The Nigeria-Benin joint border
commission said in a statement that the re-demarcation was necessary because
most of the boundary markers used in 1912 and 1914, when Benin and Nigeria were
still under colonial rule, are missing. Benin was a French colony while Nigeria
was ruled by Britain until 1960. Most of the outstanding issues in
the 770 kilometre-long (481 miles) border have been resolved, leaving "a
few grey areas" for the commission to iron out ahead of an
inter-ministerial meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Dafe said. "The discussions and various joint
technical and field meetings held to resolve the grey areas have been cordial
and fruitful," said Dafe. US warns citizens on
travel to Nigeria The US State Department yesterday
warned US citizens that violence,
kidnapping and transportation make Nigeria a dangerous travel
destination."Conditions in Nigeria pose considerable risks to
travelers," the State Department said. "Violent crime committed by
ordinary criminals, as well as by persons in police and military uniforms, can
occur throughout the country."
"Kidnapping for ransom of
persons associated with the petroleum sector, including US citizens, remains
common in the Niger Delta area. Religious tension between some Muslim and
Christian communities results in occasional acts of isolated communal violence
that could erupt quickly and without warning," the statement said.
"US citizens should contact the
US Embassy in Abuja or the US consulate general in Lagos for up-to-date
information on these restrictions. "Use of public transportation
throughout Nigeria can be dangerous and should be avoided," the State
Department said. Many US citizens have been victims of fraudulent business
deals. Invitations to visit Nigeria without a visa usually indicate illegal
activity, the State Department warned. In Brief Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji has
accused foreign embassies in the country of "deliberately and
consistently" denying visas to Nigerians who have genuine business to do
abroad. Specifically mentioning the Embassy of the United States of America and
the British High Commission, Adeniji said their activities were
"unbecoming, unacceptable and even embarrassing to the Nigerian
nation". Receiving the new British Ambassador to Nigeria, Richard Gozmay,
in his office in Abuja, Adeniji said: "I must register this protest on
behalf of Nigerians to you because it has reached an alarming rate. Oil giant Shell has appointed a
Nigerian to head its operations for the first time since the company started
business in the country about 50 years ago.
Basil Omiyi, 58, will assume the chief executive position in Nigeria
with effect from September 1 2004. Omiyi will take over from Chris Finlayson, who has been appointed Chief
Executive Officer of Shell Exploration and Production in Africa. Omiyi joined
Shell 24 years ago as a petroleum engineer. He has worked in Nigeria, the UK and Holland and has
been a board member since 1996. An Abuja High Court will today
decide whether to allow the city's high court Judge Lawal Gumi, to testify in
the identification trial of one James Onanefe Ibori who was found guilty in 1995 for negligent
conduct and breach of trust. The Chief Justice of the federation had directed
Gumi to ascertain the veracity of allegations by plaintiffs in the case who had
argued that the governor of Delta State James Ibori was an ex convict. If it is
established that Ibori was convicted, he'll be removed as governor. Ibori's
lawyers had opposed court summons on Gumi. The case continues in Abuja today. Six foreign staff of Conoil Limited
have been abducted by suspected Ijaw youths in Bayelsa State. Reports said the
abductors mainly militant youths are demanding
employment in the company.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has already contacted Bayelsa State
officials to resolve the case. The governor
who is in the entourage of Vice President Atiku Abukabar to United
Kingdom has been asked to return to the country immediately. Security forces raided five villages
in the oil-rich southern delta, leaving 15 people dead and homes ransacked and
burned, residents and militant leaders said. The security forces said the raids
were part of an effort to combat attacks on multinational oil operations in the
Niger Delta. Troops in speedboats with mounted machine guns raided the villages
of Sunny Zion, Idegbagbene, Odiogbogbene, Opia and Ogbinbiri said Maj. Said Hamed, spokesman for the
region's 3,000-strong military-police task force. Sports NFA continue search for
new Eagles boss The Nigeria Football Association
(NFA) is still searching for a new national team coach after their technical
committee failed to recommend a choice. Six candidates but the technical
committee, which sat in Abuja, decided they had to look at additional
applications before they could make a choice. "The technical committee
said they could not make a decision based on the applications they have
received so far," NFA chairman Ibrahim Galadima said. "They are planning to have
another meeting on Wednesday or Thursday for further deliberations."
Galadima admitted that the delay in picking a new foreign manager is unsettling
for the Super Eagles, who have a 2006 World Cup qualifier against Zimbabwe on 5
September. "If we had our way last year, Bryan Robson would have been the
manager of the national team and this matter would not have been an issue by
this time. "But the sports minister's refusal to sanction that appointment
has contributed to the situation in which the FA finds itself," Galadima
said. Besides the selection of a new foreign manager, the NFA is yet to renew
the contract of incumbent boss Christian Chukwu, whose tenure runs out next
month Chukwu's contract is yet to be renewed.
The NFA chairman said that the delay in resolving the matter was
unsettling to the former national team captain but they had been sidetracked by
other unresolved issues. "I accept that this matter of Chukwu's contract
should have been settled earlier than now. "He has done well so far and I
have always been in his support. "But the matter of finding a new manager
has been uppermost in our minds," Galadima said. Have Your Say |
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