Wednesday 11 December 2013

OBASANJO BLASTS JONATHAN SAYS NIGERIA IS BLEEDING AND THE HEMORRHAGE MUST STOPPED

A frustrated Olusegun Obasanjo, a General, Nigerian ex-President ,has written a critical letter to President Goodluck Jonathan, accusing him of, high level corruption, tribalism, aid and abating of criminals, witch hunting, promise and fail, ineptitude and of taking actions calculated at destroying Nigeria.

According to Premium Times , Obasanjo said,“Nigeria is bleeding and the hemorrhage must be stopped,”

PREAMBLE:

Obasanjo, according to Premium Times, said Jonathan has failed to deliver on his promises to the Nigerian people, stem corruption, promote national unity and strengthen national security.

He said in the letter titled “Before it is too late” that rather than take steps to advance Nigeria’s interest and up the standards of living of Nigerians, Mr. Jonathan had betrayed God and the Nigerian people that brought him to power, and has been pursuing selfish personal and political interests based on advice he receives from “self-centred aides”.

In the detailed letter, Obasanjo said Mr. Jonathan had become terribly divisive and clannish, destroying his own party, polarizing the country along regional and religious lines and ridiculing Nigeria in the comity of nations. He blamed Jonathan for the crises tearing the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, apart.

PROMISE NOT KEPT:
He said apart from using party chairman Bamanga Tukur to cause multiple crises and divide the ranks of the party, the president’s failure to keep a promise he made not to seek a second term is also generating tension within the ruling party.

“It would be unfair to continue to level full blames on the Chairman (Tukur) for all that goes wrong with the party,” Mr. Obasanjo said. “The chairman is playing the tune dictated by the paymaster (Jonathan). But the paymaster is acting for a definitive purpose for which deceit and deception seem to be the major ingredients.

“Up till two months ago, Mr. President, you told me that you have not told anybody that you would contest in 2015. I quickly pointed out to you that the signs and the measures on the ground do not tally with your statement. You said the same to one other person who shared his observation with me. And only a fool would believe that statement you made to me judging by what is going on. I must say it is not ingenious. You may wish to pursue a more credible and more honorable path.”

The former President said Jonathan told him before the 2011 election he would not seek a second term, and made the same promise to governors, party stakeholders and Nigerians.

The president’s refusal to keep that promise cast him as a man without honour, Mr. Obasanjo said.

The former president said it would be“fatally morally flawed” for Mr. Jonathan to contest in 2015.

LACKED TRUST AND HONOUR:

“As a leader, two things you must cherish and hold dear among others are trust and honour both of which are important ingredients of character. I will want to see anyone in the Office of the Presidency of Nigeria as a man or woman who can be trusted, a person of honour in his words and character.”

Obasanjo also accused Mr. Jonathan of anti-party conducts – supporting opposition parties’ candidates in governorship elections in some states such as Ondo, Edo and Anambra states at the detriment of PDP’s own candidates – and of pitting party members against one another. Obasanjo’s inclusion of Lagos in the list of states that Jonathan favoured to the detriment of the PDP raised eyebrows in political circles this morning.

REFUSED TO LISTEN TO ADVISE:

On Boko Haram, Obasanjo returned to his pet prescription on how to end the insurgency, a counsel Jonathan had thrown into the dustbin.

To Obasanjo, Jonathan had failed to address the underlying causes of the Boko Haram menace, reiterating that Jonathan to adopt a carrot and stick approach in dealing with the insurgency.

He explained that “conventional military actions based on standard phases of military operations alone will not permanently and effectively deal with the issue of Boko Haram”.

HE IS A TRIBALIST:

Obasanjo also accused Jonathan for being clannish. “For you to allow yourself to be “possessed”, so to say, to the exclusion of most of the rest of Nigerians as an “Ijaw man” is a mistake that should never have been allowed to happen. Yes, you have to be born in one part of Nigeria to be Nigerian if not naturalized but the Nigerian President must be above ethnic factionalism. And those who prop you up as of, and for ‘Ijaw nation’ are not your friends genuinely, not friends of Nigeria nor friends of ‘Ijaw nation’ they tout about.

“To allow or tacitly encourage people of ‘Ijaw nation’ to throw insults on other Nigerians from other parts of the country and threaten fire and brimstone to protect your interest as an Ijaw man is myopic and your not openly quieting them is even more unfortunate.

WITCH HUNTING:

Obasanjo also accused Jonathan of placing over 1000 Nigerians on political watch list and “training snipers and other armed personnel secretly and clandestinely acquiring weapons to match for political purposes like Abacha and training them where Abacha trained his killers”.

He also wondered why Jonathan was providing assistance for a murderer to evade justice.

AID AND ABATING:

“Presidential assistance for a murderer to evade justice and presidential delegation to welcome him home can only be in bad taste generally but particularly to the family of his victim,” Mr. Obasanjo said. “Assisting criminals to evade justice cannot be part of the job of the presidency. Or, as it is viewed in some quarters, is he being recruited to do for you what he had done for Abacha in the past? Hopefully, he should have learned his lesson. Let us continue to watch.”

According to Premium Times, though Obasanjo did not mention the name of the murderer he accused the President of protecting, the medium believed he must be referring to Hamza Al-Mustapha, a former security aide to late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, who is facing trial for allegedly masterminding the killing of Kudirat Abiola, the wife of Moshood Abiola, the winner of the annulled 1993 presidential election.

Mr. Al-Mustapha was freed by the appeal court in July but the Lagos state government has since appealed the judgment at the Supreme Court.

HIGH LEVEL CORRUPTION:

The former President also called on the National Assembly to rise up and take decisive action over the recent allegation in the country that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation failed to remit billions of dollars in proceeds of crude oil sales to the

federation account.

“This allegation will not fly away by non-action, cover-up, denial or bribing possible investigators,” Mr. Obasanjo told the President. “Please deal with this allegation transparently and let the truth be known.

“The dramatis personae in this allegation and who they are working for will one day be public knowledge. Those who know are watching if the National Assembly will not be accomplice in the heinous crime and naked grand corruption. May God grant you the grace for at least one effective corrective action against high corruption which seems to stink all around you in your government.”

Obasanjo said he wrote the letter in the national interest, saying nothing, at this stage of his life, would prevent him from standing up for whatever he considers to be in the best interest of Nigeria, Africa and the world.

He said he was ready for whatever backlash his letter would provoke from the presidency.

“Knowing what happens around you most of which you know of and condone or deny, this letter will proke cacophony from hired and unhired attackers but I will maintain my serenity because by this letter, I have done my duty to you as I have always done, to your government, to the party, PDP, and to our country, Nigeria…,” Obasanjo said.

“I have passed the stage of being flattered, intimidated, threatened, frightened, induced or bought… Death is the end of all human beings and may it come when God wills it to come.”

FOR RECORD: OBASANJO'S LETTER TO MAGARET THATCHER

August 1986
Dear Margaret,
After our meeting on Sunday, I write as one committed democrat to another. Yours is an old country with a lengthy democratic tradition; mine a new country undergoing a press of nation-building. But as democrats, we can be frank with each other.

As you know, I came to the EPG (Eminent Persons' Group) mission with reluctance. It was difficult enough for me as an African and especially as a Nigerian to contemplate exchanging pleasantries with those responsible for the institutionalised oppression of so many of my brothers and sisters.

My repugnance was exacerbated by the widely held perception that the EPG was a substitute for action won by you at Nassau for the benefit of P.W. Botha. However, I persuaded myself that whatever the odds, the prize was so great that I should overcome my personal feelings.
Not that I was prepared for what we found. As you know, even Tony Barber - a frequent traveller to South Africa - was appalled by what he was to see in that other South Africa which visitors seldom see. We jointly expressed our shock and dismay in our report.
I have seen extremes of poverty and of oppression in many parts of the world. But South Africa unashamedly moulds both elements into a system which enables the white minority to enjoy a "Dallas" lifestyle at the expense of the great majority forced to endure conditions as degrading as anything I have seen anywhere.
In our discussions, Malcolm Fraser and I tried to convey the true nature of the system and were against cosmetic changes which have merely softened the face of apartheid.
However, such was our discussion that I must ask: Did you even read our report?
I infer from what you said that afternoon that you had not. You concentrated on the trivia of the Government's "reforms" - like the welcome but essentially insignificant repeal of the Mixed Marriages Act - and ignored their implacable opposition to changes in the basic pillars of apartheid.
As we emphasised, to begin to dismantle apartheid, the Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act must be repealed without being replaced by some measure designed to achieve the same ends under a different guise.
You gave credence to the dangerous notion that the political rights of the dispossessed can be adequately met by what President Botha calls "group rights" at the expense of individual rights and freedoms. Despite all the talk of "power sharing" between different communities, our inescapable conclusion was that this was a cloak for power remaining in white hands, and the essentials of apartheid continuing unchanged.
Nor have you any appreciation of the issue of violence. The apartheid system has an inherent violence which, through forced removals and the creation of barren homelands, has created the fiction of a white land and through the barrel of the gun, denies blacks any form of legitimate political expression.
We are all opposed to violence other than in self-defence. Why should blacks not have a right to defend their own families, homes and freedoms?
Your "moral revulsion" for sanctions struck me as unconvincing. The economic sanctions you so energetically pursued against Poland, Afghanistan and Argentina were brushed aside in your determination to withhold their application to South Africa. Yet to many of us there is only one significant difference: the victims in South Africa are black. Is sauce for the Aryan goose not sauce for the Negroid gander?
Your concentration of the economic effectiveness of sanctions is disingenuous if not hypocritical. Sanctions were imposed against Poland, Afghanistan and Argentina as political expressions of outrage.
Nor can your opposition be based on any assessment of where the best interests of Britain lie. Your country has considerable trade with South Africa, but this is dwarfed by that enjoyed with the rest of Africa: it cannot be in Britain's interests to encourage them to place their orders elsewhere.
Further, your appearance as an apologist challenges the democratic forces in South Africa to seek help from whatever quarter they can. The longer-term consequences for Britain, the United States and the West could be considerable.
But most of all, I was dismayed by your lack of vision. You offered no action as an alternative to sanctions. You insisted that nothing whatever be done - even though in the final analysis you moved a little. There is no vision of a way ahead; simply a forlorn hope that P.W. Botha would experience a "Road to Damascus" conversion on the road to Soweto. Such hopes are in vain.
Sooner or later, Botha or his successor will be driven to negotiate meaningfully. Sir Geofferey's visit again confirmed that Botha is not yet under sufficient pressure to do so - despite a dwindling rand, escalating inflation, a declining economy and mounting violence. More pressure must come.
I must tell you that many people around the world view your continued opposition to sanctions as founded on instinct, not logic and as displaying a misguided tribal loyalty and myopic political vision. The consequences of such perceptions are far-reaching for a country which has traditionally claimed the high ground of principle.
Not only does the mental laager of the Boer seem to be mirrored in your own attitudes, but his fatal concessions of too little, too late are paralleled by your actions.
I am glad that the Commonwealth has moved on without you and I know that sooner rather than later, Britain will have to join us. I also know that apartheid will end, and its demise will be the product of a combination of internal and external pressures. The equation is a simple one. The less the external pressure, the greater will be the price to be paid internally.
Those who seek to minimise sanctions and their effect will have the blood of thousands, if not millions, of innocents on their hands and on their consciences. My heart will be heavy but my hands will be clean. Will yours?

Tuesday 10 December 2013

CORRUPTION IN NNPC: CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR PETITIONED MR. PRESIDENT

H.E. Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan
President and Commander-in-Chief
Federal Republic of Nigeria
State House
Abuja

Your Excellency,

Subjects:

Non-Repatriation to the Federation Account by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of $49.8 Billion representing 76% of the value of crude oil liftings in 2012 and 2013
Failure of NNPC to pay N22billion Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme (NESS) Levy
Other Related matters

I am constrained to formally write your Excellency, documenting serious concerns of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the continued failure of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to repatriate significant proportions of the proceeds of crude oil shipments it made in gross violation of the law. Sources of Federation Account Revenues include proceeds from Export of Nigeria’s crude oil by the NNPC, Petroleum Profits Taxes, and Penalties for gas flaring, oil exploration licenses and concession block allocations, etc.
Our analysis of the value of crude oil export proceeds based on the documentation received from pre-shipment inspectors shows that between January 2012 and July 2014 NNPC lifted 594,024,107 barrels of crude valued at $65,332,350,514.57. Out of this amount, NNPC repatriated only $15,528,410,098.77 representing 24% of the value. This means the NNPC is yet to account for, and repatriate to the Federation Account, an amount in excess of $49.804 billion or 76% of the value of oil lifted in the same period.
Your Excellency, I have attached as an appendix, a table giving the analysis of the crude oil lifting and repatriations as prepared by staff of Trade & Exchange and Banking & Payments System Departments of the CBN based on the firm documentation in their possession. The failure of NNPC to repatriate these amounts constitutes not only a violation of constitutional provisions but also of both the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act No. 17 of 1995 and the Pre-Shipment Inspection of Exports Act No. 10 of 1996 which stipulates that “An exporter of goods, including petroleum products, shall open, maintain and operate a foreign currency domiciliary account in Nigeria into which shall be paid all exports proceeds corresponding to the entire proceeds of the exports concerned”.
Your Excellency, you will recall that as far back as late 2010, I had verbally expressed deep concern about what appeared to be huge shortfalls in remittances to the Federation Account in spite of the strong recovery in oil price. At a recent NEMT meeting in the Presidency, I also expressed a strong view that while Government needs to continue its effort to combat oil thieves, vandals and illegal refineries in the Niger-Delta, the major problem is transactions taking place under legal cover with huge revenue leakages embedded therein.
Your Excellency, it is my respectful view that a place to begin is to insist on NNPC to account fully for all proceeds that were diverted away from its accounts with the CBN and the Federation Account. There are also other lines of inquiry which your Excellency may wish to authorize and pursue. These include;

A thorough audit of activity on any domiciliary accounts held by NNPC outside of the CBN. This is because the CBN has no record of either the dollar proceeds of these diverted sales or the naira equivalent being transferred to the Federation Account.
An examination of banking records of companies involved in Oil lifting and swap deals, including audit trails of regular payments to third-parties;
An independent review of the terms and condition of Oil lifting and swap contracts for fairness and equity and transparency;
Investigation and prosecution of Bureau de change (BDC) that have purchased hundreds of millions of dollars from the inter-bank market and are unable to account for these monies. We have compiled a list of these companies with recommendations for prosecution under Anti-money Laundering Laws;
Investigation of obvious avenues for money laundering, such as companies that sell private jets to Nigerians.

The Central Bank stands ready to render full assistance and provide as much data as possible to assist these inquiries.
Your Excellency, as an indicator of how bad this situation has become, please note that in 2012 alone, the Federation Account received $28.51billion in Petroleum Profits and related taxes but only $10.13billion from crude oil proceeds. In the period January-July 2013 the corresponding figures are $16.65 billion and $5.39 billion, respectively. This means, Your Excellency, that in the first seven months of the year, taxes accounted for 76% of the total inflow from this sector, while NNPC crude oil proceeds, accounted for only 24%.
You will also note, Your Excellency, that NNPC liftings amounted to 64% of total oil liftings from Nigeria during the reference period, and yet its remittance represented only one-third of the taxes paid by the oil companies that exported the balance of 54%.
Finally, your Excellency, we would like to report that NNPC has failed to keep up with payments of its levies under Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme (NESS) in line with this law, and currently owes the Federal Government N22 billion.
As banker to the Federal Government and Economic adviser to the President, I am obliged to draw the President’s attention to these serious issues of which you have most probably never been aware in this detail.
To sumamarise, my recommendations are to respectfully advise the President to:

Require NNPC to provide evidence for disposal of all proceeds of crude sales diverted from the CBN and the Federation Account;
Investigate crude oil lifting and swap contracts, as well as the financial transactions of counter-parties for equity, fairness and transparency; and
Authorise prosecution of suspects in money-laundering transactions, including but not limited to BDCs who are unable to account for hundreds of millions of dollars.

I trust your Excellency will find the content of this letter useful and hereby reaffirm the support of Central Bank of Nigeria for your Government’s transformation agenda and effort to serve the Nigerian people.
While thanking you for your consideration, please accept, Mr. President, the renewed assurances of my highest regards.
Yours Sincerely,
Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (CON)
Governor, Central Bank Of Nigeria

MANDELA WORDS ON MARBLE TO NIGERIAN LEADERS

“YOU know I am not very happy with Nigeria. I have made that very clear on many occasions. Yes, Nigeria stood by us more than any nation, but you let yourselves down, and Africa and the black race very badly. Your leaders have no respect for their people. They believe that their personal interests are the interests of the people. They take people’s resources and turn it into personal wealth. There is a level of poverty in Nigeria that should be unacceptable. I cannot understand why Nigerians are not more angry than they are.

“What do young Nigerians think about your leaders and their country and Africa? Do you teach them history? Do you have lessons on how your past leaders stood by us and gave us large amounts of money? You know I hear from Angolans and Mozambicans and Zimbabweans how your people opened their hearts and their homes to them. I was in prison then, but we know how your leaders punished western companies who supported Apartheid.

“What about the corruption and the crimes? Your elections are like wars. Now we hear that you cannot be president in Nigeria unless you are Muslim or Christian. Some people tell me your country may break up. Please don’t let it happen.

“Let me tell you what I think you need to do. You should encourage leaders to emerge who will not confuse public office with sources of making personal wealth. Corrupt people do not make good leaders. Then you have to spend a lot of your resources for education.

Educate children of the poor, so that they can get out of poverty. Poverty does not breed confidence. Only confident people can bring changes. Poor, uneducated people can also bring change, but it will be hijacked by the educated and the wealthy...give young Nigerians good education. Teach them the value of hard work and sacrifice, and discourage them from crimes which are destroying your image as a good people.”

........a 2007 interview with Mandela conducted by Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed

Monday 9 December 2013

INCREDIBLE: AKWA IBOM 'MACE' IS NOW USED AS A WALKING STICK!

MACE is a staff of office, especially that which lies on the table in the House of Commons when the Speaker is in the chair, regarded as a symbol of the authority of the House.

However, that definition is not the case in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria , where a MACE is now been used as a walking stick in a public social gathering !

By looking at the picture above, the MACE that suppose to be the ‘symbol of authoroty’ of the Akwa Ibom state house of Assembly is sitting right before the Speaker, Mr Sam Ikon and Chief Don Etiebet with his wife. In a social gathering!

What can we call this? Was it to show people that he is the speaker of the house? What is the mace doing at a social event which has nothing to do with law making? Is this how the Akwa ibom state legislatures legislate?

PASUMA IS SET TO MARRY RONKE ODUSANYA

Wasiu Alabi Odetola aka Alabi Pasuma is set to marry Nollywood actress Ronke Odusanya. According to Pasuma, he stated that:’’ Well I am in a serious relationship with Ronke Odusanya a.k.a Flaky Ididowo. If things work according to plan we might get married soon. Though everything is in God’s hands but I can assure you that we are in a serious relationship.”

He went further to say that, “I have been married once but it did not work. Mind you marriage is a life time contract, so I don’t want to rush into it. But I can assure you I will definitely move into my new house with a wife soon, ”

Speaking further about his daughter and why he is still single, He said,“I had my first child when I was 23 and by the time she was born, a lot of people thought I was not serious then. Thank God that she is 23 now while I am 46. The girl is now my friend and confidant.

source: Daily star