U.S. pledges to help trace, recover “billions of dollars” stolen from Nigeria

Buhari and John Kerry

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, made the pledge on Thursday in Washington DC while responding to comments by President Muhammadu Buhari on the commitment of his administration to the war against corruption and the need for the US government to help repatriate the country’s stolen wealth stashed abroad.

“It will greatly help our country if you assist us to recover all our stolen funds which we can establish to be within your financial system,” the president told Mr. Kerry.

Mr. Kerry in his response told Mr Buhari that he had learned that the money stolen from the country ran into “billions of dollars” and that the country’s officials were ready to work with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in find and return the stolen funds.

“It’s not easy to hide that amount of money and we are pretty good in tracing them,” Mr. Kerry assured President Buhari.

Soon after it was inaugurated, the Buhari administration initiated a campaign against corruption.

Several former officials, who are believed to have siphoned public funds, have been charged to court and are now facing trials.


Notable among them is the immediate past national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, who is facing charges of misappropriating $2.1 billion dollar meant for the procurement of arms for the armed forces to fight the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast.

Meanwhile, Mr. Kerry, while hailing the successes of the Buhari administration in curtailing Boko Haram, said the U.S. will not relent in giving Nigeria all possible support to make sure that the terrorists are completely defeated.

He, however, said the Nigerian military should do more to respect the human rights of the people within the its theatre of operation.

Mr. Buhari thanked the US for its support in the fight, against Boko Haram, saying the government was doing everything to make sure life returns to normal in the northeast.

“Boko Haram no longer holds any local government area. We are reconstructing damaged facilities and preparing the police to take over and reassert civilian control over areas affected by the insurgency,” he said.

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5 Buhari's Ministers That Have Been Asked to Resign

Since their inauguration into office, several of President Muhammadu Buhari's ministers have been advised to resign by the dissatisfied Nigerian public and civil society organizations.




See list of Ministers that have been asked to resign:

1. Kemi Adesoun

The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) once asked the Minister to resign due to the padded 2016 budget. Ifeanyi Ubah of Capital Oil also wants the minister to resign because of the FOREX crisis in the country.

2. Lai Mohammed

Every time the Minister of Information speaks, Nigerians demand his immediate resignation.

3. Ibe Kachikwu

The Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC wants this minister to resign for saying that it was cheaper to import refined petroleum products than refine locally. Nigerians also want him to resign due to the incessant fuel scarcity in the country.

4. Babatunde Fashola

Both the NLC and Trade Labour Congress, TUC want the minister to resign for increasing the electricity tariff.

5. Heineken Lokpobiri

Members of his home chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC want the Minister of State for Agriculture, to resign.

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Nigeria declares state of emergency for petroleum products distribution

In a desperate move to end the recurrent fuel shortages, particularly of premium motor spirit, PMS (petrol) being experienced in the country, the Federal Government has declared a state of emergency for petroleum products distribution. This comes even as private operators in the country now have the responsibility to bring in 60 percent of the scarce commodity in the second quarter, Q2 import allocations.

A very competent source revealed yesterday that for Q2, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA 44% allocation to Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association, DAPPMA; 40% NNPC/PPMC; and the balance of 16% to Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN.


Confirming the developments, the Commercial Director, PPMC, Mr. Justin Ezeala, admitted to the drop in NNPC/PPMC new import allocation, saying that “it is meant to free NNPC to import only for itself, instead of importing for everybody as we have been doing since this year.” He also admitted that the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, had “directed that everything related to petroleum distribution must be treated as an emergency.”

To this end, he told journalists on the telephone that “beginning from tomorrow (today), we have confirmations for cargoes lined up to be received in-country. Petroleum cargoes are to be treated as essential commodities, with all the regulatory agencies – DPR, PPRA, put on the alert. “We have put in place a process to receive them in terms of logistics and cut short on all the bureaucracies, as everything will be treated with emergency in order to end the fuel crisis. ‘To this end, we have also kept trans-shipment vessels in Warri, Calabar depots for easy reach to the northern and southern parts of the country. 

“Today, we also held a meeting with officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, to join forces with the Nigeria Police to monitor and follow products distribution from the depots to the retail outlets to cut short on sharp practices. “We also met with the national executives of the Petroleum Tanker Drivers, PTD, to alert them to the sense of the emergency, as it takes about four days to take products from Lagos to Abuja. “We are also planning to re-stream the Systems 2B Pipeline, which transports refined products from Atlas Cove reception Jetty to Mosimi, Ibadan and Ilorin.”

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We Have No Sufficient Electricity To Give Nigerians - Fashola

Nigeria’s Minister of Power Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, says there is currently not enough power to distribute unless more turbines are switched on.



He attributed recent power outages in some parts of the country to four turbines which stopped working, but hoped electricity supply would be stabilized soon as three of the four turbines have been restored.


“Yesterday morning we had some outages in Jebba but I am happy to report now that all the four turbines that were down, three have been restored, so there is stability now.

“It is important why the power coming from Aba is defining, its part of what I’ve spoken about. There is not enough power in the country.

“So how do you share what is not enough such that everybody gets enough? Its difficult, if not impossible.

“So what we need to do is to get more power on. So about 200 megawatts coming from there is good news for the market,” he said.

The Minister also expressed confidence that President Muhammadu Buhari’s 10,000 megawatts target would be met.

He, however, decried acts of vandalism which he says is causing some of the energy problems in the country.

“Everyone of us must contribute something now to solve the problem; it a problem we can solve. That will reduce the number of people who are contributing to being the problem.

“So those who are vandalizing electricity assets, those who are selling stolen cable, those who are not paying their bills and those diverting electricity are all problems.”

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How Nigeria's power generation totally collapsed to zero megawatt yesterday

Nigeria’s power generation collapsed completely on Thursday at exactly 12.58pm to zero megawatt and this persisted for about three hours.

Data from the country’s System Operator showed that around 1pm on Thursday, no power generation company in Nigeria produced a single megawatt of electricity.

Industry operators revealed that as a result of the complete collapse, no electricity distribution company received load allocation beginning from when the collapse was recorded up till around 3pm.

The System Operator stated that the 11 distribution companies got zero electricity load allocation during the period of the collapse, meaning that for about three hours on Thursday no part of Nigeria got power supply from the national grid.

NE however gathered that supply of electricity was restored around 3pm.

For instance, out of the 450MW that was due Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, the Disco only got about 50MW when the situation began to improve.

Before the collapse, AEDC got an allocation of 257.97MW and the nationwide generation level stood at 2,243.2MW.

Sources in the sector blamed the complete collapse in power generation on the extent of destruction of infrastructure and gas pipelines vandalism that had happened in the industry over the past years, as well as the poor upgrade of power installations across the country.

“The power crisis being experienced nationwide since Tuesday this week has worsened on Thursday with a total system collapse at exactly 12.58pm this afternoon. At that point, the nation went to ground zero, with all the Discos receiving zero MW allocation from the System Operator,” an operator in the sector told newsmen.

Officials from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing as well as private investors, had attributed the never-ending fall in electricity generation to vandalism of gas pipelines and destruction of vital infrastructure in the industry by miscreants.

“Aside pipelines vandalism, some miscreants have been involved in the destruction of vital power infrastructure and this has been affecting not just generation but transmission and distribution as well,” a senior official at the power ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak on the matter, had said.

The official also stressed that the ongoing difficulty in the downstream oil industry was also impacting negatively on the power sector.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, reassured Nigerians that the 10,000 megawatts of electricity generation target set by the administration would be attained by the end of 2019.

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There is crisis and division in APC - Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Timi Frank

The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Timi Frank, says a festering crisis, brewing in the ruling party has the potential of destroying it.

Frank said this at a media briefing in Abuja on Thursday, where he claimed that there were internal disputes in the APC despite the attempts of its leaders to project an image of cohesion.

He explained that he had warned of a crisis in the Bayelsa State chapter of the APC before and after the governorship election in the state, adding that his warning was not taken seriously.


He said, “I spoke about my state in Bayelsa, people ignored me. I’m speaking again; it would happen soon at the national level that these things we are hiding have started already.

“If anybody should tell you there’s no division even at the national level, they’re telling lies. I can tell you there are issues; there are very critical issues.

“The issue of the Senate President is still lingering; nobody is saying anything at the national level, but I tell you, any Nigerian that knows will tell you very clearly that with the body language of our party as of today, if we are not careful, we are going to lose our popularity.

“It will be a very big disgrace that we have hands that are not competent at the centre to harmonise the aggrieved persons and make us to move forward.

“So, there is crisis in the party. We have too many divisions right now within the party. So, I won’t be scared to speak; that is my personal opinion and I’ve spoken again and I will continue to speak out.”

But the National Secretary of the party, Mai Mala Buni, in a statement late on Thursday dismissed Frank’s assertions, stated that the allegations were “bogus” and should be disregarded.

Buni added, “The bogus and misleading allegations are unnecessary distractions to the party’s resolve to fully support the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to deliver on the motley promises made by our great party to the electorate.

“The APC national leadership remains united and solidly committed to the task of bringing cohesion to the party at all levels.

“Recently, the APC held its National Caucus and National Executive Committee meetings where positive and far-reaching decisions were collectively taken by the party’s leadership to drive the party forward.”

The statement further read, “The party will not deny anybody or interest the right to seek justice where he feels this has been denied him. However, we sincerely appeal that we all play by the rules in our engagements and be guided in our utterances.

“The public is advised not to misinterpret or confuse Mr. Timi Frank’s personal opinion to be the official position of the party or the true reflection of what is happening inside the party.

“For the umpteenth time, only the APC National Chairman and the National Secretary are authorised to officially speak for the party.”

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Aribisala, Ezekwesili, Sagay clash at roundtable on corruption war

Controversial scholar, Femi Aribisala clashed with  Oby Ezekwesili and Itse Sagay at a round table convened‎ to brainstorm on winning the war against corruption at the University of Lagos on Thursday.

The round table, organised by the Department of Jurisprudence and International Law, tagged “Winning the War Against Corruption” was also an opportunity to launch the book ‘Legal Perspectives to Corruption, Money Laundering, and Assets Recovery in Nigeria.’

The occasion began with the keynote speech ‘Rule of Law and Treatment of Politically Exposed Persons in Corruption Cases’ delivered by Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

Mr. Falana, who was represented by Wahab Shittu, advocated the creation of special courts to handle corruption cases.

The verbal battle began‎ after controversial scholar, Femi Aribisala, took to the podium to discuss Mr. Falana’s speech.

“There is no fight against corruption in Nigeria. And if there’s no fight against corruption, you can’t even talk about war,” Mr. Aribisala began.

And then he launched into a 10 minute speech that attacked the global definition of corruption by Oby Ezekwesili, a former World Bank vice president who had earlier defined corruption as “the abuse of public space for private gains‎”, the prescription of special courts by Mr. Falana; and current administration’s effort against corruption.

“Corruption cannot be narrowly defined the way Dr. Ezekwesili defined it, only relating to public institutions. We are corrupt in Nigeria. The plumber, the tailor, the whole society is corrupt,” said Mr. Aribisala.

“And we have not yet taken a decision, we have not yet gotten to a point where we are fed up. I mean, she (Mrs. Ezekwesili) had given an example of Hong Kong where people became fed up and said enough is enough. We have not reached that situation yet, I don’t know why not, but we certainly have not.

“The 2015 election was not an anti-corruption election. We did not have any political party that presented an anti-corruption mandate to us. The party that won the election was just a makeover of the PDP, I mean the PDP people moved from the PDP to the APC. If they were corrupt when they were in PDP, they became clean when they were in APC.

“So there is no mandate against corruption. If President Buhari was determined to fight against corruption, my feeling is that he gave up after losing election three times.

“Because the fourth time, he formed an alliance with people who he despised before. And they were not necessarily people who had a track record of being (sic) anti-corruption. So today, I don’t know who is anti-corruption.”

‎Mr. Aribisala said the current fight against corruption by the President Muhammadu Buhari government is merely a fight against the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).

“We have to make up our minds if we really want to deal with the question of corruption. If we want to deal with the question of corruption, Nigerians themselves must insist on it and we have to deal with it at the institutional level,” he said.

“The institutional fight against corruption that has taken place to the extent that it has, took place under PDP. The institutional structures, even the ones that the present government is relying on, are PDP structures. Whether it is EFCC, ICPC, TSA, all these came under PDP.

“In ten months of Buhari’s‎ government, there has been no institutional structure that has been laid against corruption. We have simple had media circuses accusing people of corruption.


“You cannot fight corruption with corruption. And corruption is more than just the stealing of money. If you disobey the rule‎ of law, you have corrupted the system. If you create an avenue where you have a big margin between the official foreign exchange rate and the parallel market rate, there’s gonna be corruption. If you have children of the rich getting into the CBN on nepotistic grounds, the corruption is still with you.

“If you have a budget that is padded left right and centre, and after this was revealed you passed it and say only a small amount changed in it, and we do not know what is in the new budget, you can’t say you are against corruption. There is no transparency in any of these things.”

Mr. Aribisala further stated that the current anti-corruption effort‎ lacks a clear focus.
“Because the last 16 years was not just PDP government,” he said.

“The legacy parties of the APC were also in power. In fact when the PDP was ostensibly dealing with corruption, it addressed people in its own party. We are not having that now.

“And that’s why I can’t trust Falana’s prescription that we are going to establish special courts. I don’t trust this government to establish those courts. They will simply establish courts to decimate the opposition.

“People like Orubebe will be arrested, and they will file cases against him and several months later they will drop the charges against him. And they will have pronounced him guilty in the newspapers on charges that will later on be dropped. That is not a fight against corruption.”

Mr. Aribisala’s speech received a thunderous ovation from the guests, mostly students, a situation which irked‎ Itse Sagay, a professor of Law and the chairman of the occasion.

“We are not here to make students clap,” a visibly angry Mr. Sagay, who serves as the chairman of a Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-courruption.

“We are here on a very serious business. And students, don’t behave like American electorates who are ignorant. Donald Trump. The appreciation of unserious people shows ignorance. How can someone come here and say there’s no war against corruption and there is clapping? ‎”

Mr. Sagay said the APC had a manifesto that spelt out its strategies to combat corruption, and admonished Mr. Aribisala to stop making statements devoid of facts.‎

“Obasanjo created ICPC, EFCC, they are doing well we don’t need to create new institutions. You do not win a war by just creating multiplicity of institutions everywhere, that’s irresponsible. We will work with the institutions that we have.

“You don’t dilute the meaning of corruption to a point that it is meaningless. This is a very serious discussion and I want us to be serious about it. If you are anti-government, please go and campaign against government and let your party win in 2019.

“This is not a venue for PDP campaign. Most inappropriate comment. We are here on serious business. Let’s maintain that seriousness,” he said.

With Mr. Aribisala appearing unperturbed by Mr. Sagay’s stern remarks, Mrs. Ezekwesili pleaded for another chance at the podium, ostensibly to further drive the case against Mr. Aribisala’s argument.

“The systemic nature of corruption as a cancer against a system of governance is demonstrated in the fact that the activity of corruption begins to happen at their different levels,” Mrs. Ezekwesili began.

“So for example, I wasn’t surprised that some of you were clapping. The reason you were clapping is that you are a page in your own level of corruption.

“There are many whose exam malpractice is the basis upon which ‎they have come to school. So when you are talking about the need to wage a war against corruption, they are completely disconnected from it. There is a complete dissonance from it.”
Mrs. Ezekwesili urged the students to desist‎ from applauding populist statements.

“You need to be driven by the evidence of the damage and the destruction ‎that corruption is doing to you, at the unit level. If you think you are doing well now, you will do exceedingly better if corruption is effectively tackled in this society,” she said.

“There is no comedy session going on here. We are talking about something that can be destructive. You should be holding the gun to fight against corruption. The gun has to be intellectual, so I need you to intelligently process everything that is said.”

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Aluko is Judas Iscariot - Ekiti government

                                                                                                    Aluko

The Ekiti State Government has accused the poll fraud whistleblower, Dr. Tope Aluko, of making millions from the All Progressives Congress (APC) in a bid to remove Governor Ayo Fayose.

It accused Aluko of feeding the police and the Department of State Services (DSS) with lies that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stockpiled arms during the June 21, 2014 election.

Fayose’s Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media Lere Olayinka, in a statement yesterday labelled Aluko as a “Judas”, who he said would soon be dumped by his “principals”.

He said it was laughable that someone who was expelled from the PDP is still claiming to be a member.

“Can Aluko be a member of PDP by force even when PDP has said he is not wanted?”

The statement reads: “Aluko and his likes can continue to run from pillar to post. All their efforts will come to naught. Like the Biblical Judas, we will all live to see how those treating him like their man Friday will dump him.

Describing Aluko’s claims as “ talks from a demented mind”, Olayinka said Nigerians must ask him why he was unable to deliver his polling unit in Iyin-Ekiti to the PDP, if indeed he was the arrowhead of the rigging.

“Aluko can continue with his journey of political perfidy. He can keep running while enjoying the proceeds of his political 419. But like the Biblical Judas, he can only run; he will be caught by his deeds one day.”

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