So I’ll begin by reminding readers of the main legal finding against Taylor. The Trial Chamber in its judgment on 26 April found Taylor “beyond reasonable doubt” to be“criminally responsible” for aidingand abetting the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The judges wrote that they were satisfied that “as of August 1997” Taylor“knew of the atrocities being committed against civilians in Sierra Leone by theRUF/AFRC forces and of their propensity to commit crimes.” Notwithstanding this knowledge, Taylor“continued to provide support to the RUF and RUF/AFRC forcesduring the period that crimes were being committed in Sierra Leone. The Trial Chambertherefore finds beyond reasonable doubt that [Taylor] knew that his support to theRUF/AFRC would provide practical assistance, encouragement or moral support to themin the commission of crimes during the course of their military operations in SierraLeone.”

The judges found that “in addition to planning and advising” the RUF and rogue soldiers of the so-called Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) “on the Kono-Freetown operation” including with respect to the gruesome invasion of Freetown in January 1999, Taylor “provided military and other support” to make the attacks and subsequent atrocities possible. Taylor “facilitated the purchase and transport of a large shipment of arms and ammunition from Burkina Faso in around November 1998 which was used in the attacks on Kono and Kenema in December 1998, where further arms and ammunition were captured. These arms and ammunition were in turn sent to the troops in Freetown in January 1999 and also used by the RUF and AFRC in joint attacks on the outskirts of Freetown.” In addition to this crucial support, Taylor “also sent personnel in the form of at least four former Sierra Leone Army (SLA) fighters who participated in the attack on Kono, as well as 20 former NPFL fighters who were part of the forces under the command of Gullit that entered Freetown, and a group of 150 fighters with Abu Keita (a former ULIMO member), known as the Scorpion Unit, who participated in the attack on Kenema.”During the mass atrocities Freetown in January 1999, Taylor’s “subordinates in Liberia also transmitted ‘448 messages’ to RUF forces to warn them of impending ECOMOG jetattacks. These messages originated in both Sierra Leone and Liberia.” Taylor, the judges wrote, “held a position of authority amongst the RUF and RUF/AFRC.”
There are other devastating findings by the judges, but these alone from any reasonable point justify the severest of punishments. Those who affect to contrive a hierarchy of guilt wherein ‘aiding and abetting’ is somewhat venial should note that the attacks on Freetown in January 1999 alone led to the murder of about 6,000 people, the crude amputation of hundreds of people (including babies), and the burning down of a large part of the city by the rebels. The verdict in this case concludes that Taylor made that attack happen.
Now to Taylor’s vapid last speech before the judges on 16 May. He said. “What I did to bring peace to Sierra Leone was done with honour,” noting that his involvement in Sierra Leone’s war was aimed at bringing peace. This outrageous claim fails even the irony test: at least the hangman in the old morality tale wasn’t speaking to save himself when he told Don Carlos: “I shall assassinate you but for your own good!”
Taylor was apparently referring to the events of May 2000, when the RUF abducted hundreds of freshly-arrived Zambian UN troops in northern Sierra Leone and ferried them into Liberia, from where – now posing as a statesman after no doubt helping to orchestrate the kidnapping – Taylor had the Zambians released and flown back to Sierra Leone. Against that public drama let us place the court’s findings around the barbarous attacks against defenceless civilians. “In November/December 1998,” the court found, Taylor met with the psychotic RUF commander Sam Bacokarie. The two men “jointly designed” – here the judges used the heavily-loaded phrase – the “two-pronged attack on Kono,Kenema and Freetown.” That was the beginning of the road to the January 1999 atrocities in Freetown. Taylor “emphasised to Bockarie the need to first attack Kono District and told Bockarie to make the operation “fearful” in order to pressure the Government of Sierra Leone into negotiations on the release of FodaySankoh from prison, as well as to use “all means” to get to Freetown. Subsequently, Bockarie named the operation ‘Operation No Living Thing’, implying that anything that stood in their way should be eliminated.”
This is what the judges found. If this is Taylor’s idea of peacemaking, then he really should be removed from the rest of humanity for the rest of his baneful life.
On the atrocities themselves, Taylor was rather dismissive to the judges. Atrocities necessarily happen in war, he said, and then he added an idiosyncratic take on the concept of ‘just war’. He invoked the Roman statesman and orator Cicero, noting that Cicero lost the just war “card.” But Cicero, like all writers in the classical world, never worried much about the problem – just as he never worried about the massive institution of slavery of which he gleefully partook – and his understanding of the concept fundamentally differs from ours. For Cicero, the nature of the enemy – if ‘barbarian’ or ‘civilised’ – determined the conduct of war against that enemy. ‘Barbarians’ may be wiped out and their towns and cities razed (as the Roman legions did against rebellious tribes in Gaul and against Carthage), but the Romans should weigh carefully the extent of destruction to be wrought on their ‘civilised’ neighbours, like the ancient Greeks. Over the past few centuries, a just war tradition has developed into natural law which, for example, protects non-combatants, especially women and children. Can Taylor claim ignorance of this development? Let the judges ponder such a claim. Clearly, Issasesay – not to mention AllieuKondewa and MoininaFofana, the completely illiterate and honourable leaders of the Civil Defence Forces – were not given the benefit of the doubt.
I have reserved the most potent – but also most ridiculous – claim of Taylor for the last response: it is his argument that his prosecution and the verdict against him are the result of an American conspiracy to dispose of an awkward African leader. In the very active mouth of his swashbuckling lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, the claim merited listening to. But from Taylor? This is a man who was a paid agent of the CIA for many years – and the CIA is a core institution of American imperial power. Here again – as in his claim that he was pursuing peace in Sierra Leone while arming the RUF – Taylor would want to have it both ways. You cannot claim to be revolted by American imperialism while being an enabler for it.
In any case, Taylor’s own peers concluded long before the Americans publicly did that Taylor was supporting the RUF to commit atrocities in Sierra Leone. On 28 December 1998, the leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met on the crisis in Sierra Leone and issued a communique accusing Taylor of supporting the RUF and AFRC rebels destroying Sierra Leone.
The judges, in other words, merely confirmed what has been well known by people in West Africa.
But from this claim, Taylor made by inference the more seductive point: surely both George W. Bush and Tony Blair were also guilty of similar crimes in Iraq for which he has been convicted yet no court has preferred charges against them. Why, he asked, is international humanitarian justice focused only on African leaders that have fallen out of favour with major Western leaders? It is a good and troubling point, to which my friend Abdul Tejan-Cole, the distinguished Sierra Leonean human rights lawyer, has offered a good response in another context. While it is curiously true that mostly African leaders face international justice,Tejan-Cole has argued, it is also decisively true that all those African leaders very much deserve to face that justice. One has to choose one’s side carefully in this emotionally charged debate, and my side is with the many African victims of the depredations of ghastly African leaders who have so far been indicted for such heinous crimes. Indeed, there should be more of such indictments and trials.
On diamonds, I’ll quote the summary judgment without comment. It says (read Taylor for ‘Accused’): “The Trial Chamber finds that there was a continuous supply by the AFRC/RUF of diamonds mined from areas in Sierra Leone to the Accused, often in exchange for arms and ammunition…Following the ECOMOG Intervention, from February 1998 to July 1999, the diamonds delivered to the Accused by Sam Bockarie directly, as well as indirectly through intermediaries such as Eddie Kanneh and Daniel Tamba, were given to him inorder to get arms and ammunition from him, or sometimes for ‘safekeeping’ on behalf of the RUF… From February 1998 to July 1999, diamonds were delivered to the Accused by Sam Bockarie directly. These diamonds were delivered to the Accused for the purpose of obtaining arms and ammunitions from him. During this period, diamonds were also delivered through intermediaries such as Eddie Kanneh and Daniel Tamba…From July 1999 to May 2000, FodaySankoh delivered diamonds to the Accused, and diamonds were delivered to the Accused on his behalf in or before 1999 while he was in detention. In March 2000, FodaySankoh visited South Africa and travelled through Monrovia on his way back to Sierra Leone, meeting with the Accused in Monrovia. According to one witness, among the diamonds delivered to the Accused during this meeting were a 45 carat diamond and two 25 carat diamonds… From June 2000 until the end of hostilities in 2002, IssaSesay delivered diamonds to the Accused, including on one occasion a 36 carat diamond. Eddie Kanneh also delivered diamonds to the Accused on Sesay’s behalf. Sometimes the diamonds were delivered to the Accused supposedly for “safekeeping” until Sankoh’s release from detention and, at other times, in exchange for supplies and/or arms and ammunition.”

PS: In my last article on the verdict on Taylor, I noted that his trial reportedly cost $250 million. Peter Andersen, the spokesman for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, wrote me immediately after reading it that that figure represented the entire cost of the court, including all the other trials. I made a quick check of the figures from the court and elsewhere. The Taylor trial cost far less than $250 million, but the entire operation of the court cost far more than that figure.

Augustine Effiong, 25, an indigene of Akwa Ibom State, who is popularly known as Abubakar Garba said on Monday that he helped carry out deadly attacks on April 29 at church services in the old campus of the Bayero University, Kano (BUK) and admitted belonging to the extremist group, Boko Haram in his confession to police.

The Scene of the BUK blast that killed about 20 people including two professors

The State Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Idris who disclosed this in a press statement made available to reporters said that, Mr Effiong had confessed to be one of those behind the attack on Christian worshipers at BUK.

Mr Effiong, though an indigene of Akwa Ibom was born and brought up at Maiduguri before he later converted to Islam. The police said, “he has been transferred to Abuja for discreet investigations”.

The command said Mr Effiong was arrested over an attempt to murder a civilian at Danlasan Village in Warawa Local Government Area of Kano state.

During the preliminary investigation, the suspect, a resident of Bulunkutu Abuja Quarters in Maiduguri confessed to have relocated to the Kano state last April.

“He confessed to have participated in a series of attacks, killing of policemen and military personnel in the state (Kano), including the recent attack and killings in Bayero University Kano (BUK),” the police said.

Attackers with bombs and guns opened fire at church services at BUK last month and killed about 20 people including two professors as worshippers tried to flee.

“I was involved in the attack at BUK,” he told reporters in Hausa.

He further confessed to being part of a “20-man killer squad” charged with targeting the security services around Kano.

Boko Haram has repeatedly targeted the security services in Kano and has claimed attacks that have killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009.

“I killed many people, including five soldiers at checkpoints,” in Kano, Mr Effiong said.

- BY NINA PORZUCKI -

Spartan Arinze is pursuing the American dream, in China. He’s created a social network for Nigerians and Nigerians living in China called Gbooza! It’s part Facebook, part Huffington Post and completely devoted to Nigerians. It’s not a run-away success yet, but Arinze is confident.

When Spartan Arinze landed at the Guangzhou airport in southern China more than a decade ago he had $300 in his pocket and he didn’t speak a word of Chinese but he felt destined to do something big.

“I came to China with the hope of looking for the American dream. You must have read that on my profile,” Arinze said.

The online profile he’s talking about is on gbooza.com — the website Arinze launched two years ago. As for his dream, Gbooza is it.

“Some people dream of business, my dream was media,” he said.

The connection between Nigeria and China is built on trade. Arinze remembers watching as more and more Chinese goods flooded the marketplace near his home in Nigeria’s Anambra State. At the time, visas to China were relatively easy for Nigerians to get. So Arinze decided to take his chances and go to the source of all those goods, where he hoped to make enough money to start his own social networking website.

“That was the biggest risk in my life,” he remembered.

Arinze spent his first few years in Guangzhou doing whatever odd job would keep him there – teaching English, exporting purses to Nigeria – all the while researching and planning for the launch of his own social network. He studied sites like Facebook and Yahoo. They weren’t quite like the site that he hoped to create. But then one day he was searching the Internet and he accidentally came across a new website: The Huffington Post.

“I said, ‘Wow, this is the kind of thing I want to create,’ ” he said.

Gbooza! launched in 2010. The name Gbooza, like Yahoo ends with an exclamation point. It’s a Nigerian expression meaning surprise or astonishment.

“It can mean a bang, explosion, something like that,” Arinze explained.

The site is part social network, part news aggregator and all focused on the Nigerian community in China.

“I cannot create a news website for Americans,” Arinze said. “I am Nigerian so I have to create something for my people. And being in China here, I want to create something that will benefit my people and benefit China. We feature Chinese news and we feature events of Nigerians in China too.

Gbooza is no Facebook yet. The site has about 2,000 members and gets around 5,000 pageviews a day. But Arinze is still dreaming big. His next plan: making gbooza.com the number one social news network in Africa.

Mali’s caretaker president Dioncounda Traore was beaten up and hospitalised after hundreds of protesters stormed his palace on Monday to demand his resignation, officials and protesters said.

A spokesman for the soldiers behind a March 22 coup said Traore’s close-protection officers had killed three people in the attack, in which protesters entered parts of the palace compound unopposed and tore up pictures of Traore.

Mali is struggling to cope with the aftermath of the coup and a subsequent rebellion in its desert north. Sanogo agreed at the weekend to drop objections to Traore remaining in charge but crowds encouraged by pro-coup politicians took to the streets on Monday calling for him to quit.

Resolving the political crisis in the capital Bamako is a prerequisite for foreign help in efforts to retake control of the north, now in the hands of separatist and Islamist rebels, including some al Qaeda fighters.

“He (Traore) has just been rushed to hospital … They beat him seriously and tore his clothes,” Bakary Mariko, spokesman for the CNRDRE body of soldiers who last month formally agreed to allow a transition back to civilian rule, told Reuters on telephone.

“There were three dead and some injured by gunshot … Dioncounda’s security shot at people,” he said, adding that protesters left the palace by mid-afternoon.

Sekou Sidibe, a witness, said Traore received injuries to the face and had been escorted to hospital by bodyguards.

An aide to Traore said later he had left hospital and returned to his personal residence. It was not immediately clear when he would return to the palace compound.

“I am ashamed to relate what happened this morning,” interim Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra told state television later.

DUTSE — Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday described the current spate of bombing in the country as a direct and indirect consequence of governance, lamenting that such situation is driving away investors from Nigeria.

He also regretted that Nigerians have placed the need for personal security beyond the desire for general security, describing the development as one of the reasons for the rising insecurity.

Obasanjo said this while speaking on the topic, “Security, Governance and Leadership” at a one day symposium on this year’s democracy day celebration, convened by Jigawa State government.

According to him, “Nigerians are more concerned and agitated for the need for personal security, for many people the greatest source of anxiety is violent crime, but now bombing of public places and where people congregate has become the source of anxiety in the country for Nigerians. This is already giving us a very bad image. It is adversely affecting investment in Nigeria.

“A lot of us see personal insecurity, economic insecurity and all forms of insecurity as a direct and indirect consequences of governance. Governance and security go hand in hand. The welfare and well being of the people, starting with their personal security is the direct responsibility of the government. Performance of government is measured by the level of security enjoyed by the people”.

Continuing, he said “it must be clearly stated that every citizen has a responsibility to contribute to the security of the state” adding that it is the main civic duty of every citizen.

OWERRI – The lifeless body of Pastor Anslem Iwuala has been picked up by members of his immediate family, seven days after he was kidnapped and a N500,000 paid to the hoodlums to secure his freedom.

Late Iwuala, who was on his way to his country home, Egberede Nguru, Aboh Mbaise local council area of Imo State, was abducted by gunmen along the ever busy Okpala-Mbaise road.

Narrating the family’s ordeal to newsmen, the deceased’s cousin, Mr. Odinakachi Iwuala, confirmed that his uncle was kidnapped by the hoodlums while returning from Aba.

Odinakachi disclosed that the family made frantic efforts to reach their bread winner, adding that his abductors finally got in contact with the family at about midnight of the ill-fated day and demanded N100 million.

Continuing, Odinakachi revealed that the hoodlums said they were sent to kill the pastor/businessman, promising that they would spare his life if they paid the ransom.

“The family, however, paid the sum of N500,000 to the kidnappers. We all thought that our prayers had been answered until we received a telephone call from his abductors to rush down to Okpala but what we saw was his corpse,” Odinakachukwu lamented.

The police was making frantic efforts to apprehend the perpetrators of the sordid crime.

According to the Nigerian Tribune of May 19, 2012, President Jonathan was quoted as having said :
“Something must have gone wrong along the line from 1914 when the Southern and Northern Protectorates were amalgamated till date. When you look at the 1914 amalgamation of the Southern and Northern protectorates, and between the period Nigeria got independence in 1960 and the time I was sworn in as President, you will agree with me that I am not the problem of Nigeria….What we must do is to make a change for the development of Nigeria. We cannot check out like that of the television man ….”

One must thank Mr. President for acknowledging that Nigeria has been sick and wobbly since its amalgamation/creation in 1914. Something was definitely wrong and ill-conceived with that process that only benefited its creator and amalgamating power, Britain, which even at that time, acknowledged that the process was only for its administrative convenience!

Britain supposedly left in 1960. Why have ‘Nigerians’ not taken the necessary step and action to REPAIR the damage done to them by Britain ?

Why the hypocrisy that all is well, when we all know that everything is wrong and deadly ? Since the so-called political independence in 1960, Nigeria has lost over 6.5 million of its peoples to internal strife, including a genocidal civil war, a recurring cycle of religious and ethnic massacres, more than 30 years of ethnically-induced military dictatorship which has impoverished the regions that lay the golden eggs for the country, massive corruption at the highest levels, lowest levels of economic development and growth inspite of being richly endowed with huge natural resources, insecurity of lives and property, and now Boko Haram. The ills of Nigeria go on and on !!

Every leader of Nigeria before the military incursion in 1966 agreed that Nigeria was a big fraud. Its founding fathers were agreed on that fact. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the then leader of the Yoruba nation and first Premier of Western Nigeria called Nigeria, ” a mere geographical expression “. Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto, and first Premier of Northern Nigeria, saw Nigeria “as an estate from our great grandfather, Othman Dan Fodio ” in which “we must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South as conquered territories and never allow them to have control of their future…” Characteristically, this thinking of Ahmadu Bello has been the philosophy of the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy since 1960, and the cause of all the frustrations at nation-building in Nigeria.

But these were the sincere views of the founding fathers of Nigeria. However, under intense pressure, and in their eagerness to impress their British colonial masters, these founding fathers agreed to live together in a political structure that would allow for separate development of the different regions at their respective rates. This was the essence of the federal structure adopted at independence…..for the tolerance of one another. The bubble, however, burst in January 1966.
General Ironsi’s attempt to forge a united Nigeria with his Unification Decree No.34, ended in complete disaster, and triggered the chain reactions that led to the genocide of 1966-1970. Since August, 1966, when Lt. Colonel Gowon came on board, till now, its been hypocrisy in leadership. Convinced that the basis for unity did not exist in Nigeria, Gowon, the leader of the ARABA Northern military group which overthrew Ironsi on July 29, 1966, announced to Nigerians on August 1, 1966 : “….Suffice it to say that putting all considerations to test–political, economic, as well as social–the basis for unity is not there.” This matter-of-fact statement was to be a prelude to the North declaring its independence from the rest of Nigeria in August, 1966. Britain again intervened. Gowon was reminded that power was again in the hands of another Northerner, and that there was no need to take a piece of the pie, when the entire pie was in the control of the North. Gowon told his fellow mutineers this much, and in his second broadcast convinced them to go for ONE NIGERIA. So, their putsch turned from ‘Araba’ to ‘One Nigeria’ when power returned to Ahmadu Bello’s North. This has been the story of Nigeria since 1960. It is the story of the nature of co-existence that featured among the various nationalities that make up Nigeria…the ‘born-to-rule’ and ‘the ruled’ syndrome. The born-to-rule must be in power for there to be peace in the country !General Azazi is nobody’s fool !!

President Jonathan must recognize and appreciate this terrible condition for peace in Nigeria if appropriate steps must be taken to correct the anomaly. Past Nigerian leaders and regimes have not been sincere in acknowledging this terrible truth in dealing with the Nigerian dilemma. All other problems of Nigeria have everything to do with it. Political spaces must,therefore, be created where different peoples of the entity called Nigeria can exist, and maybe, co-exist, in peace and harmony, without fear of persecution and molestation by some over-zealous groups and nationalities wanting to impose their antagonistic agendas. The problems of Nigeria, therefore, have everything to do with the basic structure of the country and the rules of co-habitation.

Why do we all pretend all is well. Nigeria needs to be re-structured,and rules of co-existence streamlined, for people to develop to their full potentials. There is so much acrimony, envy, jealousy, bigotry, and selfishness among the various nationalities, particularly along the north/south divide, that the various peoples live in fear of one another.For example, parents and guardians of young university graduates from the south now resist the posting of their children and wards to the North for national service, for fear of losing them in the hands of “fellow Nigerians”. No country makes progress under such conditions ! This is the reality President Jonathan and the entire Nigerian leadership must come to terms with, and do what is necessary.

The President must get away from the hypocrisy and pretensions of past leaders and chart a new course, so that peoples that inhabit Nigeria can develop into the pride of the black race. ‘Nigerians’ and their children in America and Europe are performing wonders, and contributing immensely to the growth and development of technologies and advancements in their new homes. Most of this people are willing to come home to contribute their expertise and knowledge. But the enabling environment must be created, the political space conducive and un-inhabiting, and their nationalistic fervor challenged ! Ojukwu provided such leadership, and Biafra, the political space some 45 years ago ! The miracles of Biafra in a peaceful and non-war environment can be re-created all over the present Nigerian space for the benefit of all the peoples. Nigerians must be given the opportunity to create and sustain their well-being and welfare in accordance with their wishes in their fatherland. This is the beauty of democracy and the freedom of choice. President Jonathan and the National Assembly should have the patriotic guts to move the nation forward! They must provide the political environment for people to flourish. This is the function of any responsible government anywhere in the world.Otherwise, the Andrews will continue to check out to greener pastures where their talents are appreciated!

Responsible Nigerians have been shouting themselves hoarse over the call for a Peoples’ National Conference where Nigerians would seat down, look one another hard in the eyes, and speak the truth on the way forward. Why is it taking forever to resonate with the Presidency and members of the National Assembly that this is the only way forward for Nigeria ? Maybe, it is true what they say that people in government at those two levels are more concerned with their present fleecing of the resources of ailing Nigeria than bringing the sick amorphous giant back to life. I wonder what patriotism means to them.

To our President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, I humbly wish to say : “Sir, at your level now…..if I were in your position, I would be more concerned with the judgment of History than with my personal assets and possessions. You have a golden opportunity to write and etch your name and administration in gold in the hearts and memories of all well-meaning Nigerians, now and for generations to come, if you right the wrongs ignored by past regimes in Nigeria. You can transform yourself into a statesman, the Mandela of Nigeria by taking the bull by the horn! Nigerians are clamoring for leadership, and a positive change in their lives. They want to talk at a Peoples’ Convention or Conference. That wrong of 1914 must be corrected now…..in your time !”
Provide Nigerians that opportunity to discuss their future well-being.
I hope President Jonathan is listening !!

Nnamdi J.O.Ijeaku

- from Agency Reports -

Abuja, May 21 (IANS) A major tragedy was averted Monday in the Nigerian capital when a suspected suicide bomber was arrested from the office of the federal ministry of information in Abuja, according to many agency reports.

The bomber was caught at the Abuja Radio House, where the ministry office is situated. He had with him several rounds of 7.7 mm ammunition and three Type-86 hand grenades, all concealed in a polythene bag inside a black bag.

The Radio House was preparing to play host to ministers during the May 29 Democracy Day.

James Akindele, chief security officer of the building, said the suspect was arrested at the main entrance.

A LOCAL oil servicing company in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s main oil and gas region, FENOG Nigeria Ltd, is currently taking a huge advantage of the country’s Local Content Act, to acquire facilities and create jobs.

The company has inaugurated what industry watchers described as ”Africa’s largest” offshore Pipe-laying/Derrick barge. It is christened, “Akpevweoghene”, a local ethnic dialect in Delta State, which means: Let us praise God.

Already, Petroleum Resources Minister, Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke, has commended the local oil servicing firm for what she described as their ”giant strides” in Local Content development.

Company Executive Director, Mr. Matthew Tonlagha, however, wants the minister to prevail on the multi-national oil corporations operating in Nigeria, to engage them in their offshore pipeline services.

Concerned citizen groups in the volatile oil region, have been confronting oil majors like the Anglo-Dutch Shell, the American Chevron and Exxon Mobil as well as the France’s Total and the Italian Agip, for allegedly patronizing foreign oil servicing companies with jobs running into millions of dollars while the local firms are left with ”pittance”.

While commissioning “Akpevweoghene” on Saturday in Warri, the commercial nerve center of Delta State, Allison-Madueke lauded FENOG for their massive investment on capacity building aimed at driving the country’s local content agenda to the right direction.

At the occasion which was also witnessed by the Group Executive Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Andy Yakubu, and his Gas Resources counterpart, Dr. David Ige, as well as the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Mr. Ernest Nwapa, an engineer, Allison-Madueke assured that the Nigerian government will continue to support and encourage indigenous companies operating in the oil industry in line with their local content policy.

The petroleum minister said that the local content policy was not ”a lip service and mere slogan”. According to her, ”the policy will entrench indigenous operators in our country’s oil industry”.

Continuing, she said, “I am extremely impressed with what I have seen here today at FENOG. This is 100 percent indigenous company that has got to the stage of procuring and managing a large vessel that can carry 300 people.

”With the kind of facilities that we have seen here today, i think this is something that is most commendable. It is also an indication that Nigerian local content drive is actually working”

FENOG is laying one of the most critical gas pipelines in Nigeria, the Escravos-Lagos pipeline.

Tonlagha, said they are happy that they have become a pace setter in the Niger Delta. Last July, Nwapa commissioned FENOG’s PD 500 HDD rig.

Akpevweoghene can lay pipes offshore from 2″ to 60″, from the depth of 200 to 300 feet, and can also lift heavy duty equipment of 1,000 tons. A correspondent of AkanimoReports in the area said the vessel has a crane of 1,000 tons. According to Tonlagha, ”this is the highest crane in the whole of Africa”.

It was also gathered that the facility which has 387’x100’x25” dimension, has the capacity to accommodate 300 crew members

– Nigeria is in a serious crisis and state of emergency. There is crisis everywhere in the national space. There is crisis of commitment in the home, moral and spiritual crisis in the church, crisis of conscience among the citizens, crisis in national government, state and local, security crisis, employment and job crisis, electricity crisis, healthcare crisis, crisis in education sector, road and transport crisis, infrastructure crisis, and even crisis in the business and banking sector. The Nigerian State is chronically sick, ethically and morally decadent, and frankly, suffering from a serious and severe identity crisis. These are horrible and challenging times in Nigeria. And nobody cares. Nobody really seems to be in-charge here. Whenever there’s a crisis, people want to know, who’s in charge? People want to know what those entrusted with power and authority is doing to bring about stability and peace. In the case of Nigeria, no one really cares. No one seems to be doing anything. Who will deliver Nigeria and Nigerians from the murderous sect called Boko Haram and from selfish politicians and self-serving public servants managing the affairs of the nation today?

The problem of Nigeria is not just socio-economic but ethnic-religious. Nigeria is in a serious ethno-religious warfare that has been going on since her amalgamation. It’ll take spiritual, moral and courageous leaders to understand and deal squarely with the ethnic-religious challenges facing Nigeria. Our politicians, leaders and intellectuals need divine discernment and holy wisdom on spiritual and religious warfare confronting Nigeria today. And I firmly believe that lack of godly, courageous, and compassionate leaders are the root cause of Nigeria’s problems and the primary cause for poverty and the travails of our society.

As I reflect upon the sorry-state of affairs and the on-going conversation in Nigeria regarding – the urgent need for Sovereign National Conference, the call for Fiscal Federalism, the sincere need for Nigeria’s Break-up, the inability of Federal Government and Security Agencies to crush Boko Haram and protect innocent citizens, the rancor and ethnic hatred, the rambling for 2015 Presidency – still 3 years away, the risk of one-party demo-crazy, the rascals and rogues in the House of Assembly and Senate, James Ibori acquittal in Nigeria and recent sentencing to 13 years prison in London, and the mind-boggling and unbelievable Police Pension scam, my heart bleeds. However, I remain hopeful that one day – well meaning Nigerians will find the godly anger, muster the courage, and divine strength to work together to fight the enemies of human progress, flush out incompetence, inefficiency and combat evil and wickedness in our society. I am deeply convinced that the greatest need of our generation is finding Nigerians with righteous anger, godly fear, strong, compassionate and courageous men and women to take over the affairs of our beloved nation from the savages that are have hindered her progress for so long.

In this piece, I’ll reproduce some of my commentaries as well new opinions and offer some solutions on the current topics and on-going issues being debated in Nigeria today.

Bribery & Corruption – Let me begin with the satanic habit of most Nigerians, which is bribery and corruption. Since the return to democratic presidential system of government in 1999, we have seen an unprecedented scandal for bribe, tax evasion, stealing, embezzlement, fraudulent contracts looting and money laundering by the very people entrusted with power and management of public treasury. Let me name a few: Siemens and Wilbros bribery scandals for contracts, Halliburton tax bribery, Chevron, Texaco, Royal Dutch and Bake Hughes bribe for tax evasion, looting and money laundering by 31 governors during Obasanjo’s first and second-terms in office. Billions of Naira spent by INEC that regaled PDP the most fraudulent election in the history of Nigeria in 2003 and 2007, the national identity card project fraud, N300 billion of federal road construction without any good road to show for it, PTDF looting, privatization of federal establishments to friends and families, and trillions of waste in the energy sector etc. In 2007, Nigerians also learned that the past military rulers squandered nearly 400 billion US dollars in the last forty years. That same week, the World Bank and other international organizations reported that Nigeria risks collapse and disintegration if the current looting, corruption, and criminality do not stop. Currently a list of Nigerian looters and the amount deposited in various banks and currencies are circulating online – source: World Bank. The validity of this list cannot be ascertained; however, the list is missing critical names of Nigerian looters – former and current political actors.

The $400 billion that our military rulers looted and embezzled in the last fifty years is thirty times more the $13 billion Marshall Plan economic aid and technical assistance that was packaged to rebuild sixteen European countries after the devastation of World War II in 1945. Today our leaders travel to those European countries for holidays and medical treatment or send their children there for studies. The public funds that Nigerian past military and politicians looted and embezzled could have been utilized to rebuild the entire African economies and create the same luxury they see today in Europe, America, and Dubai. Rather our rulers preferred to steal, loot, and launder public funds into their private accounts in secret banks overseas where those same financial resources are then loaned to residents of those countries to start businesses and carry out major infrastructural projects and human development. Today, the loots of General Abacha are not only located in secret banks in Switzerland and other foreign banks, but are being discovered hidden in juju houses in Nigeria while poverty, disease, corruption and hopelessness buffet the people. What a travesty!

Police Pension Scam – Just a couple of years ago, we read the scandalous looting and embezzlement of Police budget by the former IGP, Chief Balogun, who looted hundreds of millions and acquired houses practically in every major State of Nigeria including a few overseas. He depleted the police department budget, paid the police personnel meager salaries that forced most of them to openly ask for N20 bribe at checkpoints. Today, it is Police pension scam. My heart bleeds when I read about the illegal financial transactions and mismanagement of N26 billion of Police Pension Funds into private accounts. Yesterday, the newspapers reported that five banks – First Bank, Fidelity, UBA, Guarantee Trust and Ecobank were engaged in the scandalous and fraudulent scheme. The on-going revelation of this monumental corruption and pension scam is minded boggling and unbelievable. How can this occur in a nation that have leaders and aspires to develop and prosper? How can the banks not suspect such illegality and huge deposits of funds without any business backup? The banks are not only supposed to encourage individuals to save and companies to invest and compete in capital markets, but must also question and discourage fictitious and illegal financial transactions.

Over the years, especially since the return to democratic presidential government in 1999, we have seen and read many scandalous reports about banks and their greedy CEOs issuing un-collateral loans – savings from poor Nigerians to themselves by using fictitious names and sometimes non-existent companies abroad to steal and stash billions of Naira to the detriment of the poor Nigerian masses. Case in point was Mrs. Cecilia Ibru and others. The appointment of Mallam Sansui by the late president Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007, to sanitize the banking sector after the failure of Prof. Charles Souldo to do so, was welcome news for most. But today, we have seen that Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is also failing in this endeavor. His fiscal and monetary policies – including the introduction of Islamic banking, which kicked-off in Abuja, Kaduna and Kano, were designed to Islamize Nigerian economy and fund the jihadist sects for political power and control. Rather than establish and enact polices that will checkmate cronyism , illegal financial transactions and beefcake businesses, Mallam Sanusi is engaged in radical rhetoric Islamic discourse by establishing Islamic banking and promoting it. He has also become a Boko-Haram and Jihad apologist, defending Boko Haram murderous activities in the North. Recently, he’s been arguing that the North is poor because of the derivation formula, which rewards the South more, especially the oil producing states, than the North. Also, we have not seeing the effects of his cashless program, but rather, Mallam Sanusi is positioning himself to run for governor of Kano state in 2015 and ultimately for presidency at some point.

The CBN Governor and bank CEOs must understand that the 21st century bank must not only work to encourage individuals to save and companies to invest, compete, and hire a strong and well-educated workforce, but must have a vision to use information technology to benefit consumers and stimulate investment, innovation, and create jobs.

Those persons and banks implicated in the Police pension scam should be properly punished. I believe this is happening in other sectors as well. EFCC, ICPC, Police and other crime management agencies should be investigate other sectors of the economy and arrest and prosecute those implicated in this monumental fraud and illegality.

James Ibori conviction and sentencing in London – James Ibori is just one among many superficial, selfish politicians and self-serving public servants running and overseeing the affairs of things in Nigeria. During president Obasanjo’s 8-year reign, 31 out of 36 governors were indicted for various public funds looting and money laundering. Today, most – if not all of them, are walking free in Nigeria and reside in various countries of the world enjoying their loot. By the way, this same animal called James Ibori was acquitted of the same 170 charges in Asaba by a Nigerian Judge in 2009. What does that tell us of Nigerian Judges and courts? Our justice system – courts, lawyers and Judges have now become cohorts and share abundantly in the monumental corruption going on in Nigeria. It’s terrible and sad indeed. The very institutions that suppose to punish crime and protect against embezzlement of nation’s assets are now cohorts in the very robbery, bribery, corruption, embezzlement, looting and laundering of the nation’s oil wealth. James Ibori believed Britain is Nigeria where he would’ve walked scot-free. Will Nigerian Judges and courts learn anything from Ibori’s sentencing in London? What about the lawyers defending and arguing sheepishly for a crook and criminal like James Ibori? What about the many Ibori’s still in position of power and leadership positions today in Nigeria? Will they learn anything from Ibori’s trial and sentencing in UK? It’s really a shame that politicians and so-called leaders are reduced to fools and nonentities because of money and material things.

I propose the following threes things before anyone is elected into public office:

• That those aspiring for public office should go for psychological evaluation. Men and women aspiring for higher office or position of leadership in Nigeria must present a certificate of psychological evaluation.

• Aspiring politicians and public servants should be evaluated mentally, emotionally, psychologically and yes morally, before they are enthroned into position of leadership.

• Their private life, public record, and professional experience should be examined and scrutinized by an independent board before they are elected or voted into public office.

How to stop bribery & corruption – Measures and solutions to eradicate corruption and embezzlement of public funds

• I also propose and firmly believe that it is time to take corruption and public funds embezzlement very seriously in Nigeria, otherwise this aberration and savage habits will not stop. Let’s start by making people to swear in the name of their god or higher power. Personally I do not believe in capital punishment even in the case of premeditated murder, but because of the satanic greed and the mind-boggling looting, embezzlement and mismanagement of public wealth, I whole-heartily support capital punishment for those clearly convicted for such crimes like ex-governor James Ibori, Pension scam fraudsters and other monumental public funds mismanagement that we have read and seen in Nigeria.

• Setup a management office staffed with men and women of integrity and honesty, character and principle to oversee the payments of government workers and other civil servants, public servants, governors, ministers, senators, legislators, ministers, president’s aides, staff, VP aides, staff, VP and president – using the means of modern technology like electronic payment and direct deposits. This is 21st century and there are various technology software that can implemented and setup to directly wire and pay into the accounts of government workers and public servants on bi-weekly or monthly basis as designed.

• The management payment office should also be established in each State and with a central office in Abuja. With robust database like Oracle and electronic payment software, it takes just a matter of minutes to manage funds and disburse funds to each government officials and public servants bank accounts and email or mail the deposit slips to them. Basically, the idea of cash-less society and electronic means of payment will go a long way to discourage bribery and hinder corruption.

• The same mechanism should be replicated for State and Local government. If we are really serious about eradicating bribery and corruption, electronic payment and a centralized management office staffed with men and women of character, principle, honesty and integrity is the way to go.

• Make those serving in sensitive money departments to swear in the name of God or Bible, Allah and Koran, or god of thunder, etc., and finally

• Introduce and enforce death penalty for those convicted of embezzlement of public funds.

Until the use of technology is deployed and these drastic and draconian measures are taken to punish corrupt politicians and leaders in Nigeria, the nation will not move forward. Until, the Nigerian people learn to elect, appoint and put people of integrity and people that can be trusted in charge of the nation’s business, Nigeria will never see any genuine development and progress. Bad leadership, corruption, ineptitude, myopic and visionless leaders must be restrained from the nation’s polity for the nation to achieve any meaningful progress.

The Police pension scam is ridiculous, unbelievable, and insane. Such acts can only be carried out by crooks, criminals, savages so speak – by a crop of satanic minds that are superficial, cryptic, inept, greedy, corrupt, unqualified, arrogant and incompetent, whose stock in trade is to steal, embezzle, diminish and rubbish the potential of Nigerian people and society.

Look-out for Part 2 of this essay. I will be discussing the following topics: Why Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was not elected World bank president, 2015 Presidency and Nigeria’s Risk of One-party Demo-crazy, Fiscal Federalism, Resource Control and Poverty in the North, Boko Haram, Insecurity, National Dialogue, and Nigeria’s Break-up. I will conclude with the call for Courageous and Great leadership

Dr. Ekeke is a theologian, author, consultant, and leadership scholar. He is the president of Leadership Wisdom Institute.