In Imo State, It's Flood of Tears

How to describe the level of devastation caused by flood in no fewer than 15 communities in Oguta and Ohaji/Egbema local council areas of Imo State is no doubt a herculean task. It is also true that the degree of harm caused the harmless and hapless citizens and the environment by the rampaging flood is better imagined than seen.

This is the worst flooding Egbema and Oguta people experienced for a long time. The first in recent memory was in 1947, the year of the eclipse of the sun. There was also that of 1969, during the war but this one surpasses all of them, according to some aged men in the two areas.

In Egbema axis, Opuoma, Obiakpu, Mmahu and Abacheke communities have very sad stories to tell about the flood. A former member of House of Representatives, Chief Tony Okere, who took representatives of Rotary International, District 9140, to the submerged communities, told Saturday Vanguard that the flood did not spare the Independent Power Plant, which is under construction in the area.

"About 25,000 people have been displaced from their homes, including the former Speaker of Imo State House of Assembly, Chief Goodluck Nanah Opiah. Similarly, the road leading to Ndoni, the country home of the former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili, has been taken over by flood", Okere recounted with tears.

Reacting also to the ugly development, the Assistant Governor of Rotary International, District 9140, Chief C. J. Ihemedu, described what the delegation saw in Oguta and Egbema as "traumatic" and even warned that if nothing was done immediately, an epidemic of unimaginable proportion could engulf the disaster zone.

The story is not different in Oguta. Two people reportedly drowned in Oguta axis. All the riverine arreas, including Orsu, Nnebukwu, Orsu Obodo, Opuoma, Ezi Orsu are under water.

Saturday Vanguard gathered that fish ponds, cocoa plantations, farm lands, plantain, cassava, economic trees and crops are presently under water. Over 123 farm settlements and satellite towns are under water. Almost 8,000 persons have no homes now.

Over 1,000 homes have been sacked in Oguta, including the home of the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development Commission, Engr. Ernest Nwapa and the bridge connecting Oguta and Egbuoma, the home of the Secretary to the Government of Imo State, SGI, Professor Anthony Gozie Anwuka, has been swallowed. This bridge also leads to Senator Nzeribe's home.

The multi million Naira Erima Agwuagu Plantation is in water. The pavilion, from where dignitaries watch the fanciful regatta during the Ozurimo festival is under water. The ferry has since ceased to function because the landing ramp is under water now.

REFUGEES

Oguta community has set up well knit machinery to accommodate the displaced persons in individual homes. It is an effort coordinated by the community to alleviate the sufferings of the internally displaced persons to avert chaos.

Answering questions from Saturday Vanguard, the traditional ruler of Oguta, Eze Nnani Nzeribe, said that no fewer than 65 persons live in one farm satellite settlement, adding that 123 of such settlements have been sacked by flood. "Apart from one or two flow stations, all the oil wells and pipelines are under water. Shell has shut down its operations in Umuorodogwom", the royal father said.

IMPACT

Wildlife, as well as fauna and flora have been completely destroyed. Premature harvesting of cassava, yams and other crops is now on for those who were lucky to be around when the flood started.

For the royal father, it is tragic to note that his subjects woke up one morning and lost what took a lifetime to acquire, adding that some people have aged overnight and broken hearted. But for the grace of God more people would have died.

"It is sad that people will start life afresh. Help must come to them as fast as possible. Immediate remedy would be in form clothing, housing, food, healthcare because of the possibility of an epidemic breaking out soon", Eze Nzeribe said.

According to the traditional ruler, the long term measure will be to find a way of preventing such a catastrophe in future and suggested the dredging of the Lake Urashi River so that the depth is increased to contain more volume of water. He also called for the building of proper embankment along the shores of the Lake.

"Medium term approach would be to rehabilitate the displaced families when the flood recedes by providing both materials and cash to enable them return to their farms. They will also need seedlings and seed money to enable them return to their farms", the royal father pleaded.

GERALD IRONA PROVIDES SOME RELIEF MATERIALS

Chief Gerald Irona, representing the area in the National Assembly, have provided relief materials for eight different communities in Oguta and Ohaji/Egbema communities sacked by flood. The materials included bags of rice, garri, beans, bournvita, disinfectants, soap, detergent, tomato paste, cooking oil and yam. He also made promises, including grant and seedlings.

SERIOUS CONCERN

The situation on ground calls for a very serious concern, both immediate and future. It is immediate because the people have lost their means of livelihood. Oguta and Egbema remains the food basket of Imo State and beyond. In view of the flooding, which has occasioned the washing way and submersion of the crops and plants, the farmers have lost their crops and have no hope of getting seedlings.

Again, most people have lost their houses where they live, in addition to losing their ancestral homes. The cumulative effect of this flooding is that in the long term, people will no longer have a place to live and there is the possibility of famine and starvation.

Again, the water has been polluted. It is now stinking. People in the affected communities have now been exposed to epidemic outbreak. The cumulative effect of the above is that the lives of the people are in serious danger.

IRONA REACTS

"It is regrettable that as at the time of this interview, no meaningful assistance has come from r the state, the federal government or its agencies. However, the constituency is very pleased with the visit of the Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Chief Emeka Ihedioha, for his timely visit and intervention", Irona said.

It was the considered opinion of the lawmaker that deliberate effort must be put in place to ensure that the victims of the flood are well taken care of, even as he advised that "people should not politicize the flood issue in his constituency, considering the machinations and scheming of some individual(s), who believe that this is an opportunity to position themselves to hijack whatever succor that might be released by the Federal Government".

All the people that talked to Saturday Vanguard used the medium to urge the local, state and federal government and their interventionist agencies like National Emergency Management Agency, State Emergency Management Agency, Niger Delta Development Commission and Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, to live up to their primary responsibility by ensuring the immediate provision of food and medical relief materials to the flood victims as a stop gap measure to ameliorate their immediate needs.

They also appealed to their lawmakers to use their positions to ensure that whatever relief materials meant for the people gets to the appropriate communities and affected individuals. They expressed disgust that some people have already started some clandestine moves to benefit from the misery and adversity of hapless individuals.

........CHIDI NKWOPARA/VANGUARD, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2012

Nigerian journalist wins landmark court victory

Desmond Utomwen

"If a journalist can't fight for his own right, then he has no responsibility to fight for others," Desmond Utomwen, a senior correspondent with TheNews Magazine/PM News, told me after a High Court judge on October 4 awarded him 100 million naira (US$637,000) in special damages from the Nigeria Police Force and Guarantee Trust Bank Plc.

Utomwen's victory represents the largest award for any journalist in Nigeria's 52-year history as an independent nation and sets a clear precedent for the country's beleaguered press.

Utomwen was cruelly brutalized by several policemen in collaboration with staff of Guarantee Trust Bank on December 11, 2009, for covering a peaceful protest outside the bank's premises in Area 3 of the capital, Abuja. The bank's customers were protesting alleged fraudulent ATM withdrawals said to have been made by the bank's officials, according to local journalists and news reports.

Utomwen had asked the court to declare that his fundamental human rights had been violated when he was obstructed from working; had his equipment forcefully taken; and was attacked and hit with gun butts until he was unconscious, before being bundled into a police vehicle and detained for several hours without access to medical treatment.

For two years and 10 months, Utomwen relentlessly sought justice. The case passed through two judges before reaching Justice Peter Kekemeke, who declared the actions violated the journalist's right to freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, right to own moveable and immoveable property, and right to freedom of the press and expression as protected in sections 34, 39, and 44 of the 1999 Constitution.

"My lawyer had to ask the previous judge to disqualify herself and the case be reassigned because it was unnecessarily being stalled. That led to this judgment," Utomwen said.

Lashe Osoba, Guarantee Trust Bank spokesman, told me the bank would appeal the ruling. Police spokesman Frank Mba declined to comment on the case. Ugochukwu Ezekiel of Festus Keyamo Chambers, who took up Utomwen's case on a pro-bono basis, told me that a notice of appeal cannot act as a stay of proceedings. He said a garnishment order against the police and the bank will be filed to enforce the court's judgment.

By coincidence, on the same day Utomwen was drawing a close to his long-fought court battle, Benedict Uwalaka of Leadership Newspapers, a journalist who was assaulted on August 9, 2012, allegedly by mortuary attendants at a government hospital, received a lesson in the value of perseverance. Uwalaka's court case came up for hearing on October 4 but was adjourned until November 13 due to power failure--just the type of frivolous delay characteristic of judicial proceedings, including Utomwen's trial.

"The magistrate said he couldn't see as there was no light in court. So another date was chosen," Uwalaka told me. He said Utomwen's victory had emboldened him in his quest for justice.

The Nigeria Union of Journalists, a party to both lawsuits, has unflinchingly supported Utomwen and Uwalaka and refused all entreaties to settle out of court. Mohammed Garba, the union's president, told me the organization's new strategy of seeking legal redress, as opposed to mere condemnation, is yielding dividends.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel told me he would continue to take cases of journalists assaulted in the line of duty free of charge.

Still nursing pains to his spinal cord since the attack, Utomwen reiterated his fight for justice was not for the money but the profession of journalism.

..............PETER NKANGA/CPJ, West Africa Consultant

Doctor Took HIV-Infected Blood On Flight From Nigeria

A consultant lost his job at an NHS hospital after carrying a sample of HIV-infected blood in his hand luggage while flying from Africa to the UK, a High Court judge has heard.

Tubonye Harry - who was a genito-urinary specialist at the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston, Norfolk - was returning from Nigeria, where he did private work, Mr Justice Burnett was told.

The judge said the sample should have been packed in the aircraft's hold and Dr Harry had breached regulations designed to prevent passengers being exposed to infection.

Dr Harry had also broken rules by opening a package containing the sample at home instead of in a laboratory, the judge added. He was dismissed by James Paget bosses earlier this year.

Details of the case emerged as Mr Justice Burnett ruled on a dispute between Dr Harry and the General Medical Council (GMC) - which registers doctors - at a High Court hearing in London.

Dr Harry, who also faced a number of other allegations relating to his work, has been suspended pending the outcome of GMC disciplinary proceedings, the judge was told. But he argued that the GMC's 18-month interim suspension was unfair and unnecessary - and the judge agreed.

Mr Justice Burnett terminated the suspension, which prevented Harry from seeking alternative work, saying it was "disproportionate".

The judge said Dr Harry had also been accused of failing to "properly insulate" NHS work from private work. He said it was also alleged that, when confronted with a suggestion that he was using NHS resources for private patients, Dr Harry had asked a member of staff to "amend the paperwork".

Mr Justice Burnett said the interim orders panel of the GMC had suspended Dr Harry in April. But he concluded that the suspension was "heavy handed", adding: "In my judgment, there was no real risk to members of the public in Dr Harry's continuing to practise."

Mr Justice Burnett outlined detail of the case in a written ruling handed down on Friday following a hearing in September.

.......THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD

Persecuted Zimbabwe farmers boots Nigerian economy

KWARA — Graham Hatty, who was driven off his land in Zimbabwe a decade ago, is helping Nigeria in its drive to return to food self-sufficiency.

The cassava he grows in central Kwara state was on the first ship exporting the crop to China, in August.

The government is trying to boost production of the starchy root, as well as of rice and sugar, to slash the $10 billion spent every year on food imports. President Goodluck Jonathan plans to increase food production by 20 million metric tonnes by 2015 by providing land, funding and lending via the central bank.

“The potential is tremendous,” Hatty (73) said from the balcony of his farmhouse in Shonga, which overlooks a lawn dividing his house from cassava fields near the bank of the Niger River. “There’s huge demand for cassava flour, especially by biscuit makers.”

Africa’s biggest oil producer is trying to reverse a decline in the agriculture industry that has led to a 16-fold increase in wheat imports since 1970, when the country’s oil boom began. Half of Nigeria’s 160 million people live in rural areas and four-fifths of those are below the poverty line, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The country, which grew enough food to feed itself in the 1960s, is now the world’s largest importer of rice and sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest importer of wheat and sugar.

“We want to be the largest processor of cassava in the world and not export jobs to other countries that are exporting wheat to Nigeria,” Akinwunmi Adesina, the country’s Agriculture minister told reporters in Abuja, the capital, in July. “Why do farmers in Arkansas, in Nebraska, love Nigeria? Because we keep buying wheat we don’t produce.”

Hatty and 12 other white Zimbabwean farmers moved to Nigeria in 2004 after his soya bean, maize and wheat farm was seized by armed men as part of a government programme of land expropriation.

He was recruited to come to Nigeria by the Kwara state government, which sent delegations asking dispossessed farmers to emigrate. Zimbabwe, once Africa’s second-biggest corn exporter, now imports its staple food.

While four of those who came with Hatty have left, the others run poultry and dairy operations, he said.

Nigeria is now taking further steps, including central bank funding for farmers, tax holidays for investors and regulation designed to favour local crops, as it seeks to revive an industry that once exported peanuts, palm oil and cotton. The country is still the world’s fourth-biggest cocoa exporter. Agriculture, including subsistence farming, accounts for more than 40% of gross domestic product, compared with 16% for oil.

Flour millers in Africa’s most populous country are now required to blend cassava into wheat flour. The current ratio of 20% is set to rise to 40% by 2015, according to a regulation passed in October last year.

Wheat imports will fall by 20% initially and by 40% once the set targets are reached, Olalekan Saliu, executive secretary of the Lagos-based Flour Milling Association of Nigeria, said in an interview on July 30. Association members include Flour Mills of Nigeria, Dangote Flour Mills and Honeywell Flour Mills.

In the last crop year, Nigeria produced just 100 000 tonnes of wheat, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). About 650 billion naira ($4,1 billion) of wheat was imported last year, most of it from the US, according to the Agriculture ministry. Nigeria bought 3,25 million tonnes of US wheat in the 2011-2012 marketing year ended May 31 the USDA said.

A 65% levy on imports of wheat flour came into effect on July 1 in addition to the existing 35% import duty, Finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in Abuja on July 11. The proceeds will be used to set up a cassava fund for further research to increase wheat substitution, she said.

The country also consumes about 5,4 million tonnes of rice a year, of which it produces 2,3 million tonnes, according to the Agriculture minister. The government is seeking to end imports, mostly from India and Thailand, in three years by bringing more land under cultivation through incentives to farmers, President Jonathan said in August last year. Those imports cost 350 billion naira a year.

The central bank has made available $800 million for loans, which will be used to set up rice mills across the country, Adesina told reporters in Abuja on March 1. Still, the country has obstacles to remove if it is to foster an agricultural revival.

Aside from the initial funding provided to Hatty by the Kwara state government, he hasn’t been able to secure credit from banks even though the central bank has pledged to make money available and is pushing commercial banks to do the same. That’s hampered plans to introduce irrigation to grow cassava year-round and plant rice on his land by the river bank.

“Banks aren’t interested in agriculture, and if they’re not going to get interested, agriculture can’t grow,” he said. “We’ve been hearing for years that central bank money is coming, but it goes to these big companies; it doesn’t come to us small guys.” - Bloomberg

Gay Nigerian Man Facing 'Threat Of Death' Deported From UK

A gay Nigerian man has been deported from the UK despite being under the threat of death if returned to his home country.

Members of equal rights campaign group AllOut.org flooded the Home Office with telephone calls last week in opposition to the decision to deport Olalekan M. Ayelokun to Nigeria, where homosexuality is illegal.

Ayelokun was placed on a chartered flight at 11.20pm on Wednesday 10 October. ‘I feel terrible, traumatised’, he said from Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre last week, ‘I am very afraid they are going to kill me in Nigeria.’

His application for asylum was rejected after a judge ruled that he did not believe that Ayelokun is gay. Friends and lovers – including a member of the British civil service – were unable to convince the judge that the Nigerian lives as an openly gay man.

‘Ola’s case shows that if you are fleeing persecution, you can never be ‘gay enough’ to be granted asylum in the UK,’ said AllOut.org Executive Director and Co-Founder Andre Banks. ‘The judge in this case has actively rejected evidence provided by Ola’s solicitor that proves he is gay and now he is on his way to a country where who he loves could land him in jail – or worse.’

There are increasing reports of LGBT people claiming asylum in the UK on the grounds that homosexuality is criminalised in their home countries. A lack of specific guidelines has led to many judges rejecting their claims.

In 2010, David Cameron said that LGBT people facing imprisonment, torture and death should not be sent home. ‘If you have a legitimate fear of persecution, then it seems to me that is a perfectly legitimate reason to stay,’ he said.

LGBT people in Nigeria can face up to 14 years in prison for ‘gay acts’

..........SOSO GAY

Northern Muslims and the Nigerian Civil War: Between Achebe and other Igbo intellectuals

BY IBRAHEEM A. WAZIRI/THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA

It’s just that ignorance reign in Nigeria or our public intellectuals do not have passion for details and deep philosophical enquiry into the nature and realities of our socio-cultural formation and its history for the best of their opinions. These can be the only open and not so stretched explanations to Chinua Achebe’s blatant, below status and insincere depiction of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 70 in the light of a so called jihadist expansionist goal of Muslims of northern Nigeria. The opinion summary of his latest book, There Was a Country, as he published in The Guardian of London Tuesday, 2nd 2012, make bold this meaningless assertion:

“But if the diabolical disregard for human life seen during the war was not due to the northern military elite’s jihadist or genocidal obsession, then why were there more small arms used on Biafran soil than during the entire second world war? Why were there 100,000 casualties on the much larger Nigerian side compared with more than 2 million–mainly children–Biafrans killed?”

Needless to mention that Achebe is not alone in this kind of portrayal that is typical of recent Igbo ‘intellectuals’ when it comes to discussing the civil war. The task of re-educating them and the crop of their students is therefore necessary if the dream of a greater Nigeria in fair neighbourliness is to be realised.

Yes, northern Nigerians are mainly and majorly proud and faithful Muslims with unique culture and a record of close interactions with other world civilisations since time. They have for long known and understood that not everybody must look like them or believe in what they believed in, before peace, social cohesion and fair neighborliness are justifiably established. In fact it can be authoritatively said that northern Nigeria of the 1960s, formed one the most cosmopolitan and accommodating social spaces in the whole world.

When the former Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah wanted to initiate and draft then Nigeria’s Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Premier of the Northern Region Ahmadu Bello into his Pan-Africanism, they clearly told him that they were not racists and believed in the universal nature of truth, justice, fairness and equality of humankind regardless of race or ethnicity and that reflected the way they managed northern Nigeria and the country in general.

It was this world-view with its values and norms guiding intra and inter-pinning of human relations that saw a northern Nigeria of the 1960s as a home to many Igbo. In modern history the top one percent of the most literate and influential Igbo personalities once lived in northern Nigeria or spoke Hausa, the dominant language in the North. It was here that Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s parents settled and gave birth to him in 1937. He grew up with all opportunities unhindered and got the award of love, justice and trust of the then Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello until he finally, easily and safely got access to him, in the night, in his house, in the privacy of his bedroom and killed him in front of his wife with no struggle, no any suspecting guard to check him or even ask him hard questions. It is finished. Brutus killed his Caesar in cold blood of treachery, hatred and breach of trust. Describing a similar situation in the same operation kill, where Major Ifeajuna, an Igbo soldier and Major Nzeagwu’s co-kill planner and partner, shot Brigadier Maimalari, Bernard Odogwu, an Igbo Nigerian diplomat at the times of the events, in his book, No Place to Hide - Crises and Conflicts inside Biafra, clearly put it, “I am particularly shocked at the news that Major Ifeajuna personally shot and killed his mentor, Brigadier Maimalari. My God! That must have been Caesar and Brutus come alive...”

What then could have been the fate of other Igbo in many parts of the North who enjoyed the same love, trust and protection of the other northerners who began to see a new streak of arrogance, condescension in the behavior of the Igbo, who were illusioned in the new leadership of General Ironsi to the extent that, as told by our parents, they used to mock the northerners, imitating the cries and squeaks of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa before he died in the hands of Major Ifeajuna. Still Igbo intellectuals engage in this mockery as the Nigerian military historian Max Siollun, recently re-told the story of Nzeogwu’s kill, which clearly portrayed Ahmadu Bello as a coward and a simpleton, who hide behind his wife when he saw that Nzeagwu was certain to get him. These provocations and the details of stories such as captured by David Muffett, a British colonial officer who wrote the account of the 1966 coup in a book titled, Let Truth Be Told, outlining the Igbo elite’s detailed plan to take control of not only the political structures but even the social structures of the North by killing all the then northern emirs in the final.

Some including Achebe are still contesting that the kill was not an Igbo carefully planned affair but rather a coup plotted against all Nigerian leaders of then. Yet all Igbo in prominent positions were missed in the fire and it was said Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe was missed because he was out of the country for a medical checkup. The question is could they have missed Sir Ahmadu Bello or Abubakar Tafawa Balewa if any was on a medical trip or they would have postponed the operations for more appropriate date that would guarantee and ensure an all inclusive kill?

Yet, the pogroms that followed the events and the civil war were unfortunate (more objective details of which were written by Elechi Amadi in Sunset at Biafra). But the characterisation of northerners as Muslim jihadists who were already prepared and ready to stage a ‘holy jihad’ against Igbo, as a reason for the war is very untrue and intellectually insincere. Just because Igbo intellectuals have to find reasons then it doesn’t mean every reason must be dashed out. Just because they need someone to blame doesn’t mean the 21st century image of fundamentalist Islam must be projected backward into the story of Nigeria to justify a perspective.

Besides what religion did the major actors of the war on the federal side professed? General Yakubu Gowon, General Theopilus Danjuma and General Joseph Garba, were Christians. Chief Awolowo, the intellectual architect of the war was a Christian. General Olusegun Obasanjo and General Adekunle were all not northerners. The prominent name in the commands that is a core Muslim northerner was only General Murtala Muhammed. Even if all the others were Muslims, what sense could it have made for the Muslims to have fought the Igbo only to establish the leadership of General Yakubu Gowon who was a Christian, the same and only reason they supposedly could have fought the Igbo? Gowon enjoyed the support of all Muslim northerners as my good friend Alhaji Yakubu Musa, currently a media assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, who is from a devout Muslim family, once mentioned how he was named Yakubu in celebration of Gowon’s visit to Kano on a day that coincided with his birthday.

No. The truth of the matter is Igbo betrayed the trust given to them in the then northern Nigeria by the singular act of betrayal of Nzeagwu on Ahmadu Bello and the subsequent poor management of their relationship with their hosts that bred suspicion of complicity in the plans of the kill and a thought of greater conspiracy.

The way forward is not to employ a wider and more efficient propaganda machinery to score cheap sympathy and sponsor the production of a sensationalist movie in the Holly Wood, Tears of the Sun, starring Bruce Willis and displaying that northern Nigerian Muslim Hausa will attempt to do the same in the present Nigeria and in the recent future and can be stopped only by the Americans.

The way forward is to always tell the truth, accept faults, take responsibilities for errors and constantly preach the gospel of keeping trust, commitments and fair neighbourliness. Let’s make the younger generation and the entire world know that we are one in Nigeria and the top one per cent of Igbo most informed political and public intellectuals lived in the North or even spoke Hausa.

This ranging from Chinua Achebe himself, Cyprian Ekwensi, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeagwu, General Emeka Ojukwu or Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe. Cyprian Ekwensi even copied and translated the literary work of my uncle; John Tafida Umaru titled, Jiki Magayi, from Hausa to English, titled it, African Night Entertainment, and dubbed it his own without acknowledgement, adding to his literary stock, achievement and fame. The world must know the good contribution their living in the North and speaking its language brought into their skills and perspectives, that, which won them the accolades they so celebrate and rejoice in, today. A fact, which they and their friends always want to hide!

MS-13 Labeled an International Crime Group by Treasury

Ultra-Violent Gang’s Cash, Assets Targeted for Seizure

ASSOCIATED PRESS

United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator, Dr. Rajiv Shah, sitting left, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sign a Memorandum of Understanding with USAID, a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Justice to share best practices for gang reduction, during a news conference in Los Angeles Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. Standing rear, from left: Contance Rice, Co-Director Advancement Project, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, and Guillermo Cespedes, Los Angeles Deputy Mayor in charge of the Gang Reduction and Youth Development program. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration declared the ultra-violent street gang MS-13 to be an international criminal group on Thursday, an unprecedented crackdown targeting the finances of the sprawling U.S. and Central American gang infamous for hacking and stabbing victims with machetes.

The Treasury Department formally designated MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, a transnational criminal organization. The aim is to freeze it out of the U.S. financial system and seize what are estimated to be millions of dollars in criminal profits from drug and human smuggling and other crimes committed in this country.

The gang was founded by immigrants fleeing El Salvador's civil war more than two decades ago. Its founders took lessons learned from that brutal conflict to the streets of Los Angeles and built a reputation as one of the most ruthless and sophisticated street gangs, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent Jason Shatarsky.

With as many as 10,000 members in 46 states, the gang has expanded far beyond its initial roots. Members are accused of major crimes including murder, kidnapping, prostitution, drug smuggling and human trafficking.

The group established itself in Los Angeles before spreading across the U.S., said Shatarsky, an MS-13 expert assigned to ICE's national gang unit. The group's violence - using a machete to hack a victim to death or shooting someone in the head in broad daylight, for instance - surprised authorities and even rival gangs.

"They saw a level of violence that hadn't been seen before," Shatarsky said, adding that as the gang has expanded it has also become more sophisticated than many rivals.

The gang, which is allied with several of Mexico's warring drug cartels, has a strong presence in Southern California, Washington and Northern Virginia, all areas with substantial Salvadoran populations. Shatarsky said its members target residents and business owners for extortion, among other crimes. The gang is also active throughout Central America and in parts of Mexico. Authorities in Europe have reported evidence of MS-13 expanding operations there.

Among the most high-profile killings attributed to MS-13 in Virginia was the 2003 slaying of a pregnant teenager who had become an informant. Brenda Paz, 17, was stabbed to death and her body was left along the banks of the Shenandoah River. Gang members have also been linked to the 2007 execution style shooting deaths of three friends in a schoolyard in Newark, N.J. One victim was slashed with a machete before being shot. Six people have been charged in the case.

By labeling MS-13 an international criminal organization subject to sanctions by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the government hopes to stymie the gang's ability to funnel money back to its leaders in El Salvador or launder criminal proceeds through otherwise legitimate businesses.

George Grayson, an expert on Mexico's Los Zetas drug cartel who has also studied other criminal organizations, said the Treasury sanctions are likely to be successful throttling the group's finances in the U.S. but may not affect its operations in El Salvador or the rest of Central America. With the gang having significant numbers of members operating outside the U.S., he said, it may be hard to have as significant an impact as the government wants.
"You've got to have cooperation with the Central American authorities," said Grayson, a professor at the College of William & Mary and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.
The Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, David S. Cohen, said that while no specific members of the gang have been listed as part of the group's sanction, anyone identified as a gang member or associate trying to do business with gang members could be subject to criminal prosecution.

The government is also making it more difficult for gang members to use banks and wire transfer services to move profits from the group's crimes.

ICE Director John Morton described the designation as a "powerful weapon" for his agency's effort to dismantle the gang. The action "allows us to strike at the financial heart of MS-13," he said.

Other international criminal groups that have been subject to similar sanctions by the Treasury Department include the Yakuza, a Japanese organized crime group, and the ruthless Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas.

BOOK REVIEW: My First Coup d'Etat, by Ghana's accidental president

BY SIMON ALLISON/DAILY MAVERICK

Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama

Very few leaders can meet the demanding challenges of both politics and prose. John Mahama, Ghana’s president, is one of them. SIMON ALLISON reviews his evocative memoirs, which should be required reading for anyone trying to understand where Ghana went wrong – and what Mahama might do about it.

I tried and failed to get even a glimpse of the exterior of Osu Castle, the president’s residence in Accra, Ghana. As I approached the building, I was stopped on its periphery by two burly guards who were happy to chat with me about world politics but weren’t going to allow me even a foot closer to the centre of power. Turns out I didn’t need their permission. If books are a window into the soul – and they surely are – John Dramani Mahama’s memoirs are a floor-to-ceiling glass pane, offering an unrivalled insight into the mind of the Ghanaian president.

This is an accident. Mahama wasn’t president when he wrote it, nor when it was published in July. At that time, he was deputy to John Atta Mills and expecting at least another term as backup. Then Mills died, without much warning, and Mahama was thrust into the global spotlight. He was swiftly confirmed as president and as party leader and will contest the elections at the end of this year, which are expected to be very tightly fought.

Outside of Ghana, not all that much is known about Mahama, except that he is a teacher turned career politician and a loyal member of the ruling party. His book, My First Coup d’État, fills in some of these gaps.

It is clearly aimed at an international audience. Some of the more laborious passages come when Mahama is filling in the basics of his country’s political history, or explaining terms and concepts that would be obvious to any Ghanaian. As foreigners, however, we need the explanations, and some of them form the basis for fascinating anecdotes in their own right. You know those large, square plastic bags that are ubiquitous across the continent? The colourful ones with the chequered patterns that can, if required, magically accommodate the contents of an entire household? In Nigeria, these are called “Ghana must go” bags, because that’s what Ghanaian refugees used to carry their things when they were unceremoniously booted out of Nigeria in the 1970s.

Mahama’s pain as he describes this incident is clear, especially given that many of these refugees still felt unable to return to Ghana. “Things had come to this,” he writes. “The feeling that life anywhere else, no matter how dangerous it was to get there or how difficult it was to live there, was better than life in Ghana, the home we had all once loved and cherished and had never before dreamt of leaving.”

Mahama was born just a year after Ghana achieved its independence in 1957, and his coming of age – as told in a series of loosely connected, almost fable-like stories – mirrors Ghana’s own development. In the good days, as Kwame Nkrumah is promising his African renaissance and Ghana is revelling in its new found freedom, Mahama is the most promising son of a wealthy minister, spending his time shuttling in a chauffeur-driven car between his elite boarding school and his various houses.

His family’s wealth and prosperity is relative, of course. “Only a few houses in town, the houses of affluent people were roofed with corrugated iron sheets. Ours was one of them.”

Things swiftly go downhill for Ghana and its future president. Nkrumah is overthrown and a seven-year-old Mahama, accompanied by a school matron, has to wander the streets of Accra looking for his father, who has been arrested. This is the first coup d’état referenced in the title, and it is followed in due course by a second and a third. Political instability and misguided leadership destroys Ghana’s promising economy and throws Mahama’s family into chaos, and as he grows up he is looking for other political models.

It’s the middle of the Cold War, and socialism is the most obvious alternative. There’s only one problem, as far as Mahama is concerned: how to reconcile his leftist leanings with his obviously bourgeois background and his father’s new career as an enormously wealthy rice producer?

In fact, Mahama’s father looms large in the narrative, much as it does in another presidential memoir: Barack Obama’s Dreams from my Father. Unlike Obama, Mahama doesn’t delve at all into his father’s failings, choosing instead to present him as a wise, gentle patriarch. This doesn’t always ring true. Questions left unanswered include how Mahama senior obtained a lucrative rice export licence during a notoriously corrupt period of Ghanaian history; why he couldn’t keep a marriage together; and what exactly persuaded him to give away one of his sons to a British couple.

This criticism aside, Mahama’s is an engaging, eloquent and very readable memoir. As a person, he has experienced many of the issues which have stunted African development for so long: coups, corruption, closed borders, xenophobia, economic stagnation and autocracy. He has lived through all this, and recognized the flaws in the system. On this evidence, it is hard to think he will make the same mistakes as a politician.

NIGERIA: Court Remands Oil Subsidy Scam Suspects In Custody

The Lagos Margistrate Court presided by Margistrate Martins Owunmi Thursday, October 11, 2012, ordered the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigeria Police Force to remand Dr. Patrick Ubah and his four employees in custody for economic sabotage in an ongoing investigation in "obtaining money by false pretense, stealing the property of Nigeria, money laundry and forgery. Ubah and his workers -- the Head of Trading, Nsikan Usoro; the Depot Manager, Godfrey Okorie; General Manager, Operations, Chibuzor Ogbuokiri; and the Executive Director, Operations, Orji Anayo -- have been accused of fifty-six billion naira fuel subsidy scam.

In another related separate incident at the same court, Owunmi also ordered the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigeria Police Force to remand Abdulkabir Aliu, Managing Director and Chief Executive of Matrix Energy Limited; his Operations manager, Yusuf Oyilola and his accountant, Adewale Akinde, for fifteen days until the ongoing investigation in an alleged over thirteen billion naira fraud is completed.

Meanwhile, the suspects who have not been charged with any offense were entitled to apply for bail before expiration of the remand order, said Owunmi, scheduling both cases for next hearing on October 31, 2012.

I Won Imo Governorship Poll in 2011, Says Ohakim

A THIS DAY NEWSPAPER INTERVIEW

Former Imo State Governor, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, finally broke his silence after over one year of leaving office. In this exclusive interview with Amby Uneze, Ohakim bares his mind on issues that cut across board. Excerpts:

Nigeria is 52 years, does that mean anything to Nigerians?

What that should mean to Nigerians is that we have come a long way as a people. And having stayed together for 52 years, it means that our collective destiny is irrevocably tied together. It has been a long and tortuous journey but the beauty is that we have not left anybody behind. On the weight of the several challenges facing us as a nation, it is common these days to hear some people query the continued existence of Nigeria as one country. For me, that should not arise. A break-up of Nigeria is inconceivable. It is like somebody suggesting that your parents who have been married for 52 years should divorce? Can you image that? So, for me, 52 years of independence means that Nigerians are now inseparable and that whatever challenges we face can best be tackled by remaining and working together.

But there is deep-seated bitterness out there?

I acknowledge the fact that there is widespread disaffection among Nigerians for reasons that are quite obvious. And of course, the grievances are quite legitimate especially for the youth who are facing a bleak future for no fault of theirs. The situation is unfortunate but I am also aware that every well meaning Nigerian realises the need to address all the factors responsible for the distortions in the system. Having said that, I hasten to add that the situation calls for caution; we should avoid things that would deepen the socio-economic crisis that is currently confronting us. We have what it takes to overcome the economic crisis. Since we have been able to get a handle to our political problems by being able to sustain our democracy for thirteen unbroken years, we should find a consultation in that. The fact that our democracy is working should afford us the impetus to face our economic problems with the hope that we shall soon overcome them. Yes, I agree that people are not happy but we should not write-off our country.

What do you consider Nigeria’s biggest challenge?

As far as I am concerned, there are two major challenges facing our country today. One is the pervasive lack of respect for the rule of law and non adherence to due process in governance. These two factors make it difficult for us to build strong democratic institutions. And without strong democratic institutions we will not make progress. Once we make our system to be such that those in authority become less idiosyncratic in their style and approach to public administration by respecting the rule of law, then we will make a quantum leap into sustainable socio-economic development. The other major challenge is that of unemployment. But I think the two are related because I believe if we do the proper things by obeying the rule of law and observing due process in governance, we will find ourselves in better position to create job opportunities for the younger ones.

What is your take on the current security situation?

My take is not different from that of every other well meaning Nigerian; which is that it is so unfortunate that we have found ourselves where we are today.

But do you think the right approach is being taken to addressing the issue?

You see, I laugh when I hear people say the federal government is not doing much to solve the problem. Nigeria is like a big petrol tanker, not a car. It is difficult and even dangerous for any driver to try to turn it away or maneuver it easily on the road in the face of danger. Any attempt so to do will portend calamity. The world not only Nigeria is going through a great change, the type never seen in the last 50 years. The truth is that no president or Head of state would be happy to preside over this type of situation. President Jonathan, I am sure is having sleepless nights. I sympathise with him as much as I sympathise with every Nigerian especially in the areas that are so vulnerable. I believe the Federal Government has shown enough concern over the matter. All we need do is to co-operate with it. My view is that we are being too harsh and hasty in our views about the current regime.

My position is that the more we give the impression that government is not capable of solving the problem, the more impetus we give to those perpetrating the mayhem and all other acts of criminality. We should be able to repose confidence in our government. We should be able to make it have the confidence to lead us. A situation where we find pleasure in rubbishing the leadership of the country is most unfortunate. Go to the internet and other social media and see what is posted about our leaders on a daily basis.

It's been over one year since you left office. Unlike some of your colleagues, not much has been heard from you; even when issues bordering on your tenure are raised by those at the helm of affairs in the state. Are you so much into the silence is golden rule?

Yes, silence could be golden but to an extent. I chose to remain calm and watch events generally. There are so many people talking at the same time over the same issues. We cannot all be talking at the same time. You will notice that because of "me tooism" in this country, people end up re-echoing what others have said to the extent that original views are most often drowned by those who think that it is their prerogative to be listened to.

Besides, having served a full term of four years as governor, I had opportunity to make inputs into how the country should be generally run. My tenure gave me opportunity to see and be seen. So, let those at the helm of affairs now talk. I don't miss anything in government or governance because I had a wonderful outing. It was really great and I thank God almighty for giving me that opportunity. I may not have been the best but it pleased Him to choose me to lead my people for good four years. In those four years, I ended every of my address with the footnote: Imo is in the hands of God. Above all, He gave me the grace to prove my mettle; to serve my people satisfactorily. I am quite contented. These days, I prefer to listen than talk. Let those there now prove their own worth.

But there have been allegations bothering on alleged financial impropriety during your tenure. Do you still feel you needn't stand up to those allegations?

If you also listened well, you would have noticed that it is Imo people themselves that have risen to challenge the people making such allegations and asked them to substantiate them. What could be better than when the people you served are the ones defending you and challenging those whose pre-occupation seems to be that of casting aspersion on my personality. Surprisingly, apart from my party, the PDP, other parties like the ANPP and ACN have consistently challenged those making the allegations to substantiate them. But even more note worthy is the fact that the people of Imo state have since discovered that those making allegations against me were on a mission to deceive them by bandying lies against me. Over one year later, the people have discovered that those lying against me have no proof over their allegations. That's why Imo people react the way they do each time anybody opens his mouth widely to say something against Ikedi Ohakim. I give it to Imo people. They are very discerning. They are not a people who can be deceived for long. They have now seen the truth.

What about the Rev. Father you allegedly flogged and the allegation that there was no such thing as Wonderlake Project and that you did not create any 10,000 graduate jobs? There is also the controversy over the local government election. As a matter of fact, it is generally believed that you lost the election mainly on account of those issues?

Before I go into that, let me quickly correct you. I did not lose the governorship election held last year. I did not lose. So, have that in your mind but I shall return to that. Now, you talk about the Reverend father issue: Yes, the people of Imo state have also discovered that it was all lies; that I didn't touch any Reverend Father. The man has told his colleagues and his superiors that he never set his eyes on Ikedi Ohakim. I read an article where one prominent Imo citizen said that may be the people may have to wait until Fr. Okorie becomes a Bishop or Arch Bishop, when he will have the power and authority to come out boldly and tell his congregation what really transpired. May be until then, Ikedi Ohakim will continue to be the martyr. Between me and my God, the truth is that I never touched any Reverend Father.

The people I worry for are the hapless citizens who were mentally and psychologically enslaved to believe that such an abomination happened. The real tragedy is that up till now, those who so enslave Imo citizens have refused to free them from that psychological bondage, so that they can see the truth and engage in the necessary pertinence that is required of our Christian faith.

With regards to the allegation that 10,000 jobs, was a hoax what you should do is to follow the ongoing litigation between the recipients of the 10,000 jobs and the Imo State Government. That project was a well researched and thought out project targeted at addressing the issue of employment.

But it is believed that none of your projects saw the light of the day?

You are wrong in saying that.

May be I would have said that the projects were not completed?

Which project? Let me tell you, anybody can award contracts for the building of houses or roads. It is the easiest thing to do. And from what we have now seen, you do not even need to pay contractors any money for them to start building roads and houses. So, you see, anybody can ask people to go and demolish houses and build new ones I am not saying refurbishing houses is not good but that was not our priority. Our priority was to do projects that will create jobs and lay a foundation for the economy of the state. Economically viable projects take considerable time to materialize.We felt we should pre-occupy ourselves with things that are deep and as the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo, would say, only the deep can call to the deep.

Are you not worried that some of your projects have been abandoned?

Naturally, I am worried, not because I feel anybody has succeeded in rubbishing my legacy but because I am aware that Imo people have been denied huge benefits that would accrue if those projects are completed. Personally, I don't like talking about that because I am aware that Imo people are themselves taking up the matter. The other day, the Owerri-based newspaper owned by the Catholic Church carried an Editorial that was querying why the projects we began, majority of which were already over 70 per cent completed, were abandoned.

Again, it is left for Imo people to determine whether those projects should have been abandoned simply because they were stated by Ikedi Ohakim. I am under no illusion that I am a genius but our people know that I had bright ideas and that I meant well. We were prudent and creative with resources that were available to us. We had the capacity and discipline to go to the capital market for N40b multiple tranche debt issuance programme to part finance projects like the Wonderlake Resort and Conference Centre, Oguta designed to create over 20,000 jobs and we raised the first tranche of N18.5 billion which had 167% subscription. Of that amount, we left N13.3 billion in the project account which we handed over to my successor. At the time we went for that bond, hell was let loose by opposition, that Ohakim had borrowed N100 billion. Two court actions were taken against the bond which invariably delayed our access to the fund thereby delaying the project.

Are you going into opposition?

What is going into opposition? If trying to make sure that things are properly done is what you call opposition, well I don't have an answer to that. Even if it is opposition, it will be one with a difference. It will not be one that will feed the people will lies. The problem we encountered was that some people took advantage of the easy going nature of Imo people to deceive them with lies. Unfortunately, that has continued. We will not say anything that is not backed with facts. That is the difference between me and many politicians.

Back to Nigeria, there's the belief that the political situation accentuated the insecurity?

I don't know what that means. Even if it is politics, why don't we wait till the next election to decide on an alternative? If everybody gets killed before 2015, who will be there to vote or be voted for? Just the other day, a Senator died in Jos during the recent crisis there. So, you can see that anybody could fall victim to the situation. I believe that in spite of the current problem, Nigerians should find solace in the fact that we have managed to run our democracy non-stop for 13 years. It has never happened before. We should have confidence in our collective ability to grow our democracy. Even those of us who are victims of deliberate sabotage of the democratic process have put that behind us and chosen to work for a better Nigeria.

How are you a victim?

You said earlier that I lost the last election and I corrected you by saying that we did not lose that election. I am surprised you even said that. You were here in Imo. You saw what happened. We won the election on April 26, 2011. INEC cancelled the election in Ohaji-Egbema, Oguta and Mbaitoli. Those are the areas we got votes that off-set what happened in other places where result was written in favour of our main opponent. We protested but INEC refused to listen. It went ahead to conduct the so-called supplementary election even when our main opponent was in court challenging that decision. Up till today, three parties are still challenging the so called supplementary election.

Your colleagues from different media that covered the event have given a vivid account of what happened. It was clear that some officials were acting out a script. My party went to the Tribunal to challenge the declared result by INEC. Our major argument was that we won the election once the result from Ohaji-Egbema, Oguta and Mbaitoli are taken into account. Even after INEC had had a rethink and brought certified true copies of results from those areas, the Tribunal went ahead to dismiss our petition. We went to the Appeal Court and you are aware of the drama that played out there. We went to the Supreme Court and another drama played out there.

The apex court refused to hear the case due to technicalities. But today, what do we have? Just last week, the PDP candidate for the Oguta state constituency, Hon. Eugene Dibiagwu, was sworn as a member of the state house of Assembly. Dibiagwu is a product of the April 26 2011 election which INEC said was inclusive. But the Appeal court had ruled that the election in Oguta was not only conclusive but that the PDP candidate won in seven out of the eleven wards in the LGA and ordered INEC to conduct election in the remaining four. That election was conducted about two months ago and PDP candidate, Dibiagwu, won decisively. If you remember that INEC had declared the entire result from Oguta, Ohaji-Egbema and Mbaitoli non-existent, you then begin to appreciate the matter. It was the same results that the Appeal court has now said existed. And mind you, the voting for both the State House of Assembly and governorship took place the same time, in the same booths.

The judgement on Oguta, and subsequent swearing in of Dibiagwu as a member of the state House of Assembly is the most eloquent testimony that a particular official was part of the plan to stop me from returning to office. But like I said, I have put all that behind to work for the progress of my state and Nigeria in general.

Do you nurse any fear about the 2015 presidential election?

That's what we keep on hearing everyday. Nigerian will break today, it will break tomorrow. Some of us are fed up with all that crap. This is a country that the outside world never gave a chance of nurturing its democracy for even four years. By the year, 2000, there were already prophesies that Nigeria was going to break. But here we are, thirteen years after. As I said earlier, I am a personal victim of political rascality and gangstarism but that does not in any way vitiate my belief in the country.

Of course, 2015 will come. There will be struggle for power which is what democracy is all about. Some will win, some will lose but Nigerian will move on. Those making prophesies of doom are not helping us. You talk about the North and fears but I wonder why the North would want Nigeria to be torn apart because if that happens, which country will they now rule over? So, I see that as a big fallacy. It doesn't hold water. Nigerians should not be scared from competing among themselves.

Healthy rivalry is good. We have demonstrated to the whole world that we have what it takes to sort ourselves out. The other time, it was the South-west because of June 12 but Nigerians came together and decided that the presidency should go there. Later, it was the Niger Delta. Today a Niger Delta man is there. So, why can't we give ourselves a pat on the back for always being able to find a way out of our political logjams?

So, how do you think the Igbo fits into this template?

If I understood your question, my answer is short and simple. The Igbo will be similarly factored in one day. We didn't need to break Nigeria for the South-west if you like the Yoruba to occupy the presidency. We didn't have to break up for the Niger Delta people to go there. So, in the same manner, the country will not break up for an Igbo to become president of Nigeria. It is both imperative and imminent.

Shell Faces Oil-Spill Compensation Claims

LONDON—Royal Dutch Shell RDSA +0.68% PLC Thursday appeared in court in the Netherlands for the first time to face compensation claims for environmental damage from oil spills in Nigeria, in a case that could set a legal precedent over how companies are held responsible for the actions of foreign subsidiaries

The suit has been brought by environmental group Friends of the Earth Netherlands and four Nigerian farmers, who are seeking compensation over claims that oil spills from Shell pipelines in Nigeria have damaged their livelihood. They also say they want the Anglo-Dutch oil company to complete a cleanup of the spills.

Shell argues that the three oil spills in question were caused by sabotage of pipelines and as such it is not liable to pay compensation. A spokesman for the company said its Nigerian subsidiary has cleaned up the pollution at the three locations and that this has been certified by the Nigerian authorities.

The case is important because it is the first time a Dutch multinational is being sued in the Netherlands over the actions of an overseas subsidiary. It could set an important legal precedent, said Channa Samkalden, a lawyer at law firm Bohler, which is representing the Nigerian farmers.

"If the verdict of the Dutch court turns out to be beneficial for my clients, a major precedent will be set," in relation to how companies are held legally responsible in the Netherlands for the actions of international subsidiaries, said Ms. Samkalden.

The verdict will be delivered Jan. 13, 2013.

The recent case against privately-held oil trader Trafigura, over the dumping of chemicals in the Ivory Coast, differed as it was a criminal case.

The oil spills at Oruma, Goi and Ikot Ada Udo in the Niger Delta took place between 2004 and 2007. The total amount of oil spilled in all three incidents combined was about 1,100 barrels.

In addition to demands of a more thorough clean up of the spill site, Friends of the Earth is asking the judge to rule that Shell must improve maintenance and safety of its Nigerian pipelines, some of which are decades old.

Shell said a joint investigation found that sabotage was the cause of the spills in each of the three cases. In the first case a hole had been bored into the pipeline, in the second it had been cut with a hacksaw and in the third a valve had been manually opened, the investigation found.

Pipelines are commonly tapped in Nigeria to steal the oil inside. Many parts of the Niger Delta have a thriving trade in oil stolen in this way, known locally as "bunkering". A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in 2009 estimated as much as 150,000 barrels of oil a day were being stolen in this way.

The local environmental damage in the Niger Delta from oil spills is well documented. A 2011 report from the United Nations Environment Program, funded by Shell, said cleaning up the damage caused by more than 50 years of oil production in one part of the vast Niger Delta would require $1 billion of spending in the first five years.,br />
Shell has said the vast majority of the pollution in its Nigeria operations in recent years has been caused by oil theft and militant attacks. Around 1.6 thousand metric tons of oil were spilled into the Niger Delta in 2011 as a direct result of sabotage or theft, three quarters of total onshore spills, Shell said in its annual sustainability report.

Friends of the Earth Netherlands said that the videos and photographs from the joint investigation into the oil spills at Oruma, Goi and Ikot Ada Udo don't provide incontrovertible evidence of sabotage in all three cases.

..........SELINA WILLIAMS, WSJ