A Kano businessman and Islamic scholar, Khalifa Sheikh Isyaku Rabiu is dead. Report reaching us now, Tuesday night, said that Sheikh Isiyaku died after a brief illness in the United Kingdom. He was aged 93 (from 1925 to 2018)
A business Associate who confirmed the news to the News Digest said he will be buried according to Islamic rites as soon as his body arrives in Nigeria.
Sheikh Isyaku founded a major family operated holding company with a history of investment in manufacturing, insurance, banking and real estate.
In the 1970s, the group invested in manufacturing with its first investment being the Kano Suit and Packing Cases company, a factory producing suit cases and handbags. The firm was a joint venture with Lebanese investors.
In 1972, he formed the Bagauda Textile Mill, manufacturing woven cloths for uniforms. From then on he established a series of ventures in different segments of the economy including frozen food service, real estate, sugar and a motor vehicle and parts distribution company specialized in Daihatsu products. However, unfavourable exchange rates and economic conditions forced the company to scale back on manufacturing and returning to its trading roots.
He had a large family with many children and grandchildren, including his first son, Nafiu Rabiu; influential Nigerian businessmen, Abdulsamad Rabiu, Chairman of BUA Group; Rabiu Rabiu, owner of IRS Airlines, Naziru Rabiu, Quraish I Rabiu, Makiu Rabiu, Abdullahi Rabiu, Muhammad Rabiu and Daha Rabiu among others.
He lived in the biggest single mansion in kano. He was widely loved and respected and known for his generosity and Islamic spirituality. [myad]
The Senior Pastor at Worksword of God Church, Pastor Gabriel Adegboye, has predicted that he will be elected President of Nigeria in the 2019 election even as he claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari is destined to serve as President four years.
The Pastor, who addressing journalists in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, over the weekend, said that he has the spiritual impartation of resolving the killings in the North-East and other parts of the country, as well as ensuring economic development in Nigeria.
He described Boko Haram as a spiritual attack on the country from North Africa.
“God sent me to become the next president of Nigeria. Over the years, God has been speaking to me and I have been communicating to past presidents, even the incumbent president, concerning the way to resolve the crisis in the country and ensure economic development. God has given me the new agenda for this country.
“We have all it takes to take the presidential seat come 2019. God has revealed to me that the tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari is only four years. And the next person that will take over the mantle of leadership is Pastor Gabriel Adegboye.
“If the Federal Government needs solution to the challenges in the country today, if I am invited, I promise that within three months, there will be peace in the North-East.” [myad]
President Donald Trump has described the American nuclear deal which the government of Barak Obama entered into with Iran as a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made, even as he pulled the country out of the deal.
Trump said: “this was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Mr. Trump said at the White House in announcing his decision. “It didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace, and it never will.”
In announcing the withdrawal from the deal today, Tuesday, President Trump made clear that his patience with the deal had worn thin.
As a result of the withdrawal, the United States is now preparing to reinstate all sanctions it had waived as part of the nuclear accord, and impose additional economic penalties as well.
The withdrawal fulfills one of President Trump’s oft-repeated campaign promises, and came despite intense personal lobbying by European leaders and frantic attempts to craft fixes to the deal that would satisfy him.
President Trump’s announcement, though long anticipated and widely telegraphed, is believed to be capable of plunging America’s relations with European allies into deep uncertainty.
Trump’s decision capped a frantic four-day period in which American and European diplomats made a last-ditch effort to bridge their differences and preserve the agreement.
On Friday, Pompeo called his counterparts in Europe to tell them that Mr. Trump was planning to withdraw, but that he was trying to win a two-week reprieve for the United States and Europe to continue negotiating.
Pompeo, people familiar with the talks said, suggested that he favored a so-called soft withdrawal, in which Mr. Trump would pull out of the deal but hold off on reimposing some of the sanctions.
On Saturday, the State Department’s chief negotiator, Brian Hook, consulted with European diplomats to try to break a deadlock over the so-called “sunset provisions,” under which the restrictions on Iran’s ability to produce nuclear fuel for civilian use expire after 15 years.
The Europeans had already agreed to a significant compromise: to re-impose sanctions if there was a determination that the Iranians were within 12 months of producing a nuclear weapon. But officials said that still did not satisfy Mr. Trump, and the Europeans were not willing to go any farther.
By Monday, the White House began informing allies that Mr. Trump was going to withdraw from the deal and re-impose oil sanctions and secondary sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran.
Trump has also instructed the Treasury Department to develop additional sanctions against Iran, a process that could take several weeks.
Under the financial sanctions, European companies will have between 90 days and 180 days to wind down their operations in Iran, or they will run afoul of the American banking system. The oil sanctions will require European and Asian countries to reduce their imports from Iran.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has once more boosted the inter-bank Foreign Exchange market with another sum of $210 million.
The Bank again offered the sum of $100 million to authorized dealers in the wholesale segment of the market. The Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) segment received the sum of $55 million while the sum of $55 million was apportioned to invisibles such as tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance (BTA).
A statement from the Bank’s Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, Isaac Okorafor, said that the apex bank is determined and has the capacity to continue to sustain the foreign exchange intervention.
Okorafor advised authorized dealers to help sustain the confidence in the foreign exchange market by continuing to honour requests from customers with genuine needs.
It will be recalled that the Central Bank of Nigeria last Friday, May 4, 2018 intervened in the Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) to the tune of $349.34m.
Meanwhile, the Naira has continued to maintain its stability in the FOREX market, exchanging at an average of N362/$1 in the BDC segment of the market today, Tuesday. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari, today, Tuesday, receives Letter of Credence from the Ambassador of Lebanon to Nigeria, Houssam Diab at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa before he embarked on his scheduled trip to the UK for medical checkup… Photo by Sunday Aghaeze. [myad]
The Petroleum Act 1969 (as amended) grants powers to the Ministry of Petroleum, acting through the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to administer the licensing of oil blocks in the country. These include Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL), Oil Mining Licence (OML) and Oil Exploration Licence (OEL), which allow the awardees, local and foreign, to explore for and develop oil and gas resources within the country. So far, there are 65 OPLs and 99 OMLs. The last round of licensing bids was conducted in 2007. Of the existing awarded oil blocks and marginal fields, the most controversial and the best known is OPL 245, which owes its fame specifically to the allegation of a missing $1.3 billion due to the Federal Government in what is known as the Malabu oil deal.
The main actors in the Settlement Agreement involving OPL 245 continue to insist that no Federal Government money is missing, and that indeed they deserve praise for civic patriotism, for saving the Nigerian Government from embarrassment and imminent loss of money and face, due to its mismanagement of the award process in the first place. Allegations of missing money are often translated into naked truth, in this season, without due reflection, and regard for the facts of the case. This is so, in this instance, because of reports of corruption involving and surrounding the OPL 245 transactions and foreign investors – Shell and ENI, into which the courts in the home jurisdictions of those companies are inquiring. Whereas this has dominated the narrative, it is important that we go beyond the politics of name-calling, victimization, blackmail and harassment that has developed around OPL 245 and focus on the big picture.
The oil and gas industry in Nigeria is opaque; it is one of the most difficult areas of our national life. The award of exploitation and exploration licenses raises questions of transparency and accountability. Section 2 of the Petroleum Act relies on the approval of the Minister of Petroleum for a license to be awarded, and under the military, this was more or less an exclusive prerogative of the Minister of Petroleum. This is in fact why Presidents and Heads of State (Obasanjo, Buhari) hold on to the Petroleum Ministerial portfolio, and when they do not do so, they ensure that whoever is appointed to that position either as Minister or Special Adviser, or by any title whatsoever is directly answerable to them. The oil and gas sector is Nigeria’s honey pot. Whoever is awarded an oil block or marginal field is instantly a multi-billionaire, and that is why the struggle for an oil block is the most desperate struggle among Nigeria’s aspirational elite.
With the introduction of an Indigenous Exploration Policy in the 1990s, meant to ensure indigenous participation in this most strategic sector, Nigeria’s military rulers, awarded oil blocks to themselves, their friends, girlfriends and cronies. It was like another season of the oil boom and every one wanted a part of the national cake. Many of those who were given oil blocks could not even identify a Christmas tree if they ever saw one. Petty traders, hawkers, errand boys and girls and those with access to the corridors of power only needed to ask for help and that could come in the form of the gift of an oil block. Nigerians who got lucky and got such oil blocks only needed to have a foreign technical partner. This indigenization policy may have indeed been well-meaning but it created a special class of rent-collectors who lived off Nigeria. There were complaints about the ethnic extraction of those who enjoyed such privilege.
In 2002, President Olusegun Obasanjo, to moderate concerns about ethnic favouritism, and lack of transparency, introduced an open bidding and competitive process. His government also established the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), an oversight and audit agency, but despite the best intentions, oil and gas transactions remained opaque and the Obasanjo government eventually violated its own principles by resorting to discretionary awards during the 2002/2003 licensing rounds, and the adoption of a problematic policy called “forced marriages”. Forced marriages in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria have often ended in bitter divorces with collateral damages. Thus, consistently, the Nigerian government has been the author of various distortions in the oil and gas sector due to inefficiency, the politicization and personalization of national resources, and the abuse of due process.
The Malabu case provides a good illustration. Malabu, an indigenous oil and gas company, was allocated Block 245 in 1998, other local companies were also similarly allocated oil blocks, which under the Guidelines, they were required to develop in partnership with international Technical Partners. Malabu paid $2m out of the stipulated $20m at the time, and entered into a joint operation agreement with Shell Ultra Deep Limited (SNUD). The company received its operating license in April 2001 but the same license was revoked in July 2001. The Federal Government then curiously invited Exxon Mobil and Shell, Malabu’s technical partner, to bid for the same OPL 245 as contractors in partnership with the NNPC.
Shell won the bid and proceeded to begin work on the oil block. Malabu cried out that its former technical partner, Shell, had acted in bad faith, by conniving with the government to grab OPL 245 for itself. The company then petitioned the House of Representatives which directed the Federal Government to re-award Block 245 to Malabu. Malabu also went to the Federal High Court, Abuja to seek redress. The suit was struck out. Malabu headed for the Court of Appeal. While this was going on, the then Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Edmund Daukoru asked for settlement out of court on behalf of the Federal Government. OPL 245 had become a cause celebre.
Its association with Dan Etete, Abacha’s Minister of Petroleum, and the Federal Government’s argument that Etete awarded the oil block to himself while in office, had resulted in agitations among the people of the Niger Delta who began to ask for an audit of all oil blocks and full disclosure of the ethnic identity of their owners. The people of Odi, Etete’s home-town also protested that President Obasanjo was against the people of Odi. In 1999, President Obasanjo had been accused of ordering a military invasion of Odi following increased protest in the Niger Delta over indigenous rights to the ownership of oil resources. The people of the Niger Delta could not understand why an oil block associated with an Ijaw suddenly became the target of harassment. The delicate politics of oil block allocation was gradually being unveiled.
The Obasanjo government back-tracked and re-awarded Block 245 to Malabu but on the condition that the company would pay the new signature bonus of $210 million less the $2m it paid in 1998. Malabu paid the sum, and withdrew its case from court. But this created another problem. Shell went to arbitration at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington DC, and also filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja. SNUD, having entered into a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with the NNPC in 2002, had paid $1 million out of the $210 million signature bonus for OPL 245, and kept the balance of $209 million in an Escrow Account with J.P Morgan pending the resolution of the dispute over OPL 245. Shell wanted compensation and damages in excess of US$2 billion. The company further claimed that it had incurred costs de-risking the oil block.
This was yet another problem: the Federal Government received payment from two companies for the same oil block! In addition, whoever gave the approval for the de-risking of OPL 245 despite an on-going litigation that should have provided a basis for lis pendens, further complicated the situation. Every attempt to resolve the matter one way or the other failed. The possession of an oil block is a serious matter. Shell was offered another oil block; it refused. Block 245 has a total estimated value of about 9 billion barrels of crude. The Obasanjo government toyed with the idea of settlement negotiations among the feuding parties, but no concrete resolution was reached, although a Terms of Settlement Framework was eventually adopted in 2006.
This was the situation until 2010 when President Goodluck Jonathan assumed office. Malabu again petitioned the Federal Government. While taking into consideration the cost to the Federal Government of entering into litigation with Shell on one hand, and Malabu on the other, the Jonathan government resolved to enter into a Resolution Agreement with both parties, and resolve all issues amicably. Under this agreement dated April 29, 2011, Malabu resolved that it would waive all claims to OPL 245, after due compensation by the Federal Government. Shell also agreed to withdraw all suits against the Federal Government and to pay, through the Federal Government, the sum of $1.092 billion as full and final settlement of Malabu in relation to its claims on Block 245. Automatically, Block 245 would in that case revert to Shell and the Italian oil company, ENI, Shell’s new partner. In June 2013, the matter was amicably resolved on these terms. Presidential approval was then given to the effect that Malabu Oil and Gas should be paid the sum of $1.092 billion from the Federal Government’s Escrow Account with J.P. Morgan.
In every instance in this case, the Federal Government under President Jonathan acted solely as a mediator – trust between Malabu and Shell having broken down- and as an obligor seeking to resolve the crisis arising from the collection of money by a previous government from two parties for the same oil block. It is important to note that the said $1.092 billion has not even been paid in full to Malabu Oil and Gas, for whereas the Federal Government of Nigeria had given approval that the money be paid, other parties suddenly showed up to make claims on the money: Energy Venture Partners Limited (a British Virgin Island Company), International Legal Consulting (a Russian Company), Pecos Energy Limited and Mohammed Sani. In the event of these developments, Malabu ended up getting a sum of US$801.540 million and an additional US$75 million while a sum of $215 million is retained with the High Court of England pending the determination of proceedings against Malabu in the UK.
The Malabu/Shell crisis has spanned the lives of four administrations: Abacha, Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan. The Jonathan administration helped to resolve a lingering crisis and saved the Federal Government of Nigeria from the risk of liability. If the allocation of oil blocks had not been politicized and personalized in the first place, the crisis would not have occurred. This year, the Buhari government is said to be proposing another round of oil blocks licensing; this should provide an opportunity for a rigorous review of the licensing process.
No company should be pre-qualified or favoured; the process must be truly open and competitive. Companies that are unknown to the oil and gas industry and with doubtful capacity should be barred from the process. No license that has been held for up to 20 years should be renewed and no person must be allowed to have multiple licenses either as principal partner or investor. All allocated blocks that have been left unexplored should be withdrawn and re-awarded. The Department of Petroleum Resources should publish a full list of all blocks awarded so far- offshore, deep water, shallow waters and onshore- indicating who owns them- local or foreign. The people have a right to know and all things taken together, the power to allocate oil exploration should licences should not be vested in a person.
This far-reaching reform is important again because it may be contradictory to promote indigenous participation and local content in the oil and gas sector, and at the same time, persecute select beneficiaries on the grounds that a previous government granted them an undue advantage whereas this seems to be the general pattern. Moral questions may be raised about abuse of office or undue influence, but the government that does so must be seen to be fair, just and equitable in doing so, otherwise it would project itself as selective and vindictive. We need to create a template for fairness.
Where the Federal Government can prove cases of bribery, it is up to it to prove its case, and the onus is further on it to prove if indeed the Federal Government has in any way lost any penny belonging to it in the Malabu case. But other OPLs and OMLs must also be investigated. If there are concrete, irrefutable facts, the state should make them available in the public interest. As James Comey argues forcefully in his 2018 memoir: A Higher Loyalty – Truth, Lies and Leadership, the greatest form of corruption, dishonesty and assault on democracy is when a government and its officials resort to truth-avoidance and the politics of expediency. In such a strategic sector as oil and gas, this would be rather too costly in the long run. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari (middle), seems to be asking President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara what is happening that the 2018 budget is yet to be passed, when he summoned them to the State House in Abuja today, Monday, May 7. Photo by Sunday Aghaeze. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari had a closed door meeting with the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara today, Monday at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa over the delay in the passage of the 2018 budget.
The President presented the budget to the joint session of the Natonal Assembly sometime in November 2018, but as at today, May 7th, the budget is still lying in the National Assembly.
Saraki, who spoke to newsmen as he emerged from the meeting, along with speaker Dogara confirmed that they were in the Villa “on the invitation of Mr. President. He wanted to brief us on his trip to the United States and also the issue of the budget. We also talked on the issue of concerns to us, the invasion of the National Assembly, which he showed great concern and said action will be taken to investigate that.”
Saraki said that the budget would hopefully be laid this week and passed early next week.
On the seeming sour relationship between the executive and the legislature, the Senate President said that the fact that the President had called them to brief them on his trip to America is a good sign that the relation is smooth.
“We are the National Assembly have always been ready to give all our support to the executive and we will continue to work along those lines. As I said, the presidential system that we operate, we sometimes have the responsibility to check the excesses of the executive, so there will always be times we will disagree but by and large, we will always work for the interest of Nigerians and always keep on moving on.” [myad]
Senior Special Assistant to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on media and publicity, Laolu Akande has described spokesmen of the former President Goodluck Jonathan over their comments that his boss told lies on the rate of corruption in the previous governments, as ‘motley group of loud and rude characters.’
In a statement today, Laolu Akande said: “it is clear from the foul language of the authors that the statement could not have come from the former President, but from the motley group of loud and rude characters whose brief seems to be to deny all and anything said against the former PDP government and to do so in the crassest possible language. “The alleged spokespersons of the former President say that facts long in the public domain, some even being used to prosecute several corruption cases are lies and that those of us in government restating these well known facts are liars. “They accuse Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, of lying against the former President or his government citing their involvement in the stealing of three billion dollars, while speaking recently at The Platform event on the 1st of May.” Akande then went on to quote the Vice President for clerity thus: “Grand corruption remains the most enduring threat to our economy. Three Billion US dollars was stolen in what was called the strategic alliance contacts in 2013, three Nigerians were responsible, today three billion dollars is one trillion Naira and our budget is 7trillion! ….” according to Laolu Akande, two issues emerge, first that no mention is made of the former President and second that the story is not only true, but that it has been in the public domain for almost three years and it is the subject of criminal investigation and trials both here and in the UK. The Vice President’s spokesman then went on to say:
“The spokespersons also say that the allegations of corruption against the PDP government are mere lies. For clarity, the facts are laid out as follows:
As the Vice President said, $3B was stolen in the so- called NNPC Strategic Alliance Contracts. The three persons involved are Jide Omokore, Kola Aluko and the former Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison- Maduekwe. The companies of both Jide Omokore and Kola Aluko lifted Nigerian crude oil and kept the proceeds. The total sums converted is in excess of three billion dollars including royalties, taxes and fees unpaid for the asset from which the crude was taken. The case is the subject of a trial in Nigeria, and criminal investigation in the US and UK, and the assets of all three individuals have been forfeited in Nigeria, the US and the UK.
The criminal diversion and theft of sums in excess of $2.5 billion meant for purchase of arms to prosecute the war against Boko Haram: The first phase of the investigations revealed several sordid details, many of the assets of culprits have been seized from them and they are facing trial. 3. The release of the sum of $289m in cash on February 25, 2015: Documents including cash vouchers indicate that the the sum of $289,202,382 was taken from the Joint Venture (JV) Cash Call Account No. 000-0000-11658-366 of the NNPC/NAPIMS with JP Morgan Chase Bank, New York, USA. 4. N70 billion was released in parts from the national treasury between January 8 and February 25, 2015. 5. In another illegal disbursement, 25th August 2014, N60B in cash in tranches of N40billion and N20billion: The sum was not tied to any project or procurement and was then shared between two security agencies under the supervision of the then NSA. Most of these sums ended up in the hands of senior PDP members some of whom have returned parts of the loot. Some are standing trial for these offenses. These facts are in the public domain. 6. There was yet another set of illegal fund withdrawals under one week between January 8and 16, 2015, where the sum of N1.5 billion was released in three tranches of N300m, N400m and N800m respectively. This money was released from the MEA Research Library Account . 7. Another document showed that N10 billion was released to the Office of the National Security Adviser by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on September 15, 2014. The money was released in tranches of foreign exchange of $47 million, $5 million, 4 million Euros and 1.6 million Euros. A letter from the Office of the NSA in November 2014 further showed that the monies were released as ‘funds for special services’. This particular release of N10B was sourced in November 2014 from a N40 Billion CBN released funds meant for Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR. Investigators showed that this money was released for the PDP Presidential Primaries. 8. Lamido Sanusi, then CBN Governor was sacked for speaking up about the over $20billion missing from oil proceeds. “These cases of grand corruption and open looting of public resources pauperized Nigeria and left us with little or no savings in the years when oil was selling at 100 to 114 dollars a barrel and we were producing 2.1 million barrels a day. When in 2015 oil prices went even as low as between 28 and 35 dollars a barrel and oil production fell to less than one million barrels a day we had no buffer, no savings, to tide us through. “The amount released from CBN in cash on a single day, ie the US$289M ( N88.1Bn) is enough to fund 244,000 N-Power graduates for a year, or pay for 1.2Billion school meals or complete half of Lagos -Ibadan or half of Abuja -Kaduna -Kano roads. “The Vice President also made the point that in 2014 with oil prices as high as 120 dollars per barrel, the total capital released for Power, Works, Housing, Defence, Transport, Agriculture and Defence were just N152Billion for the whole year. “By contrast, the Buhari administration committed N578Bn to the same Ministries in 2016 with oil prices as low as US$28 per barrel as part of the strategy to end the recession. The government was able to do more with less by stopping grand corruption and impunity. “Recently, the Minister Coordinating the economy in that administration has written a revealing book : Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines. Who knows, perhaps her stories too are all lies!” [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari is scheduled to undertake a four-day trip to the United Kingdom.
A statement by the senior special assistant to the President on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu explained in a statement today, Monday, that in the course of the technical stop-over for aircraft maintenance in London on his way back from Washington last week, the President had a meeting with his doctor.
“The Doctor requested the President to return for a meeting which he agreed to do.”
The statement said that President Buhari will return on Saturday, May 12th to witness the word congress of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Jigawa State on May 15th. [myad]
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