Nigerian government authorities involved in the $6bn fuel subsidy fraud

by Philip Odoemena — April 24, 2012

Nigeria’s parliament is to discuss a report said to reveal that $6bn (£4m) has been defrauded from the fuel subsidy fund in the past two years.

 “A member of the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on Subsidy Management, Dr. Ali Ahmad,  has alleged that companies owned by  past and serving governors, ministers and top politicians were involved in the fuel subsidy scam.

The  Farouk Lawan House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee on the Management of Fuel Subsidy had in its report alleged monumental fraud in fuel  subsidy payments”. Punch

The debate will be televised live – and make official findings that have been widely leaked in recent days.

The fuel sector probe was set up in the wake of angry nationwide protests in January after the government tried to remove a fuel subsidy.

Nigeria is a major oil producer but has to import most of its fuel.

The 205-page parliamentary report uncovers a long list of alleged wrongdoings involving oil retailers, Nigeria’s Oil Management Company and the state Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation.

According to the leaks, a total of 15 fuel importers collected more than $300m two years ago without importing any fuel, while more than 100 oil marketers collected the same amount of money on several occasions.

The leaked report also says that officials in the government of President Goodluck Jonathan were among those who benefited from the subsidy fund.

Many of the people named in the document have denied any involvement in fraud, with some taking out full-page adverts proclaiming their innocence in local newspapers.

Many Nigerians were livid when they were told by their government that the fuel subsidy was economically unsustainable – only to now find out the scale of fraud in the operation of the fund, our correspondent says.

Despite being a major oil producer, Nigeria has not invested in the infrastructure needed to produce refined fuel, so has to import much of its petrol.

The annual $8bn subsidy means prices are lower than in neighboring countries – and correspondents say many Nigerians see cheap fuel as the only benefit they get from their country’s oil wealth, much of which is pocketed by corrupt officials.

After a week of street protests and a general strike, the government agreed to restore some of the subsidy – and reduce the pump price of petrol to 97 naira (about $0.60) per liter after it had doubled to 140 naira when the subsidy was removed without warning on 1 January.

But President Jonathan defended the subsidy cut, saying Nigeria must either “deregulate and survive economically, or we continue with a subsidy regime that will continue to undermine our economy.”

Sources: BBCNews, Punch

ASSASSINATIONS IN NIGERIA:

By Philip Odoemena, Publisher/Editor, Aroundtownusa.com

THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN YET

Political assassinations in Nigeria! What a price to pay for politics. With all the political killings currently going on in Nigeria, isn’t apparent that voter apathy may become all time high and voter turn out may become all time low? Conventional wisdom could assume that voters may decide not to vote on election days. at least for fear of one’s life. With all these in mind, several questions may come to mind. Does politics matter any more? Is political killing a threat to democracy? The answer to the first question is in the affirmative.

Yes, politics matters, more than ever in Nigeria, nothing could be farther from the truth, politics does matter. And the second question is even mind wrecking. Have we not been thought that killing a human being is a sin against God? Why is it then that political killings, disappearances, and torture are the order of the day in Nigeria? Isn’t true that politics for murder is unlawful, and is capable of causing devastating damage to the Nigerian society. Isn’t true that political killing is felonious and is an anatomy of genocide at its highest point?

Only three and half years into democracy, Nigeria is becoming the world’s least democratic democracy. Big money or money politics is showing that our politicians have short-term special interests rather than long-term national interest. These assassinations are only the beginning of the first hurdles in an obstacle course built by the “do or die” disconnected, selfish and purposeless desperate politicians. What a society. Every political assassination has many stories. A nation where the “young” democracy is at best a hopeless fiction, and most politicians are collaborators by necessity. What is Nigeria portraying to the rest of the world: a dark atmospheric portrait of a nation?

The question everyone is asking now is; who could be murdering these politicians? If you are looking for factual or serious investigative accounts of these killings, I suggest that you don’t hold your breath. More likely than not, all you can get might be some meandering and disjointed accounts, full of incomprehensible references, and sometimes, with an overwhelming tone of arrogance, everyone accusing everyone else. Has the few years of democracy made it possible for Nigerian politicians to become that cruel to each other? Would this become the Nigerian way of life every four years?

Having gone through civil war, military regimes, social crises, religious problems and ethnic conflicts, how could one be insane enough to be killing human beings for purely political reasons? A nation with a severely corrupt political and legal system, in addition to, a desperately poor populace has more serious problems to contend with than killing innocent politicians. After all, most of these assassinated politicians had contributed one way or another to the good of the society. Termination of their lives for political reasons is rather highly unfortunate. Nigeria does not need political candidates for murder. It does not need political warfare academy either. What it needs are politicians who can move the nation forward.

Nigeria already has a history of been a blood-drenched nation. Why killing more people in the name of politics. A country cannot continue endless catalogue of bloodbaths and genocides and still hope for progress. Political murder is a terrible crime against God and humanity. It is also explosive and shattering tragedy that has the potential to become a vicious circle. People may think that these killings are signs of human psyche gone temporarily berserk. It does not look like it. People who think that these assassinations are perpetrated by nutty people need to think deeper. The question is, among the politicians, who are safe and who is dangerous? In times like this, none of the politicians are one hundred percent protected from the flashes of irrational political violence that can erupt from the killers among themselves at any given time.

Irrespective of the political tragedies and democratic injustice that are present in the current polity, politics does matter. There are viable choices at the polls and countless crucial reasons to vote. The fact that political assassinations have the propensity to strangle new political voices, new ideas, and new leadership, and may even force voters off the ballot boxes and out of the public mainstream is excellent reason to make one’s vote count. The current trend of events is by no means the right way to give a much-needed new political direction to our country. For the few proud Nigerians, dot not dismay, take a political stand at this crucial stage. Be proud because you have faith in God. Be proud because you have the choice to vote for the candidate with which your soul deeply agrees. And that is all you can do.

Religious hatred, poverty behind Nigeria violence

Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved


JOS, Nigeria—Christians and Muslims once shared their lives together in Nigeria's fertile central belt, buying each other's goods in mixed neighborhoods and cultivating each other's farms across a sun-baked plateau.
But growing religious hatred, political and ethnic rivalries, and increasing poverty have led to two outbursts of savage violence already this year. Men, women, children and even babies were butchered, and that harmony seems lost forever.
Now, many people carry weapons and man impromptu road blocks, fearful of the military, the police and each other.
Sunday's bloodshed was mostly about revenge: Christian villages near the city of Jos were attacked before dawn, less than two months after Muslims were targeted and a mosque torched. Hundreds had been killed in January, their corpses stuffed into wells and sewage pits.
Survivors of the weekend attack say simple, one-room houses were set ablaze, the flames illuminating villages that have no electricity. Residents, mostly of the minority Berom ethnic group, ran from their burning homes. Assailants with machetes were waiting. Many of those who were cut down were children. At least 200 people died.
One 20-year-old man arrested for allegedly taking part in Sunday's attacks said his family members died at the hands of rioters in January. Of those who were attacked on Sunday, he said: "There are some people that kill all our parents. We went to avenge what they did to us."
Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people, is almost evenly split between Sunni Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been happening in central Nigeria, where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of the nation's fertile "middle belt."
"Jos is a mini-Nigeria. All segments of Nigeria are here," said state police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba.
After the January violence, human rights groups said text messages had been sent with the addresses of mosques and churches. Texts also offered instructions on how to dispose of bodies. One read: "Kill them before they kill you."
Survivors said the weekend attackers asked people "Who are you?" in Fulani, a language used mostly by Muslims, and killed those who did not answer back in Fulani.
Aduba, though, said some attackers had been paid by organizers to commit the killings Sunday, but he declined to give any specifics.
National leaders appear to have little control over this region in Africa's most populous nation. The police and army failed to prevent these horrific massacres. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan promised security forces will bring the city and outlying areas where 1 million people live under control, but many of Jos' Protestant Christians fear the Muslim-dominated police force and military.
Local youths armed with kitchen knives and machetes have formed self-protection gangs in neighborhoods and scrutinize each passing vehicle
Sixty kilometers (38 miles) from Jos, in the village of Ku-Got, men armed with machetes, homemade swords, slingshots, and bows and arrows stand guard amid arid cornfields. Barricades made of boulders and cacti manned by frightened locals block many roads. Nigerian security forces rarely, if ever, patrol these areas. They're usually beyond cell phone range and there's no electricity.
"It's clear these people are unprotected here. If you have to carry a bow and arrows in your own town, you are unprotected," said Mark Lipdo, who leads a Christian foundation in Jos.
Despite once working on farms belonging to the Muslim Fulani ethnic group, the Berom people of Ku-Got now look out over the silhouetted mountains and worry that armed Fulani herders will be coming down the ridge. Villagers say they buried two old women killed by Fulani raiders Sunday. The attackers razed their homes, broke a glass pulpit at the Christian church and destroyed the community's only satellite television receiver.
"They want to inherit the land," said the Rev. Joshua T. Dafom, who preaches at the church. "They want to wipe us out to inherit the land to graze their animals."
Fulani community leader Sale Bayari denied that Fulanis took part in Sunday's killings.
He says groups of armed Fulanis now guard their herds of cattle rather than watching over their animals alone and unarmed as they once did. The men fear another "guerrilla war" against the ethnic group that left many of them dead during the January rioting.
Bayari says they are prepared: "My people have an instinct for survival," he said.
Bayari is being sought by police for allegedly inciting the Sunday attacks. He spoke to The Associated Press by mobile telephone from a neighboring state.
Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital, has long been known as "The Home of Peace and Tourism." It has unspoiled savannas, wild animals like leopards and hippos, waterfalls and curious rock outcroppings. But the monicker is now a sad irony.
Jos was also once a hub for tin mining, but its economic fortunes have waned in the last decades. Muslims are locked out of stable government jobs because the state views them as settlers, not Christian "indigenes." Christians have a strained relationship with the Hausa-speaking Muslims who run businesses and live in the region.
All these tensions boiled over in September 2001 in rioting that killed more than 1,000 people. Mobs of Christian young men roved the streets of Jos, asking people if they were Christian or Muslim. When a person answered Muslim, the mob would attack with knives, machetes and sticks.
Another convulsion of violence hit in 2004, in which 700 people were killed. More than 300 residents died during a similar upheaval in 2008.
Now, instead of talk of peace, there is talk of more revenge and of pre-emptive attacks.
"Plateau state has become a jungle," Bayari said.