Niger Delta Avengers deny negotiating ceasefire agreement with Nigerian government

The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group that has claimed responsibility for attacks on oil and gas facilities in Nigeria's southern energy hub, said on Tuesday it never agreed a ceasefire with the government.

Government officials told Reuters a one-month ceasefire had been agreed last week after talks between the oil minister, community groups and state governors in the Niger Delta, the source of most of Nigeria's crude oil.

Militants say they want a greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth to go to the impoverished Delta region. Crude sales make up about 70 percent of national income and the vast majority of that oil comes from the southern swampland.

A petroleum ministry official said the Avengers, who have claimed responsibility for most attacks in the last few weeks that have pushed Nigeria's crude output to 30-year lows, were among those who agreed to a truce.

"It was very difficult getting the Niger Delta Avengers to the negotiating table, but we eventually did through a proxy channel and achieved the truce," said the official, who asked not to be identified. A second government official also said a ceasefire was agreed.

But hours later the Avengers issued a statement on Twitter denying that it had an agreement with the government.

"The NDA High Command never remember having any agreement on ceasefire with the Nigeria government," said the group.

It would be difficult to achieve a ceasefire in the hard to access swamps where militants are divided into small groups that tap widespread anger over poverty and oil spills. Leaders have little sway over unemployed youths willing to work for anyone who pays them.

RIGHT PEOPLE?

A Nigeria-based security expert, who did not want to be named, said he did not believe the government had been holding talks with the right people.

Earlier this month, the government said the military campaign in the Delta would be scaled down as part of an attempt to pursue talks with militants, who laid down arms in 2009 in exchange for cash benefits under a government amnesty scheme.

Nigeria, an OPEC member, was Africa's top oil producer until the recent spate of attacks pushed it behind Angola. Oil production has fallen from 2.2 million barrels at the start of the year to around 1.6 million barrels. The impact has helped push up global oil prices.

Speaking after meeting President Muhammadu Buhari and Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, the oil minister, incoming OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said on Tuesday he had been told Nigeria's oil production was "beginning to rise again". He did not provide details.

Barkindo said the government was trying to resolve militancy in the Niger Delta through talks, but did not elaborate.

"Government is negotiating and we are seeing positive results. I remain confident that through this resolution a stable and permanent solution will be found," he said.

Neither the presidency nor the petroleum ministry have issued official statements on a truce. Buhari has said the government wanted to hold talks with Niger Delta leaders to address poverty and oil pollution.

But his administration angered former militants when it cut by two-thirds the budget allocated for the amnesty program set up in 2009. Ex-militants were paid stipends and given employment training from that program.

A number of new militant groups have sprung up in the last few weeks, each with their own set of demands, which has made the insurgency increasingly fractured. It is not yet clear how many groups took part in the talks.

In a sign of apparent discord among groups in the Delta, former militants who were known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have criticized the Avengers and urged them to negotiate with the government.

In a statement on the Avengers' website, dated June 18, the group said of the ex-militants: "If you and your criminals want to resurrect the defunct MEND and negotiate with the government that is your business".

"We, once again, restate that we are not going to be part of any dialogue."

Reuters

Boko Haram kill at least 18 women at funeral in Adamawa state, Nigeria

Boko Haram militants are said to have rampaged through the village of Kuda in Adamawa state, killing at least 18 women at a funeral. During the attack, which took place Thursday, at about 5pm local time, houses were also set on fire amid the random shooting. Reports say some women, who were present at the funeral are still missing. The numbers of those killed have not been independently confirmed by the authorities. Kuda is close to the Sambisa Forest, which is known to harbor majority of the Boko Haram militants. The same village was last attacked by the militants in February.

Video - Football academy looking to get Nigeria back to its best

Nigeria once enjoyed a comfortable place among the top-rated football nations of the world, but lately its rankings have been in a free-fall. At its best, Nigeria was ranked 5th best football nation in the world...but that was back in 1994. It has since dropped to number 61 in the latest global FIFA ranking. In the following report, CCTV's Kelechi Emekalam takes a look at efforts to revive that past glory by one man who captained the national team in the 1980's.

Does Nigeria have a corrupt culture or a victim of a particular history?

Just before the anti-corruption summit in London, British Prime Minister David Cameron made his now infamous public gaffe in a rather a silly, schoolboyish way.

He boasted to the Queen:

We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain. Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.

The rudeness and stupidity of the remark apart, it was also inaccurate. Nigeria justifiably has a reputation for corruption and criminal networks. But it is by no means one of the two most corrupt countries in the world. Somalia and North Korea hold that distinction,according to Transparency International. Nigeria also ranks as less corrupt than Kenya which is ranked 139 out of 167 countries. Nigeria is ranked 136.

Nigeria has long had a reputation for corruption in politics, business and its military establishment. It also has reputation for being heavily involved in the infamous international 419 financial scams, in drug and sex worker trafficking.

Return assets stolen from Nigeria

The reaction of President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria was one of shock – rather a faux shock for the media. After all, Buhari is involved in cranking up an anti-corruption drive that has seen the arrest of major politicians and army officers. An investigation is ongoing into the corrupt diversion of funds that were to have purchased weapons to fight Boko Haram but ended up in the pockets of political, military and business insiders connected with the previous administration of Goodluck Jonathan.

Buhari said he didn’t want an apology from Cameron over the remarks but instead the return of assets stolen from Nigeria and banked in or via Britain. The latter is in reference to off-shore banks in British territories like Guernsey, Jersey and the Cayman Islands. These are the very offshore banking network revealed, to Cameron’s embarrassment, in the Panama Papers. The leaked papers detailed the vast international network of tax avoidance, money laundering and investment of stolen or criminally-obtained assets.

London as a corrupt financial capital
And Buhari has a point. The British are in no position to preach, according to the world famous expert on the mafia and other forms of organised crime, Roberto Saviano. The journalist and author told his audience at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival that British financial institutions enabled what he called “criminal capitalism” to operate through the network of offshore banks, investment funds and other holdings in British territories.

Saviano said his research showed that the City of London operated in a way that made possible the working of financial systems that eluded investigation, let alone taxation, and effectively made Britain the most corrupt country. He was quoted by the Guardian and Telegraph as saying:

If I asked what the most corrupt place on Earth is, you might say it’s Afghanistan, maybe Greece, Nigeria, the south of Italy. I would say it is the UK. It’s not UK bureaucracy, police, or politics, but what is corrupt is the financial capital. Ninety per cent of the owners of capital in London have their headquarters offshore.

The gap between law and reality

It is no coincidence that the late journalist, academic and expert on crime and corruption in West Africa, Professor Stephen Ellis, devoted an important part of his posthumously published book, This Present Darkness, to the role of British, American and Swedish companies among others in bribery, avoidance of the payment of royalties, false accounting and illegal capital flight in Nigeria and in aiding and abetting domestic corruption.

His superbly researched and incisive study details how British bankers saw the end of empire as both a threat and an opportunity and developed existing offshore banking networks. They used the “archaic jurisdictions” of British dependencies in the Channel Islands and the Caribbean to exploit "the disconnection between the physical location of a transaction and the legal space where it is recorded”. This enabled the cunning or corrupt to “exploit the gap between law and reality”.

British and other foreign companies took advantage of this in their looting of resources. They also used this in trading relationships with countries like Nigeria by concealing the real earnings from exports or inflating the costs of imports. So too did wealthy Nigerians, often through deals with foreign companies, who got their corruptly obtained riches out to offshore banks.

A tradition of gift-giving

But corruption in Nigeria is not something that can be blamed solely on multinationals. As Ellis painstakingly explains, it is much, much more complex. One major factor is the tradition of gift-giving to holders of public office. And then also the expectation that holders of office would use their position to distribute largesse to their followers.

These traditional systems of mutual benefit and patronage were not swept away by colonial rule but often distorted and developed by it. New classes of politicians, public servants and businessmen retained the exchange of gifts or distribution of wealth through social and political networks. These include the ubiquitous secret societies in some parts of Nigeria.

Old networks persisted in new contexts, creating informal or hidden patronage-client systems that were still important to the exercise of political power and formal state institutions. The weakness of Nigerian legal and formal political institutions – as evidenced by the repeated coups – meant that these informal networks became more rather than less powerful. This situation was reinforced by the very diverse and fragmented nature of Nigeria and the importance of local power bases for politicians.

The oil industry and sudden influx of substantial royalties also created opportunities for corruption, the expansion of networks of corruption and misuse of state funds or natural resources. Oil fuelled the rise of a new class of local middlemen, who acted as agents for the oil companies. Contracts for state-funded projects connected with the oil industry became a new form of patronage. At first this was through the military – whose officers benefited hugely from the political power that flowed from the barrel of a gun as well as from barrels of oil.

Is Nigeria innately corrupt?

What Ellis’s book amply demonstrates is the extent of corruption in Nigeria. It uncovers the networks of wealth accumulation and patronage that dominate politics, business and the oil industry. It traces the inextricable link with international financial networks used to launder or invest corrupt money. Finally, it exposes the plundering activities of multinational companies that avoid tax, under-report export volumes and inflate contracts.

Nigeria is part of a fantastically corrupt international network. But is Nigeria innately corrupt or has corruption developed and burgeoned there for specific reasons related to its complex past? I concur with Ellis when he concludes: “Nigerian organised crime is not created by culture, but it does arise from a particular history.”

Keith Somerville

Times Live

Nigerian Boko Haram victim deported from Iceland

As Eze sat in the pews at a church where he goes most mornings to pray, his phone buzzed with a new message. His Icelandic teacher was checking in on him, giving him support.

A calm and composed man, Eze began to cry, the emotion intensifying as he continued to read. His friends in Iceland were standing with him, the message said, they would fight for him.

Eze Okafor, 32, had been living in Iceland for the last four years, working as a cook in a local restaurant, learning the Icelandic language, building a community.

"Iceland is my home now. I have contributed to the society here. Many people know me. My friends have become my family," he told Al Jazeera.

Eze fled Nigera after being targeted by Boko Haram. In 2010, he and his younger brother, Okwy, were attacked in retaliation for not joining the armed group. "They tried to recruit me, but I refused."

Members of Boko Haram stormed their house in Maiduguri, Borno State, in northeastern Nigeria. Eze was stabbed in the head and face. Okwy was killed.

Soon after, Eze fled Nigeria and made a long and dangerous boat journey to Europe, where in 2011 he sought asylum in Sweden. He told his story and showed his still fresh and infected wounds, including the gash over his eye, which he feared would cost him his eyesight. He was denied asylum and made his way to Iceland.

He applied for asylum in Iceland in 2012 but was denied.

He has been working with a lawyer, Katrin Theodorsdottir, who then applied for permission for Eze to stay in Iceland on humanitarian grounds, as his case has slowly made its way through the system. Eze said in October he was given temporary residency and could work.

His case in Iceland has hinged on what time limit is relevant to his asylum request, as defined by Article 19 of the Dublin Regulation, which determines which EU member state is responsible for asylum seekers.

Article 19 lays out a timeframe of six months within which an asylum seeker must be sent back to the country where they were originally asking for asylum, otherwise the current country is responsible for processing their asylum case.

After many rejections, appeals and back and forths between various immigration authorities, Theodorsdottir said there was a "twist". A special immigration committee reviewing Eze's case said the time limit to send Eze back to Sweden might have expired, and advised him to go to the immigration office and have his application for asylum processed.

Eze went to the immigration office as instructed to pick up the paperwork, and was told to wait 45 minutes, which he did. According to Theodorsdottir, unbeknownst to him, the police officer was calling the immigration office. And then another twist.

"The police said I should come to sign and all of a sudden they took me into custody. They arrested me. I spent the night in jail," Eze recalled.

"They next morning they said they were deporting me. I said I should go and get my stuff from my house. They said no. They took me to the airport and manhandled me.

"In Iceland, I have been integrated into society, with so many friends. A lot of people know me. So when the police was beating me, when I was arrested, there was a lot of reaction."

Early on May 26, Eze was put handcuffed onto a plane for deportation. Two members of the rights group No Borders Iceland boarded the plane and stood up in protest, asking other passengers to stand up as well to protest Eze's deportation. After about 10 minutes, they were arrested by Iceland's police.

He was taken to Stockholm. At the airport, he thought the Icelandic authorities would give him back the only ID he had - his Nigerian driver's license. They took it back to Iceland. He was handed papers by the Swedish immigration authorities, which gave him until June 1 to leave Sweden or be deported back to Nigeria.

He was also given a piece of paper saying he had no right to financial assistance. Without money or any identification, he was turned out onto the street where he spent the first night.

Boko Haram is an ongoing threat in Nigeria with members and supporters, Eze said, at all levels of government and the police. Several years ago, members of Boko Haram kidnapped his mother in what Eze said was a bid to force him to return to Nigeria. After brutalising her - including an attack to her face that compromised her eyesight - the kidnappers demanded a ransom.

"What I am facing in Nigeria is that this Islamic group is after my life. My life is in danger."

He said he believes that when he lands at the airport in Nigeria he fears he will be apprehended by the police. "Boko Haram has a network. They have been looking for me since then."

Today, Eze is uncertain about his future. His does know one thing for sure. If he were to return to Nigeria, he believes it would mean death for him.

With his friends, he is working hard to find a lawyer who could take his case in Sweden. His dream is to return to his home in Iceland.

Theodorsdottir said there is something the immigration office could do. She has requested that he be granted permission to live in Iceland on humanitarian grounds, a request that is still pending.

Eze said his mother, Celina, taught him how to cook at an early age and it is his passion. He loved working in the restaurant in Iceland and had a good relationship with his boss. He loves to cook Nigerian food. Maybe, he said, once he is back in Iceland, and his life has found balance again, he could pursue a dream. There is no Nigerian restaurant in Iceland.

"Maybe one day, when I am back in Iceland, I could open a restaurant", Eze said, smiling.

"When I was in handcuffs on my way to Sweden, I was pleading with them," Eze said. "I am not a criminal. I did not commit any crime. I am asking for refuge. They should treat me like a human."

Aljazeera