Korean Ends WTO Bid, Clearing Path for Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala

South Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee withdrew her bid to lead the World Trade Organization, leaving former Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the only remaining candidate for the job and setting up a key decision by WTO members to approve her appointment.

Yoo decided after discussions with the U.S. and other major nations, and took various issues into account including the need to revitalize the multilateral organization, according to a statement from Korea’s trade ministry on Friday.

“There was no consensus,” Yoo said. “So we needed enough time for in-depth consultations with important members, including the U.S.”

The withdrawal comes after dozens of former U.S. government officials urged President Joe Biden to endorse Okonjo-Iweala after the Trump administration blocked her selection in 2020, making the U.S. and Korea the only holdouts favoring Yoo. That opposition was enough to halt the selection process because WTO decisions are made on the basis of a consensus of its members.

By quitting the race, Yoo would appear to be clearing Okonjo-Iweala’s path to secure the leadership of the Geneva-based institution. But as the Biden administration forms its trade team, few clues have emerged publicly about whether it will lift U.S. opposition to Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy. The U.S. mission at WTO headquarters didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.
 

First Woman

The 66-year-old Nigerian economist, who is also a U.S. citizen, emerged as the front-runner for the WTO director-general post last year. If the U.S., Korea and the WTO’s other 162 members join a consensus to appoint Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO can announce a meeting to confirm her appointment within a matter of days.

If confirmed, Okonjo-Iweala would be the first woman and the first African to lead the organization in its 25-year history.

The WTO has been leaderless since September, when the organization’s former Director-General Roberto Azevedo stepped down a year before his term was set to expire. Since then the WTO has been overseen by four unelected deputy directors general.

The appointment of a new WTO director-general will help the organization confront an array of internal crises that have ground its work to a near halt.

The trade forum is largely dysfunctional and all three pillars of its work are under threat. The WTO has struggled to produce meaningful multilateral trade agreements, its trade monitoring function consistently underperforms and former President Donald Trump neutralized its appellate body in 2019, which effectively sidelined the organization’s role as the global arbiter of international commerce.

Though the power of the WTO leader is limited by the directives of its members, the director-general can convene meetings, and offer suggestions and strategies for addressing conflicts in the global trading system.

Okonjo-Iweala has pledged to take a more active role as director-general and to act as a sounding board to try to find common ground among the trade body’s disparate membership. 

By Sam Kim and Bryce Baschuk

Bloomberg

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Judge issues arrest warrant for ExxonMobil Nigeria chief

A federal court in Abuja has signed off on a warrant to arrest the head of oil major ExxonMobil in Nigeria to compel him to appear before anti-graft investigators, a statement for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said on Wednesday.

The EFCC said it sought the warrant after Richard Laing, managing director of ExxonMobil Nigeria, rebuffed three invitations to appear before investigators probing alleged procurement fraud involving a pipelines project.

Justice Okon Abang granted the EFCC’s bench warrant application on January 29, the EFCC said. It has not charged Exxon or others with wrongdoing, and its investigation is ongoing.

EFCC spokesman Wilson Uwujaren told Reuters news agency that the investigation is into the company, and not Laing personally.

“EFCC invited them in the course of the investigation but they have refused to honour the invitation, that is why we went to court to compel his appearance for investigation,” Uwujaren said.

A spokesman for Exxon declined to comment. Laing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The EFCC said the investigation related to the alleged fraudulent creation of procurement orders worth more than $213m as part of a pipelines project.

Last year, Nigeria suspended EFCC head Ibrahim Magu after the attorney general accused the agency of diverting funds that had been recovered during investigations into corruption.

Al Jazeera

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Nigeria's government spent 4.65 billion dollars on food importation between January and September 2020. That's a 62 percent rise compared to the previous year. CGTN's Kelechi Emekalam reports that the increase in food costs was despite the West African nation imposing a land border closure aimed at boosting local production.

Nearly 7 years later, Nigerian army still rescuing Chibok schoolgirls from Boko Haram

Nearly seven years since Islamist militants kidnapped two of his daughters from their school in northeastern Nigeria, a hurried phone call let Ali Maiyanga know that his family's ordeal might soon be over.

The call on Thursday evening was from Maiyanga's daughter Halima, who - along with her sister Maryam - was among more than 200 schoolgirls snatched by Boko Haram insurgents in Chibok in April 2014, sparking a global #BringBackOurGirls campaign.

"I was crying, she was crying," said Maiyanga, who was preparing to get married to his fourth wife when he heard Halima's voice down the line.

"We couldn't talk long because I was surrounded by so many people and the place was noisy. Everybody started jumping up and down when I told them," said Maiyanga, father of 18 children, who was reunited with his other kidnapped daughter in 2016.

Halima, 23, told him she had been rescued by the Nigerian army, but Maiyanga said he did not know her exact whereabouts or if she was alone or with more of her kidnapped former classmates.

An army spokesman said on Monday it did not have any Chibok kidnap victims in its custody and the government has not issued a statement about any of the missing women being found in recent days.

About half of the students who were abducted have escaped or been released so far.

Dozens have appeared in propaganda videos by the militants - showing them pleading for their rescue or pledging allegiance to the group - and some have died from illness, in childbirth or military air strikes, according to freed captives.

Reports by Boko Haram's victims of religious indoctrination and forced marriages have fueled concerns about the remaining women as attacks by Islamist militants gather pace in the northeast of the country.

Maryam, 24, said she and Halima - who were among the few Muslims kidnapped along with their mostly Christian classmates - were held captive together at first before they both married insurgents in 2014 and moved into different parts of the forest.

Maryam's husband decided to help his wife escape because he did not want their son to grow up in the forest, and she was found with their 10-month-old baby by troops in the Gwoza district of Borno State in November 2016.

"I always believed I would see my sister again one day," Maryam told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "When I heard the news, I was jumping up and down. I was very happy. I can't wait to see her."

'I WAS AFRAID'

After the two sisters got married, they saw each other regularly. Halima used to visit Maryam every month, helping her to care for the baby. Maryam said she used to spend a lot of time consoling her sister after she had a stillbirth.

But when her escape was planned, Maryam did not tell her sister.

"I was afraid. I didn't see her before I left," said Maryam, who does not know the whereabouts of her husband since he was arrested by the military at the time of her escape. He had accompanied her out of the forest.

Since then, Maryam and the other freed Chibok girls were enrolled by the government in a special remedial course at the American University of Nigeria in Yola.

After years of mounting criticism about the spread of Islamist violence and attacks by armed gangs, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari appointed a new military high command last week.

Hopes were high after army successes against Boko Haram in 2015 and 2016, but with the rise of Islamic State's West African branch, formerly part of Boko Haram, parts of the northeast have been experiencing more frequent attacks.

While Thursday's phone call put an end to the family's agonizing wait for news, Maiyanga said he still did not know when they would be able to see Halima.

"I'm hoping to hear more news from the military," he said.

By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

Reuters

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'They were unjust to me,' says teenager freed after blasphemy sentence quashed in Nigeria

Omar Farouq had an argument last year with a colleague that would change his life.
Insults were exchanged in the heat of the moment, he admits, but Farouq, a teenager, thought nothing of the exchange until he was summoned to the police station and charged with blasphemy against God.
When word got out about the nature of his arrest, an angry mob descended on Farouq's family home forcing his mother to flee to a neighboring village, his lawyer said.

Farouq, who was then 16, was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison with hard labor by a Sharia court, in Kano, northern Nigeria.

However, his conviction was overturned on appeal by the Kano State High Court on January 22 because Farouq did not have legal representation at his first trial, his counsel Kola Alapinni told CNN.
"I'm delighted, I'm in a joyous mood. And I'm grateful to all those who helped and lent support for this outcome with the grace of Allah," Farouq, now 17, told CNN in his first interview following his release.
Alapinni was instrumental in Farouq's release from prison. 

His Foundation for Religious Freedom discovered and got involved in Farouq's case while working on an appeal for Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, who was sentenced to death for blasphemy at the Kano Upper Sharia Court.

 
"We found out they were convicted on the same day, by the same judge, in the same court, for blasphemy and we found out no one was talking about Omar, so we had to move quickly to file an appeal for him," he said.

"Blasphemy is not recognized by Nigerian law. It is inconsistent with the constitution of Nigeria."
Kano's High Court stated that Farouq's conviction as a minor "was done in error and ... is hereby set aside and the Defendant is hereby discharged and acquitted."

An 'unjust' punishment

Farouq says he feels aggrieved as that the Sharia court was "unjust" to him.
Officials for the Sharia court have not commented on Farouq's case, and efforts to reach them have been unsuccessful. CNN also contacted Kano state government for comment but has yet to receive a response.

In all, Farouq spent more than five months locked up without access to family or lawyers.
His family said they were not informed about the details of his case and did not even know what date his court hearing was held.

"They were not fair to us," his uncle Umar Aliyu told CNN. "When they took this boy to court, they didn't tell us the court they took him to... and they refused to tell us the date slated for the judgment. They kept chasing us away. I went to the Hisbah office pleading with the interrogator, but he told me to leave his office. I left hurt and close to tears, extremely sad."

The family also found out from media reports that Farouq had been convicted and sentenced, Aliyu said. 

Aliyu recalls being "enveloped with sadness," every time he thought about his nephew locked up with no contact with his family. 

"Everyone... was disturbed very much, we were really sad. We just had to console each other, counseling some to take it as something ordained by Allah... telling them to be patient. This provided some emotional relief.

"For the period he was in prison every time I thought about him, I became worried. Every time I thought about him sadness would envelop me."

'His life is in danger'

 
Now that Farouq has been freed, he says he is determined to finish his education and has ambitions to enter politics to fight against the kind of injustice he faced. 

"I pray Allah will bless me to become governor or President to reform the Sharia and to end the injustice on my fellow citizens and myself since in some court cases the offense doesn't warrant the harsh judgment handed down. This is deprivation of your right, oppression, and abuse," he said.

Although his conviction was overturned, Farouq's life remains in danger from some fanatics who see his release as an affront, according to his lawyer. 

Alapinni told CNN how terrified Farouq was when he turned up to meet him outside the prison when he was released.

"He himself knows he is in danger because when we tried to pick him from prison...you could see the fear in his face, he didn't even want to follow us...everybody had told him that if he steps out of the prison walls he will be killed," Alapinni said.

"We now need to arrange safe passage for him. His life is in danger in Kano -- it will never be the same," he said. 

By Stephanie Busari 

CNN 

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