Nigeria's Buhari signs historic oil overhaul bill into law

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law an oil overhaul bill that has been in the works for nearly two decades, a presidential spokesman said on Monday.

The package overhauls nearly every aspect of the country's oil and gas production. The legislature cleared it for his signature last month.

The bill has been in the works since the early 2000s, but the sensitivity of potential changes affecting Nigeria's key source of revenue and foreign exchange has undermined all previous attempts at an overhaul.

Major fuel marketers and other observers had been alarmed by a provision that they said could give Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, an effective monopoly on fuel sales in Nigeria while the communities where oil and gas is produced had pressed for a larger share of oil money.

Analysts say the bill's approval this year was essential to attracting a shrinking pool of capital for fossil fuel development.

Amendments to the package allowed a series of concessions for oil companies to lure investment.

Reporting by Libby George, Tife Owolabi and Felix Onuah Editing by David Goodman

Reuters

Gunmen kill seven at Shell gas project site in Nigeria

Gunmen killed a police officer and six employees of a Nigerian oil and gas services contractor during an attack on buses transporting workers to a Shell project site in the southeastern state of Imo, police said on Tuesday.

Attacks on oil and gas facilities have long been a problem in Nigeria, where the multi-billion dollar industry sits alongside impoverished communities that have seen little benefit from it. In this case, the motive was unclear.

The Nigerian arm of Shell, SPDC, confirmed that unknown gunmen had attacked a convoy of buses taking staff of its contractor, Lee Engineering, to its Assa North Gas development project site in the Ohaji area of Imo State on Monday morning.

"We have since shut down the project site while the incident has been reported to the police for investigation. SPDC is working with the contractor and supporting the police through a thorough investigation of the incident and to prevent a recurrence," it said in a statement.

Imo State police spokesman Michael Abattam said efforts were ongoing to arrest the perpetrators.

"The command has put in measures to guard the workers in the area since it is prone to attack," he said.

Lee Engineering could not be reached for comment.

The company is involved in the installation and construction of a gas primary treatment facility and the supply of a gas turbine generators and a waste heat recovery system, according to its website.

Nigeria is struggling with a rise in different types of violence. Kidnappings for ransom and armed robberies are rife, as is armed conflict between herders and farmers and between certain communities. In the northeast, 12 years of war between Islamist insurgents and government forces have killed 350,000 people, according to a U.N. estimate.

The oil and gas industry, located in the Niger Delta in the south of the country and offshore in the Gulf of Guinea, has been a focal point for violence for several decades. The region has a history of kidnappings, inter-communal conflicts, armed insurgency, piracy and oil smuggling.

Reporting by Tife Owolabi and Libby George, writing by Estelle Shirbon, editing by Giles Elgood

Reuters

Nigeria Says Taliban Victory Puts Africa in Terror Spotlight

With the Taliban's swift takeover in Afghanistan, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari this week warned that the "war on terror" is not over but is shifting to Africa. Writing in the Financial Times newspaper, Buhari said Africa needs more than U.S. military assistance to defeat terrorism – it needs investment.

The Nigerian president warned in his opinion piece that the U.S. departure from Afghanistan did not mean the so-called war on terror was winding down. He said said the threat is merely shifting to a new frontline - in Africa.

He cited the rising threat of terrorist groups in Africa, from Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Sahel region to al-Shabab in Somalia and a rising insurgency in Mozambique.

But Buhari lamented that Western allies, “bruised by their Middle East and Afghan experiences,” were not prioritizing Africa.

The president's spokespeople could not be immediately reached for comment.

But expert Kabiru Adamu of Beacon Security agrees with the president's opinion.

"It is very likely that the developments in Afghanistan could definitely spur terrorist groups within Africa. It will embolden them, it will make them look at the bigger picture, which is the fact that resilience and a continuation of their efforts could lead to victory," Adamu said.

But while Buhari praised U.S. airstrikes in July against al-Shabab in Somalia, he emphasized that U.S. military forces on the ground in Africa is not what is needed.

He said what Africa needs most is U.S. investment in infrastructure to help provide jobs and economic opportunities for the rapidly growing population.

The Nigerian president said that Africa’s population has nearly doubled since 2001, the start of the U.S.-led war on terror.
And he conceded that Nigeria’s own home-grown terror group, Boko Haram, was first agitated by lack of opportunities.

Buhari also noted the recent attacks in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado region are centered around a profitable natural gas project that provided few jobs for locals.

But founder of the Global Sentinel security magazine, Senator Iroegbu, says that Africa’s terrorist groups are not driven by economics alone.

"You know, there's a subtle competition among these jihadist groups to outdo each other. Since Taliban has recorded this success, other like the al-Qaida, ISIS, may try to also show their own hands," Iroegbu said.

In his opinion piece, Buhari wrote if Afghanistan taught us a lesson, it was that although sheer force can blunt terror, removal of that force can cause the threat to return.

Nigeria has been fighting Boko Haram since 2009, with the conflict spilling into neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.
More than 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict.

African nations have been working together more to fight insurgents, from the G-5 Sahel to the Southern African Development Community’s troops sent, for the first time in July, to Mozambique.

But ultimately, wrote Buhari, Africans need not swords but plowshares to defeat terror.

The boots they need on the ground, he said, are those of constructors, not the military. 

By Timothy Obiezu 

VOA

Anger as Nigerian diplomat manhandled in Indonesia

The Nigerian government is demanding punishment for Indonesian immigration officials who were filmed assaulting a Nigerian diplomat.

Footage circulating on social media showed Abdulrahman Ibrahim, a consular officer based in Jakarta, being held down in a vehicle by several men.

Nigeria called it "an egregious act of international delinquency by the Indonesian state".

It vowed to review bilateral relations with the south-east Asian nation.

The video showed one of the officials putting his hand on the diplomat's head and pushing it back against a seat.

Between yells of protest, Mr Ibrahim repeated: "I can't breathe."

Later in the one-minute-and-30-second clip Mr Ibrahim was heard saying: "My neck, my neck."

Mr Ibrahim had been detained on a street in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

The incident has caused anger in Nigeria, with many saying it shows the disdain that other countries hold for Nigerians. Some are calling for a full explanation from the Indonesian government.

Nigeria's foreign ministry had previously sent a letter of protest to the Indonesian government saying the mistreatment Mr Ibrahim endured was "against international law and the Vienna Conventions governing diplomatic and consular relations between states".

Indonesia's envoy to Nigeria was also summoned on Monday over the incident and apologised on behalf of his government, the foreign ministry said.

Immigration officials had also apologised to Nigeria's ambassador to Indonesia, it added.

Meanwhile Nigeria's ambassador in Jakarta has been called home to give a full report to the government, and the foreign ministry says consultations will continue.

By Chris Ewokor

BBC

Unpaid doctors strike in Nigeria amid new COVID-19 surge

Dr. Olaniyi Olaoye and the other resident doctors at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria haven't been paid at all for five months.

Since the pandemic began, there have been many months when they've only received 60% of their salaries, bringing at least six of them to resign.

Now Olaoye and some 19,000 other doctors across Africa's most populous nation are on strike for the fourth time since the pandemic began, leaving government-run hospitals and COVID-19 treatment centers short-staffed.

The latest work stoppage comes as Nigeria confronts an avalanche of new COVID-19 cases blamed on the delta variant first detected here in early July.

Doctors who are lucky have wives who work and are depending on their income, he said. "Life is difficult for those who are not," he said.

Already Nigerian media outlets are reporting that patients — some with COVID-19 symptoms — are being turned away at short-staffed hospitals. Other patients have been discharged into the streets or left to languish in hospital beds without being diagnosed or receiving treatment.

At the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, The Associated Press witnessed two patients turned away shortly after they arrived at the emergency room last week.

“We cannot admit — resident doctors are on strike," a doctor on duty was overheard telling one of the patients. "When they call off the strike, you come back.”

Uyilawa Okhuaihesuyi, president of the National Association of Resident Doctors, said the federal health ministry has sent him a letter warning that the country's 19,000 medical residents don't have the right to strike.

“Imagine a doctor not paid for 16 months in some states,” Okhuaihesuyi told The Associated Press. "How does he even provide food for his family?”

Nigerian Health Minister Dr. Osagie Ehanire and the Federal Ministry of Health both declined to comment and said a briefing would be held at a later date.

The strike is the fourth work stoppage by medical residents since the pandemic began, the longest of which lasted 10 days.

While the current work stoppage does not affect specialist doctors or nurses, medical residents make up the bulk of health care workers at government hospitals throughout Nigeria, and they also staff most of the government-run treatment facilities for COVID-19.

The striking doctors worry about their patients but place the blame on the federal government, saying it failed to honor an earlier agreement reached after the last strike in April.

“We don’t get paid enough for what we do; we have a diminished workforce, a lot of people are overworked," said Egbekun Ethel, a resident doctor at the Lagos Orthopedic hospital where patients were discharged into the streets to wait for the strike's end. “And it is not only the resident doctors who are disgruntled — the entire health sector is.”

For her, it has been a “vicious cycle" of always returning to work with “little or no rest" and a meager salary.

Some resident doctors say they have not started to receive the reviewed monthly minimum wage of N30,000 ($73) for doctors, according to the association that represents them.

Nigeria's health minister has said that he is "committed' to getting the resident doctors back to work, though he has said that most of their demands are issues to be solved by state governments, not his ministry.

Nigeria's public health sector has not been sufficiently funded for years despite the country having one of Africa's biggest economies, budget documents show.

In 2021, funding for the Federal Ministry of Health was only 4% of the entire budget, or 549.8 billion naira ($1.34 billion). An additional 70.2 billion naira ($171.6 million) was provided because of the pandemic but that allocation remains a fraction of the African Union's recommendation that governments spend an additional 15% for healthcare during the pandemic.

Critics, meanwhile, point to the vast disparity between the government hospitals treating most Nigerians and the medical care abroad that is available to the country's elite. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has had at least 200 days of medical care in the United Kingdom since he was elected president in 2015.

“You cannot go to any hospital in the country that has all the basic infrastructure and adequate manpower to treat patients,” said Okhuaihesuyi. “That is why most people that are in government that have money do not want to receive treatment in Nigeria.”

Dr. Agwu Nnanna at the Federal Medical Center in Nigeria's Kogi state said his colleagues are trapped in “a very unfortunate situation.”

“A doctor needs to take care of himself adequately to be able to cater to his patients as well,” he said.

By Chinedu Asadu

AP