CNN's Christian Purefoy explains the controversy over leaked cables involving drug trials by Pfizer in Nigeria.
Related stories: WikiLeaks cables: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed
WikiLeaks - Yar'Adua family took millions in bribes
Video - Gold rush triggers world's deadliest lead poisoning
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
One of the United States diplomatic cables released by internet whistle-blower, WikiLeaks, has revealed that US had intelligence on last year's attack by the Boko Haram sect in some parts of North-east Nigeria before the attack was launched.
The cable dated June 29, 2009, which originated from the Secretary of State, with reference no 09STATE67105 and classified secret/noforn, was tagged, "Nigeria-Extremists believed to be planning a massive terrorist attack".
The cable, which described leader of the sect, Muhammed Yusuf, as "Nigerian Taliban", said the group was operating with unspecified extremist groups to launch a massive surprise attack on some piece of critical infrastructure, government officials, security agents, and members of the public who are opposed to its doctrines.
The cable also expressed US concerns about recent activities surrounding extremists associated with the "Nigerian Taliban."
Yusuf was reportedly killed in police custody on July 30, 2009, hours after he was captured by security agencies. his group, which has a doctrine that forbids western education, launched massive attacks on Borno and Bauchi states last year.
In the US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, it was also revealed that well-trained veteran Chadian extremist, Abu-Mahjin, who has limited ties to al-Qa'ida associates, also visited Nigeria to facilitate the operation and was seeking more funds for that purpose.
What was however not stated in the cable was whether the intelligence was shared with the Nigerian security agencies or was just meant to warn the US mission and American citizens in Nigeria of an impending attack that may affect American interest.
Text of the cable reads "26. (S//NF) Nigeria - Extremists believed to be planning a massive terrorist attack: (S//REL TO USA, FVEY) Tearline states, Unspecified extremist groups, suspected to be operating in concert with Nigerian Shi'ites, Salafiya, or Muhammad Yusuf's Nigerian Taliban are reportedly planning to launch a massive surprise attack on some piece of critical infrastructure or against high-profile targets within Nigeria. Probable targets of this attack include top Nigerian Government officials or security agents. Members of the general public, who might be opposed to the attackers' doctrines, were also believed to be possible targets. This planned attack is reportedly aimed at sparking sectarian clashes across Nigeria.
"27. (S//NF) DS/TIA/ITA cannot immediately corroborate the current threat with additional intelligence. While no connection can be made between this threat and previous reports, DS/TIA/ITA is concerned about recent activity surrounding extremists associated with the Nigerian Taliban.
"28. (S//NF) A well-trained veteran Chadian extremist, Abu-Mahjin (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) number 24350378), who has limited ties to al-Qa'ida associates, recently travelled to Nigeria. He may be planning to conduct or facilitate a terrorist operation."
According to the text from May 1, "An Islamic extremist named Abu-Muhjin has recently been in northeast Nigeria. It is likely that he will be joined by other Islamic extremists in the coming weeks."
More recent tearline stated, "Nigerian-based probable Chadian extremist Abu-Mahjin is keen to obtain more funds in connection with some sort of nefarious activity (possibly terrorism related) he is engaged in. However, it is not clear when he will receive this additional finance." Little more is known about Abu-Mahjin's apparent efforts to organize a near-term operation.
"29. (S//NF) Though neither the Nigerian Taliban nor its more militant subset -- Tanzim al-Qa'ida group -- has ever attacked Western interests, they have discussed targeting foreign embassies in the past. In 2007, they reportedly plotted to attack the U.S., British, and Israeli embassies in Abuja, according to a single source that remains unsubstantiated. (Appendix sources 17-19)".
Related stories: Video and transcript of Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf interrogated before his execution
Video report on the Widows of Boko Haram militants
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
Making peace has never been an easy job for the governments. A more difficult issue has always been to bring justice in order to make people trust the government.
In this episode, the peace making efforts and the amount these efforts have succeeded is reviewed with Press TV's Danjuma Abdollahi reporting form Jos.
Related stories: Video - Residents worry about their future in Jos
Video report of Islamist attacks spreading across Nigeria
Video - hundreds dead in religious violence across Nigeria
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
Former First Lady Hajia Turai Yar'adua, the then Chief Economic Adviser to the President Tanimu Yakubu and the then Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] Lawal Yar'adua took millions of dollars in bribes on every oil tanker that was lifting oil from Nigeria, according to allegations contained in American State Department cables leaked by the online whistle blower Wikileaks.
Similarly, then Attorney General and Minister of Justice Michael Kaase Aondoaaka was said to have told a visitor that he would only sign a document if he was given $2 million immediately, with another $18m to be paid to him the next day.
The cables stemmed from discussions held in Abuja on January 27, last year, between the then American Ambassador to Nigeria Robin Sanders and Shell Petroleum Corporation's Regional Executive Vice President for Africa, Ms Ann Pickard. Shell's Government Relations Representative Peter Francis attended the meeting.
Ms Pickard told Ms Sanders that corruption in the Nigerian oil sector was worsening by the day, and that "very interesting people" who were not in the oil industry were lifting oil cargoes.
According to another cable sent to Washington by Ambassador Sanders, then Acting President Goodluck Jonathan told her last February that he would not stand in the 2011 presidential elections, saying he only wanted to put in place the structure for national elections. He however added that "if they want me to run, that will be something to consider at that time."
Jonathan also told the American envoy that PDP chose him as President Umaru Yar'adua's running mate because he was from the Niger Delta area. He said, "I was not chosen to be vice president because I had good political experience. I did not. There were a lot more qualified people around to be vice president, but that does not mean I am not my own man."
Jonathan also described a mid-February meeting of the Federal cabinet as "disastrous," saying there was "yelling and screaming" at the meeting and that the cabinet was totally dysfunctional. His plans to dissolve it on February 24 were however aborted by Yar'adua's sneak return to the country that morning, he told Sanders.
In the same despatch to Washington, Sanders reported that Jonathan told her he blamed the political crisis following Yar'adua's hospitalisation to four people: Turai Yar'adua, Chief Security Officer Yusuf Mohamed Tilde, ADC Col Mustapha Onoedieva and Chief Economic Adviser Tanimu Yakubu. He also said then Agriculture Minister Abba Sayyadi Ruma and then FCT Minister Mohamed Adamu Aliero were providing a second tier to the bubble.
Jonathan also revealed in the cables that former military ruler general Abdulsalami Abubakar, who he described as one of his closest advisers, was attempting to involve other former rulers to convince the Yar'adua family to get the ailing president to resign. He said that would be easier than getting the cabinet to pass a resolution declaring Yar'adua to be medically incapacitated.
According to the leaked cables, the American ambassador put pressure on Jonathan to sack INEC chairman Professor Maurice Iwu. She said US technical assistance for Nigeria's elections cannot continue unless Iwu was removed. She also urged Jonathan to distance himself from former president Olusegun Obasanjo, of who he was said to be a surrogate, and to end perceptions of himself as a local regional leader. Jonathan promised her that he would do so.
Yet another leaked American cable reported that an unnamed Kano-based real estate developer and "long-time Mission contact" told the Americans that Yar'adua's associate Alhaji Dahiru Mangal smuggled illicit items into Nigeria.
The contacts however said that Mangal ceased his illegal activities when Yar'adua appointed him a special adviser.
The American cable also described a man who approached another person in a car with a State House plate number and asked for a N250 million bribe on behalf of Hajia Turai Yar'adua. The envoy however said there was no evidence to prove that Turai sent the man.
Related stories: WikiLeaks cables: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed
Video report on the EFCC crackdown on corruption in Nigeria
Nigeria to charge Dick Cheney in $180 million bribery case, issue Interpol arrest warrant
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable.
The company's top executive in Nigeria told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to every relevant department and so knew "everything that was being done in those ministries". She boasted that the Nigerian government had "forgotten" about the extent of Shell's infiltration and was unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.
The cache of secret dispatches from Washington's embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo-Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the US, in one case providing US diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the US on whether the militants had acquired anti-aircraft missiles.
The latest revelations came on a day that saw hackers sympathetic to WikiLeaks target MasterCard and Visa over their decision to block payments to the whistleblowers' website.
The website's founder, Julian Assange, spent a second night in jail after a judge refused him bail prior to an extradition hearing to face questioning over sexual assault charges in Sweden.
Campaigners tonight said the revelation about Shell in Nigeria demonstrated the tangled links between the oil firm and politicians in the country where, despite billions of dollars in oil revenue, 70% of people live below the poverty line.
Cables from Nigeria show how Ann Pickard, then Shell's vice-president for sub-Saharan Africa, sought to share intelligence with the US government on militant activity and business competition in the contested Niger Delta – and how, with some prescience, she seemed reluctant to open up because of a suspicion the US government was "leaky".
But that did not prevent Pickard disclosing the company's reach into the Nigerian government when she met US ambassador Robin Renee Sanders, as recorded in a confidential memo from the US embassy in Abuja on 20 October 2009.
At the meeting, Pickard related how the company had obtained a letter showing that the Nigerian government had invited bids for oil concessions from China. She said the minister of state for petroleum resources, Odein Ajumogobia, had denied the letter had been sent but Shell knew similar correspondence had taken place with China and Russia.
The ambassador reported: "She said the GON [government of Nigeria] had forgotten that Shell had seconded people to all the relevant ministries and that Shell consequently had access to everything that was being done in those ministries."
Nigeria is Africa's leading oil producer and the eighth biggest exporter in the world, accounting for 8% of US oil imports. Although a recent UN report largely exonerated the company, critics accuse Shell, the biggest operator in the delta, and other companies, of causing widespread pollution and environmental damage in the region. Militant groups engaged in hostage-taking and sabotage have proliferated.
The WikiLeaks disclosure was today seized on by campaigners as evidence of Shell's vice-like grip on the country's oil wealth. "Shell and the government of Nigeria are two sides of the same coin," said Celestine AkpoBari, of Social Action Nigeria. "Shell is everywhere. They have an eye and an ear in every ministry of Nigeria. They have people on the payroll in every community, which is why they get away with everything. They are more powerful than the Nigerian government."
The criticism was echoed by Ben Amunwa of the London-based oil watchdog Platform. "Shell claims to have nothing to do with Nigerian politics," he said. "In reality, Shell works deep inside the system, and has long exploited political channels in Nigeria to its own advantage."
Nigeria tonight strenuously denied the claim. Levi Ajuonoma, a spokesman for the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, said: "Shell does not control the government of Nigeria and has never controlled the government of Nigeria. This cable is the mere interpretation of one individual. It is absolutely untrue, an absolute falsehood and utterly misleading. It is an attempt to demean the government and we will not stand for that. I don't think anybody will lose sleep over it."
Another cable released today, from the US consulate in Lagos and dated 19 September 2008, claims that Pickard told US diplomats that two named regional politicians were behind unrest in the Rivers state. She also asked if the American diplomats had any intelligence on shipments of surface to air missiles (SAMs) to militants in the Niger Delta.
"She claimed Shell has 'intelligence' that one to three SAMs may have been shipped to Nigerian militant groups, although she seemed somewhat sceptical of that information and wondered if such sensitive systems would last long in the harsh environment of the Niger Delta," the cable said.
Pickard also said Shell had learned from the British government details of Russian energy company Gazprom's ambitions to enter the Nigerian market. In June last year, Gazprom signed a $2.5bn (£1.5bn) deal with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations.
Shell put a request to the US consulate for potentially sensitive intelligence about Gazprom, a possible rival, which she said had secured a promise from the Nigerian government of access to 17trn cubic feet of natural gas – roughly a tenth of Nigeria's entire reserves. "Pickard said that amount of gas was only available if the GON were to take concessions currently assigned to other oil companies and give them to Gazprom. She assumed Shell would be the GON's prime target." Pickard alleged that a conversation with a Nigerian government minister had been secretly recorded by the Russians. Shortly after the meeting in the minister's office she received a verbatim transcript of the meeting "from Russia", according to the memo.
The cable concludes with the observation that the oil executive had tended to be guarded in discussion with US officials. "Pickard has repeatedly told us she does not like to talk to USG [US government] officials because the USG is 'leaky'." She may be concerned that ... bad news about Shell's Nigerian operations will leak out."
Shell declined to comment on the allegations, saying: "You are seeking our views on a leaked cable allegedly containing information about a private conversation involving a Shell representative, but have declined to share this cable or to permit us sufficient time to obtain information from the person you say took part in the conversation on the part of Shell. In view of this, we cannot comment on the alleged contents of the cable, including the correctness or incorrectness of any statements you say it contains."
Related stories: Nigeria to charge Dick Cheney in $180 million bribery case, issue Interpol arrest warrant
Video - 50 years of oil spill in Nigeria
10 minute video recap of the oil war in the Niger Delta of Nigeria from Ken Saro Wiwa to Present
Shell laments unfriendly business environment
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
