Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Turkish ship crew kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Nigeria

Six Turkish members of a cargo ship's crew have been kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Nigeria, a spokesman for the Nigerian navy said on Monday.

The crew members of the merchant tanker M/T Puli were abducted some 90 miles from the coast at around 1:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) on Monday, navy spokesman Chris Ezekobe said.

"Six crew members were abducted. They included the captain, the chief officer and chief engineer," Ezekobe said. "They were all Turkish."

The spokesman said the navy was going to board the vessel to speak to other crew members.

Last month, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea agreed to establish combined patrols to bolster security in the Gulf of Guinea. The gulf is a significant source of oil, cocoa and metals for world markets, but pirates pose a threat to shipping companies.

They target oil tankers, usually seeking hostages for ransom and fuel to sell. Security analysts say the pirates have emerged from militant groups in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta, such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

A lawyer for Kaptanoglu Group, an Istanbul-based shipping company, said the crew members abducted from the M/T Puli included the ship's captain and that those left behind were unharmed, according to the newspaper Hurriyet.

The tanker was carrying liquid chemical fuels and was traveling to Cameroon, Hurriyet said, citing the lawyer, Fehmi Ulgener.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Video - Fuel crisis crippling Nigeria




Nigeria remains at a virtual standstill as more suppliers run out of fuel and motorists spend hours on end looking for the commodity. While the country is Africa's biggest oil exporter, its local refineries remain underdeveloped meaning that it must import its own fuel for domestic consumption. Inefficiencies in that system perennialy grind operations to a halt.

Hunting down gays in Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria—According to a statement released in February by the Nigerian police, Abdul Lawal, dressed as the groom, and Umar Tahir, dressed as the bride, were just about to take their seats at their well-attended marriage ceremony on February 6, when plainclothes police broke up the part and whisked them away to jail, along with several of the guests.

The so-called same-sex marriage ceremony, which took place at the popular King’s Land Hotel in the capital, is prohibited under Nigerian law.

The spokesman for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command, Anjuguri Manzah, said the police acted “based on the provisions of the Same-Sex Prohibition Act” which many in this highly religious country have embraced, but which has been widely criticized by LGBT activists here and abroad.

The much scrutinized legislation (PDF) signed into law in 2014 outlaws sodomy and provides penalties of up to 14 years in jail for a gay marriage. It also prohibits the promotion of civil unions.

When it was approved by then-president Goodluck Jonathan, the United States, Britain and Canada condemned the new law, with Secretary of State John Kerry saying that it “dangerously restricts” freedom of expression and association of all Nigerians.

Jonathan’s successor, Muhammadu Buhari, has stood firm in support of the anti-gay law, despite pressure for its repeal, particularly from the United States. Under his administration, gay people will be arrested and prosecuted based on the law.

Incidents like the arrest of Lawal and Tahir and their guests in a supposed marriage ceremony are rare, but not unprecedented, particularly in northern Nigeria. Similar arrests have taken place in Bauchi and Kano, where witnesses say suspects were often tortured in detention and forced to give names of other gay people they know to the police.

“That is what they did to some of our friends in Bauchi after they were arrested,” an unmarried gay man we’ll call Mana, who lives in Jiwa community, told The Daily Beast. “They tortured them into naming people they had come in contact with, including friends who weren’t gay.”

Mana, who used to live in Bauchi, said his name was mentioned during interrogation, but he had left town by the time police came to arrest him in 2014.

“I got information that policemen were arresting gay people and so I quickly fled,” he said. “Those who were unfortunately arrested said they were tortured and forced to give names and phone numbers of their close friends to the police.”

Nigerian law enforcement agents are notorious for torturing suspects to extract confessions, and a number of officials have been accused of intimidating suspects until they implicate innocent friends and associates. One motive: to make money off of bail after they round people up.

Although news of the Jiwa arrests spread like wildfire across the country and the action of security officers in apprehending the actors was commended by a number of citizens and religious organizations, human rights activists rejected claims by the police that a gay marriage ceremony had taken place anywhere in Abuja. They say that security officials carried out arrests in a local celebration that was not a same-sex wedding at all.

Rights worker John Adeniyi, who has been following the case closely, told The Daily Beast that the ceremony where Lawal and Tahir were arrested was actually a traditional fund-raising ceremony—known in the local Hausa language as Ajo—where some participants “socially cross-dress for the purpose of entertainment”.

“At one point in time when a traditional music was playing and people were performing the cultural dance, police stormed the event premises and caught one of the cross-dressed participants dancing in a close range to one other person who cross-dressed alongside several other persons,” said Adeniyi, who works with the Global Initiatives for Human Rights (GIHR), a small, specialized unit within Heartland Alliance that supports the protection and promotion of human rights, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression.

“The two persons presumed to be a couple were two individuals spotted dancing in a close proximity at the cultural dance performance although one of them was cross-dressed, which was the factor that made the police come to the conclusion without an adequate investigation,” Adeniyi added.

In recent times, a number of human rights activists have accused the police of arresting and detaining perceived homosexuals without cause, except for the purpose of extorting money from detainees to allow them to get out of jail.

Adeniyi said the accused gay couple and those arrested alongside them were required to pay bribes to the police to secure their release.

“At least one lady confirmed to have paid 70,000 naira (about $350) in order to secure the bail of her girlfriend and herself,” he said. “Several other people paid different amounts of money to be released from detention.”

There is also fear that the anti-gay law, accompanied by the aggressive clampdown on gay people, may have worsened the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in the country. Apart from jailing gay couples, the law provides penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment for membership or encouragement of gay clubs, societies and organizations, and this has been interpreted to include groups formed to combat AIDS among gays.

Not long after the anti-gay law was passed, the UN agency fighting AIDS and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria expressed “deep concern that access to HIV services for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people will be severely affected” in the country, which has an estimated 3.4 million people living with the HIV virus. About half of that number are women, but unprotected intercourse among men puts them at especially high risk.

Mana said a number of his gay friends have tested positive for HIV but are reluctant to seek counseling so as not to reveal the way in which they contracted the disease.

“For some gay people it is better to die with the disease than reveal how it was gotten,” he said. “In a country that hates gay people, you can’t tell who will help send you to jail.”

Mana told me in February that he was making it back to Bauchi, where the very active Sharia system of Islamic law, which runs parallel to the state and federal justice system, prescribes the death sentence for homosexuality. A judge decides whether it should be done by a public stoning or by lethal injection, although no gay person has been subjected to such punishment as yet.

For Lawal and Tahir, it remains to be seen what further action the police will take against them, or whether this case may have been closed already after both men, as Adeniyi said, paid to secure their release on bail. Authorities have refused to speak further on the case to the media.

Whatever befalls the “gay couple,” and whether or not they were apprehended in a marriage ceremony, the public announcement and publicity surrounding their arrest, and the special attention given to this case by the police shows how much of a priority authorities put on hunting down gays.

At the point of release, Lawal and his supposed partner “were verbally assaulted, named, shamed and photographed without consent,” Adeniyi said, but they now feel helpless to respond. “They fear further escalation.”


Related stories: Being gay in Nigeria

Friday, April 8, 2016

Nigerian linked to ISIS arrested in Germany

A 29-year unnamed Nigerian, alongside an Iraqi, aged 46, were on Thursday detained by the German police on suspicion of having links with Islamic State, ISIS and of planning ‘a serious act of violence,’ Reuters reports.

This was made known by a German police prosecutor, Thomas Steinkraus-Koch in a statement yesterday.

According to the statement, security sources have provided information that both suspects could have been in contact with members of ISIS.

“Police did not immediately find any suspicious items, but are pursuing investigation.

“The suspects were detained in the Bavarian capital Munich and nearby Fuerstenfeldbruck,” the statement said, adding there had been no forthcoming threat to the public.”

The police have, however, declined to give any more details.

According to the police, the names of the suspects would not be revealed until investigations were completed.

“There would be no further statements before Friday,” the police was quoted to have said.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Former Finance Minister Okonjo-Iweala reveals her mother was kidnapped in response to fuel subsidy issue

Former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has said her 83-year-old mother was kidnapped because she advised former President Goodluck Jonathan to remove fuel subsidy.

In an interview with Le Monde, the 61-year-old economist said the fight against corruption was at the root of the kidnap, with the abductors demanding her resignation on live television.

When asked what her failures and successes in the fight against corruption were, Okonjo-Iweala said: "Your answer would take a whole day.

"On my first experience as minister, I wrote a book, Reforming the Unreformable (ed) The MIT Press, 2012). For the second, it was really difficult. Nigeria subsidises fuel. About $ 6.7 billion that it costs, we found that 1.5 billion was fraudulent.

"One importer claimed that his boat was waging its oil while at the other end of the world, according to maritime classification society Lloyd's Register Marine.

"I told the president that we would stop paying. What happened? They kidnapped my mother, 83 years. During the first three days, their only demand was my resignation. I was supposed to go on television and announce my resignation.

"This was one of the worst moments of my life. Can you imagine what happens in your head if you have to be responsible for the death of your mother?

"I will not go into details, but you must understand that in a country like this... in the fight against corruption, we must be prepared to pay a personal price. My father asked me not to resign. The president asked me not to resign. At the end, everyone began looking for her, and the kidnappers released (her)."

Speaking to dwindling oil prices, Okonjo-Iweala said state governors did not allow Jonathan save for the rainy day, yet they are the ones complaining today.

"Some economists are very concerned for Nigeria, which could greatly suffer from the fall in oil prices. Others say the contrary, that its economy is strong enough to turn the corner.

"Both are right. But one thing saddens me. When I was finance minister the first time, the volatility of oil prices, and therefore state resources, cost at least three points of growth in the country.

"We then established a stabilisation mechanism and opened an account for the oil surplus, which posted up to $22 billion. In 2008, when prices fell from 148 to $ 38 a barrel, no one has heard of Nigeria because the country was able to tap into this fund. And that, I am very proud [of].

"When I returned to the department in 2011, there remained only $4 billion on this account while the price of oil was very high! I tried again to put money aside. The president agreed, but the governors did not accept.

"I suffered a lot of attacks from them and now that the country would really need this account, these same people accuse me of not having saved! If Nigeria had been more careful, we would not be here today. It hurts me. We have the mechanism, we had the experience, but we were prevented to act."

Okonjo-Iweala further spoke on her childhood and the hardship she experienced first-hand, during the Biafran war.

"I grew up in a village in southern Nigeria where I grew up to eight and a half years by my grandmother. My parents were scholarship students in Germany and did not have enough money to take me with them.

"I learned real life, fetching wood, water. At five, I could cook. This life has given me strength and a strong character. The other experience from my childhood is the Biafran war (1967-1970). My parents lost everything. I knew what it was to have nothing more."