A British judge on Thursday gave Nigeria permission to seek to overturn a ruling that would have allowed a private firm to try to seize more than $9bn in assets from the West African country.
Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), a firm set up to carry out a gas project with Nigeria, won a $6.6bn arbitration award after the deal collapsed. The award has been accruing interest since 2013 and is now worth more than $9bn.
P&ID, established by two Irish nationals with little experience in the oil and gas sector, said on Thursday that interest was accruing at a rate of $1.2m a day.
The judge also granted Nigeria's request for a stay on any asset seizures while its legal challenge is pending, but ordered it to pay $200m to the court within 60 days to ensure the stay. It also must pay some court costs to P&ID within 14 days.
The original August 16 decision converted an arbitration award held by P&ID to a legal judgment, which would allow the British Virgin Islands-based firm to try to seize international assets.
Nigeria's appeal of this decision, called a "set aside", would need to prove there was an error in that ruling.
During Thursday's proceedings, lawyers representing Nigeria said the judgment was flawed primarily due to its acceptance that England was the proper seat of the arbitration.
Harry Matovu argued on behalf of Nigeria that the courts, not the arbitration tribunal, should determine this and that the award itself was "manifestly excessive".
"We look forward to challenging the UK Commercial Court's recognition of the tribunal's decision in the UK Court of Appeal, uncovering P&ID's outrageous approach for what it is: a sham based on fraudulent and criminal activity developed to profit from a developing country," Nigerian attorney general Abubakar Malami said.
P&ID welcomed the requirement that Nigeria place $200m on hold pending the appeal, which it said will force the nation "to put its money where its mouth is if it wants to avoid immediate seizure of assets". It also called fraud allegations a "red herring".
"The Nigerian government knows there was no fraud and the allegations are merely political theatre designed to deflect attention from its own shortcomings," it said in a statement.
The judge's order said that if Nigeria does not put the $200m into a court account within 60 days - the minimum amount of time that Matovu said it would take Nigeria to raise the funds by tapping capital markets or seeking internal sources - the stay on seizures would be lifted.
The case has electrified Nigeria and drawn condemnation at every level of government. In a speech at the United Nations this week, President Muhammadu Buhari said he would fight "the P&ID scam attempting to cheat Nigeria of billions of dollars".
At the court on Thursday, a dozen senior government officials huddled during a break, discussing how much money Nigeria could place in court accounts to secure a hold on asset seizures.
Last week, Nigeria's anti-graft agency charged one former petroleum ministry official with accepting bribes and failing to follow protocol related to the contract, while two Nigerian men linked to P&ID pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and tax evasion on behalf of the company.
P&ID has called the investigation in Nigeria a "sham" that denied its subjects due process.
Al Jazeera
Related story: Nigeria defends currency reserves inspite $9bn UK court ruling
Friday, September 27, 2019
Hundreds freed from torture house in Nigeria
Nigerian police say they have rescued nearly 500 people from a building in the northern city of Kaduna where they were detained and allegedly tortured.
Those held were all men and boys - some were found chained up.
Kaduna state's police chief Ali Janga told the BBC the large house was raided following a tip-off about suspicious activity.
He said it was a "house of torture" and described it as a case involving human slavery.
The detainees, not all Nigerian, said they had been tortured, sexually abused, starved and prevented from leaving - in some cases for several years.
It is not clear how they got there. Some of the children told the police that their relatives had taken them there believing the building to be a Koranic school.
But the police say there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the building was ever a school.
Eight suspects have been arrested.
The police chief said the detainees - some with injuries and starved of food - were overjoyed to be freed.
They were taken to a stadium in Kaduna overnight to be cared for while arrangements are made to find their families.
Nigerian authorities say the nearly 500 freed captives will be given medical and psychological examinations.
BBC
Those held were all men and boys - some were found chained up.
Kaduna state's police chief Ali Janga told the BBC the large house was raided following a tip-off about suspicious activity.
He said it was a "house of torture" and described it as a case involving human slavery.
The detainees, not all Nigerian, said they had been tortured, sexually abused, starved and prevented from leaving - in some cases for several years.
It is not clear how they got there. Some of the children told the police that their relatives had taken them there believing the building to be a Koranic school.
But the police say there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the building was ever a school.
Eight suspects have been arrested.
The police chief said the detainees - some with injuries and starved of food - were overjoyed to be freed.
They were taken to a stadium in Kaduna overnight to be cared for while arrangements are made to find their families.
Nigerian authorities say the nearly 500 freed captives will be given medical and psychological examinations.
BBC
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Man confesses to serial murders of 15 women in Nigeria
A suspect has confessed to murdering 15 women after luring them into budget hotel rooms in Nigeria, potentially ending a killing spree that has terrorised the country’s oil capital, Port Harcourt.
Gracious David-West, believed to be 39 and unemployed, said that “an irresistible urge to kill” had repeatedly driven him onto the streets in search of female victims over the past two months.
“I take a girl into a hotel, we eat, make love and sleep,” he told a press conference in Port Harcourt, where he was arrested last week. “Later I wake up in the middle of the night and put a kitchen knife to her neck ordering her not to shout.”
After turning up the volume on the television, Mr David-West said he would tie his victims up with strips torn from the pillow-case on his bed before strangling them.
“I don’t know what comes over me to kill,” he added. “After I have killed I feel remorse and cry but after that the irresistible urge to kill comes over me again.”
At least nine of the victims were killed in Port Harcourt, including three murdered over a single weekend earlier this month.
The killings prompted widespread anger in the city, which mounted after the regional police chief, Mustapha Dandaura, suggested that the women were partly responsible for their deaths, saying, “I don’t know why people will be sleeping with people they don’t know.”
He also suggested that some of the victims were prostitutes.
Women’s groups marched through the city holding banners reading, “Respect women, don’t kill them.”
The regional government apologised for appearing to blame the dead women.
“A lot of the victims might have been careless, but it would be wrong to address them as prostitutes,” it said in a statement.
Police will hope Mr David-West’s confession will bring an end to the killings. However, it is unclear if he acted alone after he admitted to being an affiliate of one of Nigeria’s most notorious university fraternities.
The suspect said he used to be a member of Deebham, the street-wing of the Klansmen Konfraternity at the University of Calabar.
University fraternities in Nigeria have long been linked to voodoo, violent crime and even murder. Some created street gangs in order to compete for territory outside campuses.
Deebham, whose members are not generally students, has been linked to the kidnapping of expatriate oil workers and rich Nigerians.
It has no record, however, of killing and raping women and Mr David-West insisted that he had not acted on behalf of the group.
"I kill alone," he said.
The Telegraph
Gracious David-West, believed to be 39 and unemployed, said that “an irresistible urge to kill” had repeatedly driven him onto the streets in search of female victims over the past two months.
“I take a girl into a hotel, we eat, make love and sleep,” he told a press conference in Port Harcourt, where he was arrested last week. “Later I wake up in the middle of the night and put a kitchen knife to her neck ordering her not to shout.”
After turning up the volume on the television, Mr David-West said he would tie his victims up with strips torn from the pillow-case on his bed before strangling them.
“I don’t know what comes over me to kill,” he added. “After I have killed I feel remorse and cry but after that the irresistible urge to kill comes over me again.”
At least nine of the victims were killed in Port Harcourt, including three murdered over a single weekend earlier this month.
The killings prompted widespread anger in the city, which mounted after the regional police chief, Mustapha Dandaura, suggested that the women were partly responsible for their deaths, saying, “I don’t know why people will be sleeping with people they don’t know.”
He also suggested that some of the victims were prostitutes.
Women’s groups marched through the city holding banners reading, “Respect women, don’t kill them.”
The regional government apologised for appearing to blame the dead women.
“A lot of the victims might have been careless, but it would be wrong to address them as prostitutes,” it said in a statement.
Police will hope Mr David-West’s confession will bring an end to the killings. However, it is unclear if he acted alone after he admitted to being an affiliate of one of Nigeria’s most notorious university fraternities.
The suspect said he used to be a member of Deebham, the street-wing of the Klansmen Konfraternity at the University of Calabar.
University fraternities in Nigeria have long been linked to voodoo, violent crime and even murder. Some created street gangs in order to compete for territory outside campuses.
Deebham, whose members are not generally students, has been linked to the kidnapping of expatriate oil workers and rich Nigerians.
It has no record, however, of killing and raping women and Mr David-West insisted that he had not acted on behalf of the group.
"I kill alone," he said.
The Telegraph
Kidnapped aid worker killed by ISIL affiliate in Nigeria
An armed group aligned with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant killed one of six aid workers it abducted in northeast Nigeria.
The Nigerian aid workers, a woman and five men, were captured in July by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) during an ambush on their convoy close to the border with Niger.
"The armed group holding captive an employee of Action Against Hunger, two drivers and three health ministry personnel, have executed a hostage," the Paris-based charity said in a statement on Wednesday, without giving details of the identity of the victim.
"Action Against Hunger condemns in the strongest terms this assassination and urgently calls for the release of the hostages."
The charity said it was "extremely concerned and is fully mobilised to ensure that the remaining hostages can be quickly and safely reunited with their families".
ISWAP released a video following the abduction, showing a female charity member pleading for the release of the hostages, with her five male colleagues behind her.
The kidnapping was the latest to target aid workers in the conflict-hit region after the abduction and the killing of two women working for the International Committee of the Red Cross last year.
ISWAP is a splinter faction of Boko Haram that swore allegiance in 2016 to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It has repeatedly attacked military bases and targeted aid workers in northeast Nigeria.
Aid group suspends operations
International aid agency Mercy Corps said on Wednesday it suspended operations in two northeast Nigerian states worst-hit by the armed groups after the Nigerian army closed four of its offices in the region.
"Mercy Corps is suspending operations in Borno and Yobe states following the closure of four of our field offices by the Nigerian military," Amy Fairbairn, its head of media and communications, said in a statement.
"We have not yet received an official reason from the Nigerian authorities for the closure and we are seeking to work with them to resolve this as soon as possible," said Fairbairn, adding Mercy Corps' work in other parts of Nigeria would continue.
The Nigerian army has accused humanitarian organisations of working with armed groups.
In December 2018, it suspended UNICEF from operating in the northeast over claims it was training "spies" who were supporting Boko Haram - only to lift the ban later the same day after a meeting with the aid agency.
Northeast Nigeria has been ravaged by a decade-long civil war led by the armed group Boko Haram that has killed 30,000 people and forced two million to flee their homes.
The United Nations says 7.1 million people in the region need assistance in one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Al Jazeera
The Nigerian aid workers, a woman and five men, were captured in July by Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) during an ambush on their convoy close to the border with Niger.
"The armed group holding captive an employee of Action Against Hunger, two drivers and three health ministry personnel, have executed a hostage," the Paris-based charity said in a statement on Wednesday, without giving details of the identity of the victim.
"Action Against Hunger condemns in the strongest terms this assassination and urgently calls for the release of the hostages."
The charity said it was "extremely concerned and is fully mobilised to ensure that the remaining hostages can be quickly and safely reunited with their families".
ISWAP released a video following the abduction, showing a female charity member pleading for the release of the hostages, with her five male colleagues behind her.
The kidnapping was the latest to target aid workers in the conflict-hit region after the abduction and the killing of two women working for the International Committee of the Red Cross last year.
ISWAP is a splinter faction of Boko Haram that swore allegiance in 2016 to ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It has repeatedly attacked military bases and targeted aid workers in northeast Nigeria.
Aid group suspends operations
International aid agency Mercy Corps said on Wednesday it suspended operations in two northeast Nigerian states worst-hit by the armed groups after the Nigerian army closed four of its offices in the region.
"Mercy Corps is suspending operations in Borno and Yobe states following the closure of four of our field offices by the Nigerian military," Amy Fairbairn, its head of media and communications, said in a statement.
"We have not yet received an official reason from the Nigerian authorities for the closure and we are seeking to work with them to resolve this as soon as possible," said Fairbairn, adding Mercy Corps' work in other parts of Nigeria would continue.
The Nigerian army has accused humanitarian organisations of working with armed groups.
In December 2018, it suspended UNICEF from operating in the northeast over claims it was training "spies" who were supporting Boko Haram - only to lift the ban later the same day after a meeting with the aid agency.
Northeast Nigeria has been ravaged by a decade-long civil war led by the armed group Boko Haram that has killed 30,000 people and forced two million to flee their homes.
The United Nations says 7.1 million people in the region need assistance in one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Al Jazeera
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Nigeria going after privacy app Truecaller
Nigerian regulators are going after Truecaller, the Sweden-based phone number identification app, for “potential breach of privacy rights of Nigerians.”
Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency claims Truecaller’s privacy policy contains “illegitimate provisions” that contravene Nigeria’s Data Protection Regulation (NDPR). It also alleges Truecaller “collects far more information than it needs to provide its primary service” and has urged Nigerians to delist themselves from the service.
NITDA’s investigation into Truecaller follows several years of the app’s activity in Africa’s largest mobile market amid growing usage. The app’s caller ID service, which helps users identify names of callers with unsaved numbers, has garnered 2.9 million active users in Nigeria.
With Truecaller users granting it access to their contacts list among a range of other permissions, the Stockholm-headquartered has aggregated a database of contact details from millions of users raising questions about its methods. As such, when a Truecaller user receives a call from an unsaved number, the app can match that number with a name from its vast database. In exchange for free use, the app leverages its vast user base for mobile advertising.
Truecaller has grown rapidly in markets like India and now has over 150 million daily active users worldwide and a million premium users who pay for additional features. In India, the app has been popularly adopted for spotting and managing users’ high spate of spam callswhile in Nigeria a common use case sees Truecaller used to detect prospective fraudsters amid the country’s low-trust environment. Nigeria’s spam culture has also seen attempts by regulatory bodies to stop unsolicited promotional spam texts and calls from telecoms operators face hiccups.
Truecaller remains subject of controversy especially given the ethical question on how it pulls in the contact details of non-Truecaller users to its database. There are now guides online on how users can delist from Truecaller’s database.
Bigger questions
But NITDA’s investigation of Truecaller also raises troubling questions about Nigeria’s own nascent data privacy laws. While NITDA is a government agency established by law to implement and regulate information technology, the NDPR data protection regulations have not been passed as a bill through Nigeria’s national assembly.
“The regulation is secondary in that they didn’t do the real work of passing a bill through the National Assembly so that Nigeria can get a real data protection law with coordinated data protection mechanisms,” says Gbenga Sesan, a prominent digital rights advocate. “It’s tough to enforce secondary legislation because agencies, or even companies, will challenge it in court. For example, best practice expects that data protection laws or regulation be managed by a data protection agency which NITDA is not.”
As it turns out, a data protection bill which has been passed by Nigeria’s senate and submitted for presidential assent since May remains unsigned. It’s a reflection of wider realities across African countries many of which remain in need of stronger bills of data rights.
Perhaps as an indication of its limitations, Sesan says the application of NDPR as a stop-gap measure is not broad enough. “If serious, they should start with the Central Bank, the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigerian Communications Commission, Nigerian Immigration Service and all other government agencies that collect and have lost or abused data,” Sesan says.
For its part, Truecaller says it’s reviewing NITDA’s comments and will prepare a response but ultimately, Sesan expects NITDA’s investigation to fizzle out. ”This is probably another press posturing that will go nowhere,” Sesan says. “The best this dog can do is bark, it has zero bite.”
By Yomi Kazeem
Quartz
Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency claims Truecaller’s privacy policy contains “illegitimate provisions” that contravene Nigeria’s Data Protection Regulation (NDPR). It also alleges Truecaller “collects far more information than it needs to provide its primary service” and has urged Nigerians to delist themselves from the service.
NITDA’s investigation into Truecaller follows several years of the app’s activity in Africa’s largest mobile market amid growing usage. The app’s caller ID service, which helps users identify names of callers with unsaved numbers, has garnered 2.9 million active users in Nigeria.
With Truecaller users granting it access to their contacts list among a range of other permissions, the Stockholm-headquartered has aggregated a database of contact details from millions of users raising questions about its methods. As such, when a Truecaller user receives a call from an unsaved number, the app can match that number with a name from its vast database. In exchange for free use, the app leverages its vast user base for mobile advertising.
Truecaller has grown rapidly in markets like India and now has over 150 million daily active users worldwide and a million premium users who pay for additional features. In India, the app has been popularly adopted for spotting and managing users’ high spate of spam callswhile in Nigeria a common use case sees Truecaller used to detect prospective fraudsters amid the country’s low-trust environment. Nigeria’s spam culture has also seen attempts by regulatory bodies to stop unsolicited promotional spam texts and calls from telecoms operators face hiccups.
Truecaller remains subject of controversy especially given the ethical question on how it pulls in the contact details of non-Truecaller users to its database. There are now guides online on how users can delist from Truecaller’s database.
Bigger questions
But NITDA’s investigation of Truecaller also raises troubling questions about Nigeria’s own nascent data privacy laws. While NITDA is a government agency established by law to implement and regulate information technology, the NDPR data protection regulations have not been passed as a bill through Nigeria’s national assembly.
“The regulation is secondary in that they didn’t do the real work of passing a bill through the National Assembly so that Nigeria can get a real data protection law with coordinated data protection mechanisms,” says Gbenga Sesan, a prominent digital rights advocate. “It’s tough to enforce secondary legislation because agencies, or even companies, will challenge it in court. For example, best practice expects that data protection laws or regulation be managed by a data protection agency which NITDA is not.”
As it turns out, a data protection bill which has been passed by Nigeria’s senate and submitted for presidential assent since May remains unsigned. It’s a reflection of wider realities across African countries many of which remain in need of stronger bills of data rights.
Perhaps as an indication of its limitations, Sesan says the application of NDPR as a stop-gap measure is not broad enough. “If serious, they should start with the Central Bank, the Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigerian Communications Commission, Nigerian Immigration Service and all other government agencies that collect and have lost or abused data,” Sesan says.
For its part, Truecaller says it’s reviewing NITDA’s comments and will prepare a response but ultimately, Sesan expects NITDA’s investigation to fizzle out. ”This is probably another press posturing that will go nowhere,” Sesan says. “The best this dog can do is bark, it has zero bite.”
By Yomi Kazeem
Quartz
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