Nigeria's former attorney general was detained by the country's financial crimes agency upon his return home on Thursday, the commission said in a statement, as part of an investigation into one of the oil industry's biggest suspected corruption scandals.
Mohammed Adoke was arrested by Interpol in November after travelling to Dubai for a medical appointment. He voluntarily flew back to the West African country on Thursday, his lawyer said.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigation relates to the $1.3 billion (£999.54 million) sale of a Nigerian offshore oilfield known as OPL 245 by Malabu Oil and Gas in 2011.
Eni SpA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc jointly acquired the field from Malabu, which was owned by former petroleum minister Dan Etete.
The sale of the oil field has spawned legal cases across several countries, involving Nigerian government officials and senior executives from Eni and Royal Dutch Shell.
Shell and Eni, and their executives, have denied any wrongdoing. Etete has also denied wrongdoing.
"His return to Nigeria clears the way for him to answer to the charges against him," the EFCC said in a statement, following Adoke's return to Nigeria.
Adoke's lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, said the former attorney general was released by Interpol and Dubai authorities after "finding nothing criminal against him."
"Our client remains very confident that he will be vindicated in the court of law and justice at the end of the day, after a free and fair trial," Ozekhome said in a written statement.
Adoke served as attorney general from 2010 to 2015.
Ozekhome previously said his client had appeared in court in Nigeria in the past over the OPL 245 case and was exonerated.
The New York Times
Friday, December 20, 2019
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Video - Parliament pressing Nigeria government to place unemployed on allowance
The Nigerian senate has called for a state of emergency on unemployment in the country. With over 23% unemployed Nigerians and less functional industries to create jobs, parliament is pressing government to place all unemployed Nigerian youths on an allowance.
John Boyega dons traditional Nigeria attire at Rise of Skywalker premiere
On Wednesday evening, the actor, who portrays Stormtrooper-turned-rebel Finn in the intergalactic film series, joined his co-stars in London for the premiere of the saga’s latest instalment.
The 27-year-old, who was born in the capital to British-Nigerian parents, graced the blue carpet wearing a blue Agbada, a wide-sleeved robe traditionally worn by men in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria.
Boyega completed his look by wearing a Fila, a traditional Yoruba cap frequently paired with an Agbada.
He was joined at the star-studded event by members of his family, who were dressed in matching garments.
Several social media users expressed their admiration for Boyega’s sartorial choice, praising him for paying homage to his African heritage.
“He looks ‘out of this world’,” one person commented.
"For a Nigerian kid raised on Star Wars, this means everything to me. Representation matters. Thank you," someone else wrote.
Boyega shared a post on Instagram about the London premiere, saying he “had an amazing time”.
“Last leg of the tour! Couldn’t be more grateful for such an amazing opportunity,” he wrote in the caption.
The world premiere for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was held in Hollywood, California on Monday evening.
Independent
Related story: British Nigerian John Boyega and Star Wars lead actor talks about growing up in England
Environment minister says Nigeria needs to 'be ready' for oil decline
Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil-producing country, understands it will have little choice but to wean its economy off a reliance on fossil fuels as the world inches onto a low-carbon path, its environment minister said.
Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar said he did not see a long-term future for Nigeria’s oil industry if governments follow through on their promise under the 2015 Paris Agreement to cut planet-warming emissions to net-zero by the second half of the century.
“These days, anything to do with fossil fuel... may have its days numbered, or years numbered,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at this month’s U.N. climate talks in Madrid.
Abubakar said Nigeria should use the royalties and export earnings it receives from oil - which account for about half of its revenues - to invest in alternative sources of energy, in order to “be ready” for a global transition to cleaner energy.
“If the world is truly willing... to quit fossil fuel, then if you are not ready and finally the world comes to terms with that and there are alternatives and no one is buying enough oil from you, at that point you are in trouble,” he said.
Africa’s most populous nation has started to diversify into renewable power generated from solar, wind and waste and is moving its universities onto solar power systems, he added.
It is also making efforts to end gas flaring from oil-industry operations on its soil by 2030, as part of its national climate action plan submitted to the United Nations.
Burning off the gas is a waste of energy and a major source of planet-warming emissions, and Nigeria is procuring technology to capture the gas instead to produce power or heat water, said the minister, a biologist and environmental protection expert.
The West African nation’s climate action plan also pledges to improve its energy grid and expand the use of efficient gas power plants, in an effort to cut widespread use of polluting diesel generators.
Nigeria has an overall target of cutting its emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2010-2014 levels, conditional on receiving international support to achieve that.
Like many other emerging economies, it is seeking funding from wealthy governments to pursue low-carbon development and adapt to climate change impacts such as creeping desertification in the north and rising sea levels affecting its coastal areas.
Abubakar said finance was “very critical” for Nigeria and called for processes to gain access to it - which many countries struggle with - to be “made easy”.
POLLUTERS PAY
Nigeria faces what the minister called significant “climate disruption”, such as the shrinking of Lake Chad to less than a tenth of its size in 1960, depriving local fishermen and farmers of their livelihoods and forcing them to leave their homes.
The lake’s deterioration was one reason Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram had flourished in the region, he added.
“I am sure their recruiters used that opportunity to prey on young people - and even the old ones, because there are no jobs... they are sitting ducks for extremist organizations,” he said.
Deforestation is another issue Nigeria needs to tackle, he noted, as rural communities continue to use wood as their main fuel for heat and cooking, making climate change impacts worse as rainfall-stabilizing and carbon-absorbing trees disappear.
At the same time, Nigeria faces a huge task to repair the environmental damage caused by oil extraction in the Niger Delta, which has contaminated water supplies and soils as a result of spills.
International oil companies have recognized their role in causing that pollution, and agreed to provide about $1 billion to restore the affected areas, Abubakar said.
He recently visited some of the roughly 20 sites where clean-ups are underway so far and met with the companies and United Nations officials in Geneva to review progress. More effort was still required, he added.
Businesses that exploit fossil fuels, gold, diamonds or other resources in Africa should be held accountable if those activities harm local communities, the minister said.
“Wherever there is oil or mining or whatever it is, let them pay for the clean-up but also for the restoration of livelihoods of the people that are being displaced there,” he added.
Reuters
Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar said he did not see a long-term future for Nigeria’s oil industry if governments follow through on their promise under the 2015 Paris Agreement to cut planet-warming emissions to net-zero by the second half of the century.
“These days, anything to do with fossil fuel... may have its days numbered, or years numbered,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at this month’s U.N. climate talks in Madrid.
Abubakar said Nigeria should use the royalties and export earnings it receives from oil - which account for about half of its revenues - to invest in alternative sources of energy, in order to “be ready” for a global transition to cleaner energy.
“If the world is truly willing... to quit fossil fuel, then if you are not ready and finally the world comes to terms with that and there are alternatives and no one is buying enough oil from you, at that point you are in trouble,” he said.
Africa’s most populous nation has started to diversify into renewable power generated from solar, wind and waste and is moving its universities onto solar power systems, he added.
It is also making efforts to end gas flaring from oil-industry operations on its soil by 2030, as part of its national climate action plan submitted to the United Nations.
Burning off the gas is a waste of energy and a major source of planet-warming emissions, and Nigeria is procuring technology to capture the gas instead to produce power or heat water, said the minister, a biologist and environmental protection expert.
The West African nation’s climate action plan also pledges to improve its energy grid and expand the use of efficient gas power plants, in an effort to cut widespread use of polluting diesel generators.
Nigeria has an overall target of cutting its emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2010-2014 levels, conditional on receiving international support to achieve that.
Like many other emerging economies, it is seeking funding from wealthy governments to pursue low-carbon development and adapt to climate change impacts such as creeping desertification in the north and rising sea levels affecting its coastal areas.
Abubakar said finance was “very critical” for Nigeria and called for processes to gain access to it - which many countries struggle with - to be “made easy”.
POLLUTERS PAY
Nigeria faces what the minister called significant “climate disruption”, such as the shrinking of Lake Chad to less than a tenth of its size in 1960, depriving local fishermen and farmers of their livelihoods and forcing them to leave their homes.
The lake’s deterioration was one reason Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram had flourished in the region, he added.
“I am sure their recruiters used that opportunity to prey on young people - and even the old ones, because there are no jobs... they are sitting ducks for extremist organizations,” he said.
Deforestation is another issue Nigeria needs to tackle, he noted, as rural communities continue to use wood as their main fuel for heat and cooking, making climate change impacts worse as rainfall-stabilizing and carbon-absorbing trees disappear.
At the same time, Nigeria faces a huge task to repair the environmental damage caused by oil extraction in the Niger Delta, which has contaminated water supplies and soils as a result of spills.
International oil companies have recognized their role in causing that pollution, and agreed to provide about $1 billion to restore the affected areas, Abubakar said.
He recently visited some of the roughly 20 sites where clean-ups are underway so far and met with the companies and United Nations officials in Geneva to review progress. More effort was still required, he added.
Businesses that exploit fossil fuels, gold, diamonds or other resources in Africa should be held accountable if those activities harm local communities, the minister said.
“Wherever there is oil or mining or whatever it is, let them pay for the clean-up but also for the restoration of livelihoods of the people that are being displaced there,” he added.
Reuters
Nigerians raise alarm over controversial Social Media Bill
Tens of thousands of Nigerians have banded together online to call for the scrapping of a bill which, they say, threatens to roll back internet freedoms in the country.
The proposed legislation - officially named the Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill 2019 - would allow Nigeria's government to cut off internet access or block specific social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter at its own discretion.
"The law enforcement department may direct the NCC [Nigerian Communications Commission] to order the Internet access service provider to disable access by users in Nigeria to the online location and the NCC must give the Internet access service provider access blocking order," it says.
Otherwise known as the Social Media Bill, the proposed act also contains provisions prohibiting statements online deemed "likely to be prejudicial to national security" and "those which may diminish public confidence" in Nigeria's government - offences that would be punishable by fines of up to 300,000 Naira ($825) or imprisonment for up to three years.
Legislators backing the bill, which is advancing through Nigeria's Parliament, claim it will enhance security, peace and unity in Africa's most populous country by curbing the spread of "false statements".
But critics argue it could gag free speech, with many now speaking out via the very platforms they say are at risk of being curtailed.
More than 85,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the bill be done away with. The bill's "aim is to curb our use of social media with the reasoning that the Senate wants to curb the spreading of false information when in reality they want to limit our freedom of speech and our right to criticise them", the petition says.
A campaign on Twitter saw the #SayNoToSocialMediaBill hashtag top the platform's trending charts in Nigeria recently.
"The Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill ... is a backdoor approach to silence critical voices in Nigeria," said Adeboye Adegoke, a digital rights advocate and programme manager at the Nigeria-based social enterprise Paradigm Initiative.
"[It is a] dangerous path to tread ... [and] will serve to provide a legitimate justification for many illegitimate things that the Nigerian government already do," he told Al Jazeera.
Legislative progress
Despite the opposition, the legislation has continued its passage through Nigeria's legislature, passing a second reading and subsequent vote in the Senate in late November.
It has since been moved to the Senate's Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters for a period of further consideration which could last up to four weeks.
Senator Godiya Akwashiki, a spokesman for the Nigerian Senate, said the open discussions would allow for citizens' concerns over the effect of the bill to be aired.
"Nigerians still have a say over the bill during the public hearing," Akwashiki told Al Jazeera. "[It] is an opportunity for the general public to express their views, in order [for them] to be captured in the bill."
A spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari meanwhile told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity that the government had "not made a position" yet on the act, which was introduced by legislators and has not been sponsored by the administration.
Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised the alarm over the bill's possible effect on public discourse in a country with an estimated 113 million internet users, 30 million of whom are active on social media.
"Social media is one of the last remaining places where Nigerians can express their opinions freely," Seun Bakare, programmes manager for Amnesty's Nigeria branch, said in a statement on December 4.
"The harassment of journalists and bloggers and the introduction of the Cyber Crimes Act have already shrunk the civic space and created a climate of fear," Bakare added, citing a 2015 piece of legislation that criminalised a broad range of online activity.
'Problematic for many reasons'
Other critics have meanwhile argued the legislation would not only prove restrictive, but also ineffective.
Berhan Taye, a senior policy analyst at global internet advocacy organisation Access Now and leader of the group's #KeepItOn campaign in Africa, said the bill was "extremely problematic for many reasons".
According to Taye, the provisions allowing for internet access to be cut off would not solve more fundamental problems about the veracity of content being shared online - a major talking point in Nigeria's latest presidential election in February.
"An internet shutdown does not solve the problems of disinformation and misinformation," Taye told Al Jazeera, adding that "fake news is a global problem".
Any such move could also have major ramifications for Nigeria's economy, with a 24-hour blackout projected to cost $134m, according to the Cost of Shutdown Tool developed by non-profit organisation The Internet Society and Netblocks, a non-governmental internet governance observatory.
However, supporters of the Social Media Bill have cast aside such concerns, arguing it can be applied effectively and deliver transformative security benefits.
Senator Muhammad Sani Musa, a member of Buhari's political party and a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it would help stop the spread of fake news in Nigeria and hence curtail groups seeking to undermine the country's cohesion.
"Individuals and groups influenced by ideologies and deep-seated prejudices in different countries are using internet falsehood to surreptitiously promote their causes, as we have seen in Nigeria with the insurgency of Boko Haram," Musa said while defending the bill in November.
By Timileyin Omilana
Al Jazeera
The proposed legislation - officially named the Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill 2019 - would allow Nigeria's government to cut off internet access or block specific social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter at its own discretion.
"The law enforcement department may direct the NCC [Nigerian Communications Commission] to order the Internet access service provider to disable access by users in Nigeria to the online location and the NCC must give the Internet access service provider access blocking order," it says.
Otherwise known as the Social Media Bill, the proposed act also contains provisions prohibiting statements online deemed "likely to be prejudicial to national security" and "those which may diminish public confidence" in Nigeria's government - offences that would be punishable by fines of up to 300,000 Naira ($825) or imprisonment for up to three years.
Legislators backing the bill, which is advancing through Nigeria's Parliament, claim it will enhance security, peace and unity in Africa's most populous country by curbing the spread of "false statements".
But critics argue it could gag free speech, with many now speaking out via the very platforms they say are at risk of being curtailed.
More than 85,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the bill be done away with. The bill's "aim is to curb our use of social media with the reasoning that the Senate wants to curb the spreading of false information when in reality they want to limit our freedom of speech and our right to criticise them", the petition says.
A campaign on Twitter saw the #SayNoToSocialMediaBill hashtag top the platform's trending charts in Nigeria recently.
"The Protection from Internet Falsehood and Manipulation Bill ... is a backdoor approach to silence critical voices in Nigeria," said Adeboye Adegoke, a digital rights advocate and programme manager at the Nigeria-based social enterprise Paradigm Initiative.
"[It is a] dangerous path to tread ... [and] will serve to provide a legitimate justification for many illegitimate things that the Nigerian government already do," he told Al Jazeera.
Legislative progress
Despite the opposition, the legislation has continued its passage through Nigeria's legislature, passing a second reading and subsequent vote in the Senate in late November.
It has since been moved to the Senate's Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters for a period of further consideration which could last up to four weeks.
Senator Godiya Akwashiki, a spokesman for the Nigerian Senate, said the open discussions would allow for citizens' concerns over the effect of the bill to be aired.
"Nigerians still have a say over the bill during the public hearing," Akwashiki told Al Jazeera. "[It] is an opportunity for the general public to express their views, in order [for them] to be captured in the bill."
A spokesman for President Muhammadu Buhari meanwhile told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity that the government had "not made a position" yet on the act, which was introduced by legislators and has not been sponsored by the administration.
Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised the alarm over the bill's possible effect on public discourse in a country with an estimated 113 million internet users, 30 million of whom are active on social media.
"Social media is one of the last remaining places where Nigerians can express their opinions freely," Seun Bakare, programmes manager for Amnesty's Nigeria branch, said in a statement on December 4.
"The harassment of journalists and bloggers and the introduction of the Cyber Crimes Act have already shrunk the civic space and created a climate of fear," Bakare added, citing a 2015 piece of legislation that criminalised a broad range of online activity.
'Problematic for many reasons'
Other critics have meanwhile argued the legislation would not only prove restrictive, but also ineffective.
Berhan Taye, a senior policy analyst at global internet advocacy organisation Access Now and leader of the group's #KeepItOn campaign in Africa, said the bill was "extremely problematic for many reasons".
According to Taye, the provisions allowing for internet access to be cut off would not solve more fundamental problems about the veracity of content being shared online - a major talking point in Nigeria's latest presidential election in February.
"An internet shutdown does not solve the problems of disinformation and misinformation," Taye told Al Jazeera, adding that "fake news is a global problem".
Any such move could also have major ramifications for Nigeria's economy, with a 24-hour blackout projected to cost $134m, according to the Cost of Shutdown Tool developed by non-profit organisation The Internet Society and Netblocks, a non-governmental internet governance observatory.
However, supporters of the Social Media Bill have cast aside such concerns, arguing it can be applied effectively and deliver transformative security benefits.
Senator Muhammad Sani Musa, a member of Buhari's political party and a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it would help stop the spread of fake news in Nigeria and hence curtail groups seeking to undermine the country's cohesion.
"Individuals and groups influenced by ideologies and deep-seated prejudices in different countries are using internet falsehood to surreptitiously promote their causes, as we have seen in Nigeria with the insurgency of Boko Haram," Musa said while defending the bill in November.
By Timileyin Omilana
Al Jazeera
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