Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,194,827 members, 7,956,132 topics. Date: Monday, 23 September 2024 at 04:18 AM

La1's Posts

Nairaland Forum / La1's Profile / La1's Posts

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (of 14 pages)

Politics / Re: FG Suspends Import Duties, Taxes On Essential Food Items To Address Hunger by la1(m): 11:36am On Jul 30
Good move.

7 Likes

Business / Re: How To Reactivate Your Business From Inactive To Active On The Cac Portal by la1(m): 12:01pm On Jun 26
I used Mr Kingsley's service in reactivation of My Business name on The CAC Platform last month ,. He was very professional and expedited the process (within 5days) at a cheap rate..I highly recommend đź‘Ť

1 Like

Culture / Re: John Randle Centre For Yoruba Culture: Noisy And Unapologetically Non-European by la1(m): 8:55pm On Apr 30
Is it open to the public yet?.. love to visit with my kids

26 Likes 1 Share

Politics / Re: Supreme Court gets full bench as CJN Ariwoola swears in 11 new Justices by la1(m): 10:39am On Feb 27
Congratulations to All the justices...must be quite a special feeling to reach the Pinnacle of your chosen profession.
Music/Radio / Re: Recathon: GWR Longest Recording Marathon By Idem Abasifreke Begins by la1(m): 10:05am On Feb 10
Good luck hommie

1 Like

Politics / Re: Who Else Is Having Problems With Loading IKEDC Token? by la1(m): 10:59am On Nov 22, 2023
[quote author=kalilaweb post=127100795][/quote]




was having the same issues with the rejected tokens error message i followed step 2 - 3 and it worked thanks for this.
Business / Re: How Many People Remember This Advert Way Back In The 90’s by la1(m): 12:02am On Apr 20, 2023
Tokziby:


It was a Daewoo Espero... And the theme of the advert was 7up High life. If only Nairaland accepts voice note, i for give u the full anthem. It goes thus;
7up high life... higher and high, brings the chances of a good life... if I could live a dream, I'd always live the dream, I wouldn't miss a dream, I will have a dream of winning a daewoo espero.... a 7up radio, a Walkman, tv, refrigerator, personal computer, Polaroid camera.
7up high life!.
It was after this competition they introduced another one of winning Volkswagen Jetta car.
13 Jetta cars.
One of my schoolmate won it back then but I later heard rumour that 7up collected it and gave them.some money...
If u are wondering how I could still recollect the theme song, well I was a jobless kid that has nothing to do aside sitting on the first chair after the TV from 4pm when the stations open till 12 am closing time. I could even give u programs of each station(channel 5, 7,10 and LTV) from 4 - 12 Mondays to Friday and 9-12 weekends. I knew from every advert, to cartoon, sitcoms and soap opera theme songs. grin


Tarrteen! Tarrteen jetta car!! I go die oooooo!!! grin..
You d real OG for this one,that triggered some real nostalgia for me

1 Like

Politics / Re: INEC Chairman, Yakubu Rejects Suspending Collation Of Presidential Results by la1(m): 4:42pm On Feb 27, 2023
Good..
Politics / Re: Tinubu To Lagosians: Be Calm, Maintain The Peace by la1(m): 2:00pm On Feb 27, 2023
Good.. The Elections are still in play,.
Politics / Re: Mammoth Crowd At APC Presidential Rally In Katsina by la1(m): 2:28pm On Feb 06, 2023
Nice
Crime / Re: #EndSars: Court Remands Man For Allegedly Setting BRT Bus Terminal On Fire by la1(m): 3:25pm On Aug 11, 2022
@Naptu2 any details on when the accused was arrested?
Politics / Re: Identities, Names Of Masterminds Of Owo Church Massacre Released By CDS Irabor by la1(m): 7:24pm On Aug 09, 2022
Great job...more of this.

2 Likes

Politics / Re: Biafra Military Council Writes Open Letter To Nigeria, 30th Oct Declaration-pic by la1(m): 5:35pm On Oct 26, 2021
ďż˝
Politics / ISWAP Commander In Nigeria Al-barwani Is Dead by la1(m): 5:21pm On Oct 14, 2021
The leader of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) jihadist group, Abu Musab al-Barnawi, is dead, Nigeria's top military commander said on Thursday.

ISWAP has not given any confirmation of al-Barnawi's death and Nigeria's army has claimed before to have killed jihadist commanders only for them to reappear.

"I can authoritatively confirm to you that al-Barnawi is dead. As simple as that. He is dead and remains dead," Chief of Defence Staff General Lucky Irabor told reporters.He did not give details on how or when al-Barnawi had died.

Under al-Barnawi, ISWAP became the dominant jihadist force in Nigeria's conflict, striking frequently at troops in an insurgency that has killed more than 40,000 since it begun in 2009.

Al-Barnawi's loss would be blow to ISWAP's structure just as it was consolidating since the death of rival Boko Haram commander Abubakar Shekau earlier this year during infighting between the factions.

But since splitting with Boko Haram in 2016, the group has shown its resilience and carried out large-scale ambushes on the military just in the last several weeks.

"Should al-Barnawi be dead, his death may not have too much impact on ISWAP because of how structured the group is," said Malik Samuel, a researcher with the Institute for Security Studies.

"Since the 2016 split, ISWAP has had about five leadership changes but the group has maintained its consistency in launching deadly and successful attacks against security forces."

- Son of jihadist leader

Al-Barnawi is the son of the founder of the Boko Haram militant group, Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009 in Maiduguri.

But the ISWAP commander rose to prominence after breaking away from Boko Haram over differences with its commander Shekau, who according to security sources killed himself in May rather than face capture by his rivals.

Since Shekau's death, security sources say, al-Barnawi had consolidated ISWAP's control in Nigeria's northeast and the Lake Chad region but pockets of Boko Haram loyalists have been fighting back.

Last month, ISWAP fighters killed 18 Nigeria security personal in an ambush in northeast Borno state using roadside bombs and rockets in one of the deadliest assaults this year.

A week later another eight soldiers were killed when ISWAP militants opened fire with rockets on another convoy also in Borno.

But Boko Haram jihadists also launched an attack last month on ISWAP militants on the Nigerian side of Lake Chad, ISWAP's bastion, seizing a strategic island, according to fishermen and a security source.

Since Shekau's death in his Sambisa forest enclave, ISWAP has been fighting Boko Haram remnants who have refused to pay allegiance.

Hundreds of Boko Haram members have also since surrendered to the army along with families and children.

More than two million people have been displaced by Nigeria's conflict since it began 2009, and the violence has spread over the borders to Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nigerian-jihadist-leader-al-barnawi-144432475.html
Politics / Corrupt Oil Trader Turns On Colleagues In Massive Africa Bribe Case by la1(m): 5:44pm On Sep 14, 2021
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/corrupt-oil-trader-turns-colleagues-040122726.html

(Bloomberg) -- When Anthony Stimler left Glencore Plc in August 2019, he had two big secrets: For a dozen years, he’d paid millions in bribes to African officials and intermediaries. And he was now helping a U.S. Justice Department investigation into the company and numerous former colleagues.

Corruption isn’t exactly unheard of in the extraction and trading of commodities, especially in the developing world. But details of Stimler’s cooperation deal, obtained from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan and which haven’t been reported before, offer a rare opportunity to see how it works — the scale, scope and almost routine nature of such transactions.

One aspect is the role of intermediaries, often favored by governments in the region. The so-called briefcase companies act as conduits for traders’ bribes to officials, taking a cut and directing state business back to the traders. Glencore was a dominant player in Nigeria, Chad, the Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea, and says it no longer uses intermediaries as part of a revamped and cleaned-up operation.


“An issue that comes up with trader corruption is agents and intermediaries in the mix,” said Alexandra Gillies, an adviser at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, which seeks to stamp out corruption in emerging market resources. “Clearly it’s the top modus operandi for how these schemes work.”

Glencore of Baar, Switzerland, is one of a handful of firms that dominate global trading of oil, fuel, metals, minerals and food, middlemen who buy from producers and sell to refiners who turn the goods into finished products. It traces its roots to a company co-founded in 1974 by Marc Rich, a legendary trader and financier who fled the U.S. in 1983 to evade prosecution for trading with Iran during the American hostage crisis. It had $142 billion in 2020 revenue.

Before getting caught, Stimler spent years in the game, beginning as early as 2007. And while it sounds like a hard-core business, he offers a mild-mannered profile. Affable and polite, he’s known in his London Jewish community by the Yiddish nickname “Hershy” and served on the board of Camp Simcha, which helps sick children. He took a two-year break in the middle of his tenure to care for his own child, who suffered from leukemia (and subsequently recovered).

His confession in July to foreign bribery and money laundering charges, the first ever by a Glencore trader, makes clear that he knew just what he’d been doing — and that he didn’t act alone. A lawyer for Stimler declined to comment for this article, as did Glencore. Stimler is out on bail in the U.K. and awaiting sentencing at a later date.

“When I made requests for payments to intermediaries, I was aware that other Glencore traders who worked with me were doing the same thing by directing our intermediaries to make bribe payments to government officials,” Stimler told a federal judge in New York, according to a transcript of his guilty plea. “I intended that a proportion of the payment to intermediaries operating in Nigeria were to be passed on to Nigerian state-owned oil company officials. The purpose of the payment was to influence those officials’ decisions regarding the Nigerian government’s allocations of crude oil cargo.

“Your honor, I knew what I was doing was wrong and unlawful,” he continued. “I’m extremely remorseful for my conduct.”

It was conduct that was, nonetheless, handsomely rewarded.

Over a two-decade career that began in 1998, Stimler, now 49, rose through the ranks of the storied Swiss trading house, becoming head of its West African oil trading desk. He presided over a robust expansion of its crude flows and a nearly-doubling of his desk’s annual profits to nearly $200 million in 2017, according to people familiar with internal data.

In that same year, 2017, prosecutors from the Justice Department’s kleptocracy team filed a case in Houston to seize nearly $145 million worth of assets — including an $80 million, 215-foot yacht called the Galactica Star, a $50 million Billionaire’s Row apartment in New York and homes in California — that it said were purchased for the benefit of Nigeria’s oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, with embezzled funds.

Prosecutors said two associates of the minister set up companies shortly after she took office and were awarded contracts to sell large allotments of oil on global markets. The pair were awarded dozens of crude cargoes worth about $1.5 billion, according to the prosecutors. Nigeria received little of the proceeds of those sales, which prosecutors say were diverted for Madueke and her associates.

One of the primary trading houses that stepped up to buy those cargoes, according to prosecutors: Glencore.

They say that over the course of 2013 and 2014, Glencore bought 15 cargoes totaling 7 million barrels from the men, paying more than $800 million. Of that, they contend, roughly a third — $272 million — was diverted into an account at a Nigerian bank used for the purchases for Madueke.

In assembling the case, prosecutors amassed evidence including bank records, emails and witness testimony. At least one recorded conversation showed that the minister worried about the scale of the graft. She chastised one of the associates that such high-profile purchases would attract the attention of authorities.

She was right.

A court filing in Stimler’s case makes reference to a “Foreign Official 1,” a high-ranking Nigerian from 2010 to 2015, who had demanded and received bribery payments. According to people familiar with the matter, Madueke is Foreign Official 1. Lawyers for Madueke didn’t respond to requests for comment.

As prosecutors in the Houston case were going through the effort to seize the homes and yacht, Glencore received a Justice Department subpoena in July 2018 for documents related to Glencore’s business in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Venezuela dating back to 2007, according to a company disclosure at the time.

Just over a year later, Stimler left Glencore, a move wrongly viewed at the time as part of an executive shake-up following the departure of Alex Beard, Glencore’s longtime head of oil trading and mentor to Stimler, according to a person familiar with them. It was around that time that Stimler began cooperating with prosecutors.

Now Glencore and some of its executives face the prospect of steep fines and prison in a far-reaching investigation of tactics in numerous countries and commodity markets. U.S. authorities pursue such cases because, though they involve events in other countries, the payoffs were made in dollars that pass through the banking system in New York. Other major countries are also increasingly targeting commodity trading. U.S. authorities have gotten increasingly aggressive in enforcing laws against foreign bribery, imposing billions of dollars of fines against companies. Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, prosecutors can calculate fines based on how much a company sought to benefit from paying bribes, and then double the amount in imposing the penalty.

Read More: Former Glencore Director Says He Flew the World With Bag of Cash

Glencore says it’s a changed company and is cooperating with prosecutors. It reserved a $216 million charge in the first half of the year for costs related to a specific element of several investigations it is facing.

Gary Nagle, Glencore’s new chief executive, told reporters on a conference call in August that the company has adopted new compliance rules intended to eliminate illicit conduct, and that every person mentioned in Stimler’s case has been disciplined or left the firm. The company is also reducing its business in high-risk jurisdictions, and no longer works with middlemen.

“We don’t have any intermediaries in our oil business,” Nagle said. “It’s a different business model to what we used five to 10 years ago. We don’t plan to use them again in our oil business.”

Glencore makes billions of dollars every year buying and selling commodities — above the money it makes digging metals, pumping crude or harvesting crops. In 2020, the company enjoyed its best trading ever, making $3.3 billion in earnings before interest and taxes, up 41% from the previous year despite the impact of Covid-19 on the global economy.

Stimler’s guilty plea and the deal he cut with prosecutors will rattle fellow colleagues – and the company itself – as the Justice Department investigation continues.

The cooperation agreement requires him to disclose his and all his colleagues’ activities relevant to the case, and agree to testify before a grand jury for the investigation and even serve as a government witness should any cases go to trial. He appeared by videoconference from the U.K. during his plea hearing, during which he told Judge Kevin Castel of Manhattan federal court that he’d been assisting the Justice Department for more than two years.

Stimler has implicated seven others, including at least four Glencore traders, in making bribe payments, and authorities say the scheme started before him. One person named was a top African oil trader at Glencore dating back to the 1990s, Stimler’s superior during his early rise there, according to people familiar with the matter; another worked with him on the West African oil trading during the latter part of the scheme, the people said.

While Stimler began bribing in 2007, often using coded language in emails, the payments appear to have accelerated during Madueke’s time in office, according to the court documents. Stimler agreed in late 2013 to pay more than triple the usual fees to an intermediary company that would be passed on as bribes for favorable grades and loading dates of Nigerian oil, his guilty plea says. Three months later, he and a colleague made another $500,000 payment to be eligible for additional Nigerian cargoes. Stimler “requested and received approval” for a Glencore subsidiary to make the payment, prosecutors said, without specifying who granted it.

Later that fall, he received another request, saying Foreign Official 1 was seeking $300,000 per month from customers of Nigeria’s national oil company, in connection with an upcoming election. Stimler authorized the payment, according to prosecutors.

Madueke left office in 2015 and has been living in London. She has been charged with corruption by Nigerian authorities but has so far successfully evaded extradition, and she is under investigation by U.K. authorities as well. The yacht, the Galactica Star, has since been auctioned off. Its new owner is a shell company called Paxford Ltd., and it has been renamed Illusion. It was last seen docked on the coast of Sardinia, according to Bloomberg ship tracking data.

In May, Nigeria’s national oil company released its new list of trading partners for the coming year, coveted contracts to buy its oil and sell it refined gasoline. Glencore was not among them

3 Likes 1 Share

Culture / Re: Dog Magic Of Yoruba Hunters- Ulli Beier's Story by la1(m): 3:27pm On Sep 14, 2021
Where's the second story OP?... Waiting thanks
Politics / Re: Lagos Set To Open Subsidised Workspace For MSMEs In Oshodi by la1(m): 9:13pm On Aug 26, 2021
Kudos!
Business / Re: NITDA Sanctions Soko Lending Company Limited, Fined N10m For Privacy Invasion by la1(m): 11:18am On Aug 19, 2021
they are not the only violators....this s a very good move... NITDA should sanction other too
Travel / Re: A Northeast Travel Guide For The Unhinged by la1(m): 8:14am On Aug 10, 2021
The art of story telling is indeed a gift!.. Good one on the author and pulse mag for endorsing the trip ...money well spent if you ask me..

2 Likes

Politics / Twitter Loses Immunity Over User Content In India by la1(m): 9:09am On Jul 07, 2021
Twitter has lost legal immunity over content posted by users in India.

That's according to High Court filings.

And the news could threaten its ability to keep operating in the country.

India's government says the social media giant has failed to comply with new IT rules.

Now the court papers are the first official confirmation that Twitter has lost its immunity, though ministers have repeatedly criticized the firm for non-compliance.

Twitter hasn't commented on the news, saying previously that it had made all possible efforts to comply.

Recent weeks have seen Indian police file at least five cases against Twitter or its employees.

The state of Uttar Pradesh has gone to the Supreme Court to challenge a bar on action against Twitter India boss Manish Maheshwari.

A lower court had given him protection against arrest over an allegation that Twitter was used to spread hate.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/twitter-loses-immunity-over-user-102505154.html
Phones / Re: Live Unveiling Of The TECNO Phantom X Device (watch Live) by la1(m): 9:14pm On Jul 01, 2021
paid influencers litter the thread repeating yourselves.. you guys should flip it up abit, dont copy the same script!... i would have a problem paying your balance if i was the agency in charge of tonight's online engagement haba! lol

25 Likes 3 Shares

Politics / Re: Malami Announced Kanu's Arrest In Hausa. Later Held Press Conference In English by la1(m): 2:14pm On Jul 01, 2021
on what platform was this Hausa announcement made?.. can anyone provide a credible link?

1 Like

Sports / Re: Clemens Westerhof Celebrates His 81st Birthday (Pictures) by la1(m): 9:42am On May 05, 2021
Best Nigerian football coach of all times... Happy Birthday Clemens!
Politics / Re: Abeokuta: Amazing facts You Didn't Know by la1(m): 7:29pm On Mar 30, 2021
Fabulous thread op!...Proud Abeokuta son... Blessed Egba man..all day
Politics / Re: Governor Zulum Buys Akara And Pap Without Security (Photos) by la1(m): 12:26pm On Feb 24, 2020
agjm:
On February 13th, 1976 Murtala Mohammed the then head of state was going to mosque on that Friday afternoon only with his driver without escort and he was assassinated

FALSE.. MM was assassinated at 8am on his way to work.. he did have light security with him though

1 Like

Politics / Re: Rare Picture Of Bokoharam Checkpoint (pics) by la1(m): 5:23pm On Feb 13, 2020

8 Likes 1 Share

Politics / Re: Man Never Landed On The Moon by la1(m): 10:18pm On Sep 02, 2019
this thread is a decade old..I miss that Era of Nairaland
Politics / Re: BREAKING!!! Governor Sanwo-olu Signs 2019 Budget by la1(m): 4:31pm On Jun 03, 2019
keep going sanwolu
Car Talk / Re: Honda Launches First Unit Of HR-V Assembled In Nigeria - Photos by la1(m): 3:24pm On May 07, 2019
Awesome.. Where in lagos is the assembly plant?
Phones / Re: How Do I Speak With Airtel Customer Care Agent? by la1(m): 11:09am On May 04, 2019
111, lang select, 3, 6 ...still works!
Politics / Re: Onnoghen: The Monies I Received Were Gifts For My Daughter's Wedding, Not Bribe by la1(m): 7:26pm On Apr 04, 2019
...should have declared as gifts..there a provision for this specific line item on the asset declaration doc

14 Likes

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (of 14 pages)

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 53
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.