₦airaland Forum

SABMiller is investing up to $2.5 billion over the next five years to build and renovate breweries on the continent. African sales of rival Diageo, the maker of Guinness, have risen by an average 15 percent in each of the last five years, accounting for 14 percent of the group's total.

Nigeria's 160 million people are now the world's second biggest consumer of Guinness, after Britain, and analysts expect it to take the number one slot within a couple of years. Cameroon, with a much smaller population of around 20 million, is the fifth biggest.

In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, which is evenly divided between Islam and Christianity, church and mosque numbers are exploding alongside beer consumption.

Beer turnover in Nigeria is growing faster than its economy.

(Reuters) - Beer sales in Africa are surging because of economic and population growth, a trend rubbing against the grain of another demographic factor defining the region: intense religiosity.

By almost any measure, Africa is an exceptionally devout place and the major growth area for Christianity and Islam.

This should have implications for investors, especially in the fast-growing retail and beer sectors: they must navigate sacred sensitivities in areas such as marketing and factor the faithful into forecasts and demographic profiles for the continent's population of just over a billion.

Over $400 billion of the nation’s oil revenue has either been stolen or misappropriated since Nigeria gained independence in 1960.

This was disclosed by the former Vice President for Africa of the World Bank, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, while presenting a paper titled: ‘Corruption, National Development, The Bar and The Judiciary’, at the ongoing 52nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja.

Ezekwesili stated that while oil accounted for about 90 per cent of the value of Nigeria’s exports, over 80 per cent of that money ended up in the hands of one per cent of the population.

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/business/400bn-oil-revenue-misappropriated-ezekwesili/



Global Financial Integrity estimated that between 1970 and 2008, Africa lost more than $854 billion in illicit financial outflows, an amount which is far in excess of official development inflows.


Ezekwesili stated that while oil accounted for about 90 per cent of the value of Nigeria’s exports, over 80 per cent of that money ended up in the hands of one per cent of the population.

Top US soldier: “I don’t want to be complicit” if Israel attacks Iran
But this time, talking to journalists in London, he added impatiently: “I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."

Dempsey then astonished his audience by saying he did not know Iran's nuclear intentions, “as intelligence did not reveal intentions.” What was clear, he said, was that the "international coalition" applying pressure on Iran "could be undone if [Iran] was attacked prematurely."
Sanctions against Iran were having an effect, he said, and they should be given a reasonable opportunity to succeed.

The general’s timing on this assertion was unfortunate. As he spoke, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported a 31-percent jump in Iran’s 20 percent enriched uranium to 189.4 kilograms from 145 in May.

http://debka.com/article/22322/Top-US-soldier-“I-don’t-want-to-be-complicit”-if-Israel-attacks-Iran

http://www.channelstv.com/home/2012/08/23/developing-story-fg-in-meeting-with-nupeng-over-subsidy-payments/

Abuja will not be seeing long queues from friday as the national union of petroleum and natural gas workers nupeng has lifted the strike.

GOING by a recent report by a global coalition of experts and activists, Nigeria’s total capital flight in the last four decades far outweighs the total of the national debt.

London-based Tax Justice Network (TJN), last month, released a report totaling Nigeria’s Real capital flight (from 1970 to 2010) at a whopping $233.9 billion.

The Guardian of London news report, which analysed the TJN research, estimated that even though capital flight from Nigeria had totaled $233.9bn in the four decades since 1970, once “investment income is included, this stock of secret wealth could be as large as $306.2bn, nearly 40 times the country’s total external debt of $7.9bn.

This then produces a flight stock to debt ratio of 3876% by the end of 2010.

But a US-based Nigerian professor of Political Sociology, Dr. Ebenezer Obadare, and former US- Pronaco leader, Dr Baba Adam, explained that this flight was partly a result of official graft, and they are putting the blame squarely on the nation’s political elite, while calling for punitive action against them.

In Obadare’s words, “we must begin a campaign, first, to bring all the ‘leaders’ (living or dead) involved in this historic heist to book, and second, to repatriate all monies from their various western financial institutions and tax havens.”

Besides, Obadare, an award-winning Nigerian scholar, argues that the report is a reminder, that the issue of elite theft of public funds in Nigeria “is not a matter that can be outsourced to a single parastatal or commission, no matter how well-meaning and determined such a parastatal is. It is a battle that we must all fight in different public and private forums.”

According to him “majority of Nigerians have always suspected that most of their leaders, military and civilian, have taken liberally from the public purse.

THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER 20/08/2012

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/politics/oil-producing-states-have-cornered-the-nations-wealth-abba-ibrahim/

The oil- producing states have the federation take home, 13per cent derivation, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs with hundreds of billions for projects in the region, the NDDC with billions of naira, the oil companies, doing a lot and finally, the Federal Government gives very handsome grants to oil-producing states under all sorts of guises. You also have the Amnesty Programme, all in the same region. So, they have six different sources of income.

The other states are left with one source of income. I know how we indirectly got there. The oil producing communities have been neglected for a long time. There is no doubt about that. They were not taking very good care of them. In our own anxious way of solving the problems, we are now over funding them and underfunding the non-oil producing states.

This disparity can bring all sorts of crisis to the country in the future. We have to consciously do something about this development before it will put us in very bad and embarrassing situation. So, there is going to be a review.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/9486599/Shell-paying-tens-of-millions-to-Nigerian-security-forces.html


Shell is paying Nigerian security forces tens of millions of dollars a year to guard their sites in the Niger delta, according to reports

In the same year, $99m was spent on "third parties" for security. This was twice as much as what the company spent on its own security staff and is believed to include the services of 600 Nigerian government police and 700 members of the controversial state "joint task force" (JTF) comprised of army, navy and police

Iran’s terror masters may have gone back to their tested stratagem of hiring Al Qaeda terrorists for an insider job against the Saudi regime.

For Tehran, all means are justified for the preservation of their foremost Arab ally, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, in power. Furthermore, Iran’s ability to strike deep into the heart of the Saudi capital is meant to serve as a timely object lesson for their Middle East enemies that Iran’s arm is long enough to reach inside any of their capitals.

The attack on Riyadh therefore throws a new perspective on the military calculations actuating the “Arab Spring” and governing US and Israel plans to strike Iran’s nuclear program in the very near future. In the same way, the Damascus bombing of July 18 dragged the Syrian civil war outside its borders to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran.

The unconfirmed report claiming Prince Bandar was critically injured and his doctors had lost the fight to save him, spilling out since Sunday July 29, has gained wide resonance – not because it was verified but because of its momentous strategic significance. Corroboration is still lacking. DEBKAfile reports that Washington too is groping the dark and has turned to its many Middle East intelligence contacts for a glimmer of light on what has happened to the key Saudi figure – so far without success.

It looks as though the enigma will be solved one way or another only after an authoritative account or an official statement is forthcoming from the Saudi government or if the missing prince appears in public.  The absence of any word from the Saudi government increases the trepidation in Washington and among concerned parties in the Middle East.

Monday morning, Saudi and Qatari intelligence officers, based in Free Syrian Army headquarters at Apaydin in the southwest Turkish Hatay region, were forced to admit that Bashar Assad’s army had smashed their plan for a safe haven in the Aleppo area. Territory was to have been seized by rebels and converted into the base of the forward FSA command and the seat of a transitional government, in the same way as the Benghazi rebel headquarters was established in 2011 six months before Muammar Qaddafi’s overthrow.

The FSA’s Saudi and Qatari backers said they had received from Washington a qualified undertaking to share in the defense of a safe haven if one could be established and to diversify its aid to the rebels.
Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked: “More and more territory is being taken. It will eventually result in a safe haven inside Syria.”
Sources in Washington then reported the Obama administration to be weighing options for more direct involvement in the Syrian civil war if the rebels were able to wrest enough territory for a safe haven.

So certain were the Saudis that their Aleppo scheme would succeed that Saturday, July 28, they convened a meeting of Arab UN delegations in Cairo to formulate the text of a motion for the UN Security Council to recognize the safe havens rising in Syria and calling on UN members to support them.
That step has proved premature in the light of anti-Assad forces inability to hold out against the government’s military onslaught – an inability partly attributed by DEBKAfile’s military sources to chaotic relations within the insurrectionist movement.

Bandar Bush is seen here sitting with George W. Bush, discussing various matters.

On Sunday, July 29, Voltaire Network reported that Prince Bandar bin Sultan is dead. He served as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington from 1983 to 2005, and was just recently promoted to the head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency. Apparently, he was killed from injuries suffered in a bomb blast on July 26.

Voltaire Network explains that the attack was orchestrated by the government of Syria as an act of retaliation for the bombing of high-level Syrian generals in Damascus on July 18 that was overseen directly by Prince Bandar, who is also known as Bandar Bush.

Here is an excerpt from Voltaire Network's article called, "Syria reportedly eliminated Bandar bin Sultan in retaliation for Damascus bombing":

"Though not yet announced by the Saudi authorities, the death of Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been confirmed to Voltaire Network by unofficial souces.

http://debka.com/article/22225/Saudi-silence-on-intelligence-chief-Bandar’s-fate-denotes-panic


http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/2012/07/saudi-prince-bandar-assassinated-by-syria-bandar-appointed-intel-chief-now-dead/

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2012/07/unofficial-reports-al-qaedas-chief-financier-bandar-bush-is-dead-2445544.html

Disquiet in Washington, Jerusalem and a row of Middle East capitals is gaining ground the longer the Saudi government stays silent on the reports of the assassination of the newly-appointed Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, purportedly in a revenge operation by a Syrian intelligence death squad. If true, it would shoot a devastating tentacle out from the Syrian conflict to the broader region.

It is widely feared that Saudi rulers are too traumatized to respond by the fear of Iranian penetration of the highest and most closely guarded circles of Saudi government, possibly climaxing in Bandar’s assassination.
The unconfirmed reports of his death attribute its motive to revenge by Iran and Syria for the bomb explosion five days earlier in Damascus which killed four of Bashar Assad’s top managers of his war on the uprising against his regime.

The prince, son of the late crown prince Sultan, has not been seen in public since Saudi General Intelligence headquarters in Riyadh was hit by a bomb blast Monday, July 23 killing his deputy, Mashaal al-Qarni.  
DEBKA-Net-Weekly 550 of Friday, July 26, was the first world publication to report this attack, in the face of a massive official blackout, from its exclusive intelligence sources.
Now as then, DEBKAfile’s sources have obtained no confirmation that Prince Bandar was injured or killed in that attack. King Abdullah made him Director of Saudi Intelligence on July 19, just a day after the Damascus bombing. But our sources doubt whether a Syrian intelligence squad would be capable of reaching deep inside Riyadh. They therefore postulate that the deed was committed or orchestrated by a clandestine Iranian agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Tuesday, July 31, that he hasn’t yet reached a decision on attacking Iran. He then went on to say, “The ayatollahs have inscribed Israel’s destruction on their banner” and stressed his personal commitment “not to permit Israel to come under Iranian atomic threat.”

Netanyahu spoke shortly before US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said upon landing in Israel: “I think it's the wrong characterization to say we are going to be discussing potential attack plans. What we are discussing are various contingencies and how we would respond.”

During his brief Israel stay as part of a Middle East tour, Secretary Panetta will hold talks with the prime minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, which he said would be about “the threat that we're confronting and to try to share both information and intelligence on that."
When the prime minister was asked by interviewers why it was in Israel's interest to lead the assault on Iran, the prime minister said no one would be happier than he to see other world nations, especially the United States, solving the Iranian nuclear problem by means of economic and other pressure. But, he said, Israel has always been guided by the principle of never devolving its destiny to others, especially when it was a matter of surival. He quoted US President Barack Obama’s assertion that Israel has the right to act in its own defense.

http://www.rt.com/news/syria-rebel-massacre-aleppo-627/

A horrifying amateur video from Syria emerged online, showing an apparent mass execution of pro-government forces in Aleppo at the hands of rebels from the Free Syria Army.
The footage shows several bloodied men stripped down to their underwear being forced to kneel by a wall amidst a throng of excited, machine gun-touting men.

Once their captors open fire, the camera jerks away as the crowd momentarily disperses, seemingly unprepared for the nearly 40 seconds of uninterrupted shooting that follows.As the gunfire dies down, shouts of“Allahu Akbar!” resound as the once skittish onlookers victoriously raise their guns in the air, approaching what appears to be a pile of stripped-down corpses.

The Israeli Prime Minister said the decision to attack Iran was up to elected officials, and not the military. This comes amidst reports that the country’s military and intelligence are opposed to a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran.

In separate interviews with four separate Israeli news channels, Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that the military would not have the final say on whether or not a strike on Iran was in the cards.

“In a democracy, only the political leaders decide, and the military executes,” he told Israel’s Channel 2. “That is the way it has always been, and will always be.”
However, Netanyahu also stated that he has yet to decide on whether to attack Iran, but underscored that Israel had the right to "defend itself" against any threat to its security or existence.
“I have not taken a decision,” he noted. “Israel's fate depends solely on us and no other country, however friendly.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/01/israeli-pm-iran-nuclear-programme

Time is running out for the international community to halt Iran's nuclear programme by peaceful means, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told US defence secretary Leon Panetta in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Sanctions, diplomacy and declarations of a willingness to take military action as a last resort had not yet convinced the Iranians to stop their programme, he said. "However forceful our statements, they have not convinced Iran that we are serious about stopping them. Right now the Iranian regime believes that the international community does not have the will to stop its nuclear programme."

Netanyahu said earlier that although sanctions were hurting the Iranian economy, such measures had "yet to move its nuclear programme even a millimetre backwards".

Panetta is the fourth senior US administration official to visit Israel in recent weeks as concern has mounted in Washington that Netanyahu is preparing the ground for a military strike in the coming months.

On July 27, just before Friday prayers, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei summoned top Iranian military chiefs for what he called “their last war council.”

“We’ll be at war within weeks,” he told the gathering, DEBKAfile’s exclusive Iranian and intelligence sources disclose.

Present were Defense Minister General Ahmad Vahidi, Khamenei’s military adviser General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, Armed Forces Chief Major General Seyed Hassan Firuzabadi, Revolutionary Guards Corps commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Al Qods Brigades chief General Qassem Soleimani. The commanders of the air force, the navy and ground forces were also there.

Each of the participants was tapped to report on the readiness of his branch or sector for shouldering its contingency mission.
While retaliation had been exhaustively drilled in regular military exercises in the past year, Khamenei ordered the biggest fortification project in Iran’s history to save its nuclear program from even the mightiest of America’s super-weapons. Rocks are being gathered from afar, piled on key nuclear installations, covered with many tons of poured concrete and finally plated with steel.

http://debka.com/article/22229/Khamenei-Warns-Iran’s-Top-Leaders-WAR-IN-WEEKS

These are all branches of Al Qaeda and we need to do something about them there before they attack us at home. Why do you think the Us flies troops to Afghanistan. Jonathan has learnt his lesson from the fallout from Libya whereby arms from that country is oiling the Boko Haram and all other insurgencies in our sub region.

However we should brace for repercussions from them in our country because of our troop deployment. He should discuss all of this with Hillary Clinton when she comes next month. The battle has come to us folks and we should be prepared for War.

PALAU!!!

I no fit laugh

I wan sleep o, wey Naija

Please help me check this VIN:

2HKYF18673H503662

THANKS

this car does not have sun roof. Please remove that from the description

With crops dying in the fields, the prospect of tightening supplies is driving what Barclays Capital analysts say is one of the most rapid prices spikes "in recent memory".

US corn and wheat futures contracts have both risen by a third since mid-June, the biggest four-week price gain in US grains futures seen more than a quarter of a century. On Thursday, US corn for September delivery set a record high of over $8.16 a bushel, while soybeans for August delivery also hit a record at $17.49.

The global nature of markets means that the reverberations from the US, the world's biggest corn producer as well as a major supplier of soybeans and wheat, will be felt around the world.

Alan Clarke, an economist at Scotia Capital, expects the effects of the drought to add "significantly" to UK inflation over the start of 2013, since it takes around six months before rises in agricultural commodity prices feed into prices on the supermarket shelves.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/commodities/9418651/Food-price-alert-as-US-woes-spread.html


British consumers will soon feel the squeeze from rising food prices as US crops are hit by America's worst drought in more than half a century, economists warn.

Bill ante is naive and therefore does not appreciate that a drought in the USA will affect the World food supply and that Nigeria imports a vast quantity of it's food. I don't blame him since the present educational system in the country does not bequeath such general knowledge of the obvious vulnerability of the mono economy called Nigeria.

We are talking of offshore accounts here to tax havens and co which is usually illegitimate money especially from Nigeria. Please don't play the devil's advocate as if we used most of our crude oil receipts to develop our infrastructure and diversify our economic base we will not be where we are today. We need to stand up against the THIEVES!!