₦airaland Forum

Iran might actually be behind the New Boko Haram

FG Summons Iranian Envoy over Seized Weapons Saga
•Ajumogobia: Iran has agreed to co-operate with investigation
By Paul Ohia with agency reports, 11.11.2010

The Federal Government has summoned Iran's ambassador to Nigeria, Hussein Abdullahi, over the arms shipment seized in Lagos last month, Reuters reported last night, quoting a Nigerian official and foreign diplomats.

Security agencies intercepted 13 containers in the main port of Lagos two weeks ago which were found to contain rocket launchers, grenades and other explosives and ammunition.

French-based shipping group CMA CGM later said the containers, which were labelled as building materials, had been loaded in Iran by a local trader.

"The Iranian ambassador has been summoned, and he is holding a meeting with the (Nigerian) foreign affairs minister," an official at the Foreign Ministry, who refused to be named, told the news agency. "Part of the agenda of the meeting is the issue of the shipment of explosives and the visit of the foreign affairs minister of Iran," the official further told Reuters.

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki promised his government's full cooperation with an investigation into the saga, Nigeria's Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobia disclosed after meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Abuja to discuss the shipment last night.

"I had a productive meeting with the Iranian foreign minister this evening and he has assured us of his government's co-operation in our ongoing investigation regarding the arms shipment," Ajumogobia told Reuters by telephone.

Diplomats in New York said Iran would appear to be in breach of the United Nations sanctions regime, which forbids it from exporting any kind of weapons directly or indirectly, if the seized weapons were originally loaded on its territory.
But they said it was difficult to assess the case because Nigeria had not yet notified the U.N. Security Council's Iran sanctions committee about the seizure.

An official at the Iranian embassy in Abuja confirmed to Reuters that Mottaki was in Nigeria but declined to comment further.
A diplomat with access to intelligence on Iran told Reuters in New York Mottaki had gone to Abuja to discuss the seized arms and to secure permission from the Nigerians to bring two Iranians linked to the shipment back to Tehran.

The diplomat, who spoke on condition that neither his name nor nationality be identified, said the two Iranians were at the Iranian embassy in Abuja and that Tehran appeared reluctant to have them questioned by Nigerian authorities.

Meanwhile, Nigerian intelligence officials and diplomats have concluded that the Iranian government was behind a secret shipment of weapons discovered last month in shipping containers, according to internal documents seen yesterday by The Associated Press (AP).

Immediately after the arms seizure, Israeli officials accused Iran of trying to sneak the shipment into the Gaza Strip, but the State Security Service (SSS) now believes the arms were imported by some politicians to destabilise the country if they lose in the general election.

Contacted by phone by AP, the Iranian Ambassador declined to immediately discuss the allegations, saying he had had a meeting with Nigerian officials about the same issues. Previously, Abdullahi said there is no clear evidence linking his government to the weapons.

Investigators who followed a paper trail learned that Iran's foreign ministry endorsed a Nigerian visa application for one of the two Iranians who allegedly shipped the weapons, saying he would work at the Iranian Embassy in Abuja.

The Nigerian government reports, seen by an AP reporter, identify Iranians Azimi Agajany and Sayed Akbar Tahmaesebi as the men who organized the shipment through a Tehran-based company called International Trading and General Construction.

The reports said Agajany received a visa to travel to Nigeria after getting an endorsement from Sheikh Ali Abbas Othman, also known as Abbas Jega, a Nigerian who worked for Radio Tehran's Hausa language service and studied in Iran.
Jega has been arrested by Nigeria's SSS, a Nigerian government official told the AP.

Tahmaesebi received his visa after Nigerian authorities received a letter of recommendation from Iran's foreign ministry that said he would "provide administrative support" at its Abuja embassy, the reports said.
The two Iranians remain at large.

"We strongly believe they are hiding in the embassy but we cannot prove it," the Nigerian official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the reports. Embassies are considered to be sovereign territory, not subject to searches by the host country.

Displaying a lack of knowledge about Nigeria's geography, Agajany initially wanted the consignments shipped to Abuja, the documents said.
When Agajany was told there is no port in Abuja, which lies hundreds of miles (kilometres) from the coast, he came up with Lagos as the destination.

CMA CGM said one of its cargo ships picked up the shipping containers from Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran. The company said the shipment, which stopped in Mumbai's port before heading to Lagos, had been labelled as "packages of glass wool and pallets of stone".

The containers sat at Lagos' busy Apapa port from July until October 26, when Nigerian security agents carried out a raid and discovered the weapons inside.

By shipping arms to the country, Iran may be attempting to "tweak" Western powers by showing it can influence affairs in a country vital to U.S. oil supplies, said David Bender, a Washington-based analyst who studies Iran for the Eurasia Group.
"From their perspective, it doesn't cost anything," Bender said. "But it gives the impression that they are a global player."

[b]Ibos are a people i have a lot of respect for and admire.
at the same time, i also avoid some of them.
most of my closest friends are Ibos and people even mistake me for one atimes
at the same time, i'm very careful when it comes to running any business with those not close to me.
i once went to Bauchi and as beautiful as it was, it looked like a town where people went to
work in the morning but refused to come back home at night. the reason was simply that
most of the ibo traders no longer invested in the city because of their mutallab tendencies.
the biggest supermarket i came across then(3 yrs ago) was at a total filling station.
Nigeria needs the Ibos and they equally need Nigeria.
giving excuses for the participation of some ibo people in heinous activities such as armed robbery,
kidnapping and prostitution is wrong. it is as a result of the society they live in which respects money
no matter how it is made. that is why someone would go into such especially when greed is involved.
if leaders are forced on the ibos like someone claimed here, then it is your duties as ibos to force such
puppet leaders out. i was in owerri and a friend who is a politician there said babangida aka IBB aka
Independence Bomb Blast aka The Evil Genius is likely to win the east come 2011
can you imagine that? why would ibos vote for IBB?[/b]

BigPhil:
@Denitro,You must be suffering from poverty of logic and eclipse of reason.How dare you malign,the whole Ibos,like that.

@DatiggaAk,Please don't raise threads that are beyond your intellectual capacity.What  a myopic and narrow minded article.Aba is not the only
city in the eastern region.To try and corelate what is indeed and unfortunate and irresponsible behaviour of some individuals to what might have been is seriously silly.It is  highly speculative and not empirically founded.What the hell are you trying to insinuate.

[b]@BigPhil,

do you have to be insultive? is that how your mother raised you?
i have a lot of respect for the Ibo man but at the same time you can't deny the fact that they are also responsible
for some of the most heinous crimes witnessed in this country apart from the boko haram people and like minds up north.
in Abuja where i reside, the Ibos own the city. the economic power in the city resides amongst them while the political and
government power is with the hausas.
all the best hotels, clubs, lounges, super stores, plazas even estates are owned by the ibos. most of the shops in the city are
owned and run by them. at the same time, 85% of the prostitues are ibos, 4 in 5 armed robbers arrested are ibos. why is that so?
questions you should ask yourself before you start throwing insults around like an uncultured louth.
Aba has witnessed the highest frequency of of kidnappings, murders and robberies in the south east.
but is Enugu free of that. what of Awka. is Onistha safe? even owerri which is deemed the safest city in the south east is not free
from the occasional kidnap and robberies.
all i asked if you took time to read the first post is that, is it Nigeria responsible for the problems the south east is facing or is it the
people themselves causing their own problems? answer that question before you start being insultive, [/b]

I'm sorry Nairalanders but i can't stop to ponder if the situation in Aba
is a reflection of the failure of the Nigerian state or if it's what Biafra would
have turned out to be had Ojukwu's seccession succeded.
Kidnapping as i remember started in the south south and it involved expatriate oil
workers primarily. Now that the South East has taken over, they even go as low as kidnapping okada riders (as i heard: hearsay) for recharge cards.