₦airaland Forum

Afriifa:
thank God you said common sense(what you think is different from what you know)

final bus stop. Gets your hands off my case if you are only there to display your ignorance

This is a public forum and i will comment as I see fit. If you don't like it then pull up.

Afriifa:
you are not for my region. You understand nothing is better you don't display your ignorance in our affairs. Thank you

I don't need to be from your region to have common sense and to know that history always repeats itself.

Afriifa:
just imagine. Tompolo's Birthday? Who dares to disrupt a seating of papa Clark n distinguished sons of the nation

Bros you don't understand. Militancy tends to begat militancy. In other words, you reap what you sow. You plant violence then there you reap the same thing and if you nurture the plant well enough with more violence and discord then you reap a very abundant measure. That's why i said Ateke Tom, Asari Dokubo, Tompolo and co. did not fully understand the implications of what they were unleashing when they were waging war against the state.

b03liberty:
They are not jobless. They are demanding for their right that those crooks have seated on. Let every region, state and tribe hold their leaders accountable and Nigeria will be great again...

Preach it brother! Preach it loud and clear.

freshness2020:
What do you expect from a celebrated Militant.

That's what people don't understand about militancy -- it begats other off shoots. In other words, revolutions tend to lead to other revolutions and violence leads to more violence and so does the cycle continue.

Back in the day when they were fighting the state i doubt this guys fully understood the future implications of there actions - that they had sown the seeds for future insurrections.

doctimonyeka:
Na wa oo...



See mature people behaving like kids.... This country needs deliverance noni....

This country needs leadership. There is too much chaos and disunity and most importantly, it seems that a lot of the people have lost hope and they are lashing out.

Lord let justice reign in Nigeria.

If true, that's actually not healthy for him.

Lanre4uonly:
It can only happen in Zimbabwe.

Don't be to certain it can't happen here eventually?

Both countries need to seat down and hash out there issues.

chiraqDemon:
If u notice its usually the younger ones that shout war, the older ones thag were there during the civil war will not encourage it thats why biafrans have not gone to war, their leaders know it will just bring more suffering....
Worst of all if u ask those that want war what exactly they are fighting for u woukd be shocked they dont have an idea, all they know is nigeria divide, biafra leave naija, they dont even know why

Don't mind them jare. There movement is 100% emotions and very little in the way of logic. If you take out the anger, the hate and the frustration, the movement is left with nothing.

A true revolution must have thinkers or it's philosophers who change the mind of the people and provide a framework for what they want to achieve or it will splinter of and disintegrate into smaller competing factions. This guys don't. They just go round behaving like petulant kids who didn't get there way.

Niiice. Lalasticlala and mynd44 this needs to make the fp. Let's promote our own local businesses.

overdrive:
Buffalo in nigeria

I myself was surprised.

Geestarry:
Is that a Buffalo?

It sure looks like it.

oloriooko:
Buffalo ke?
Or na albino buffalo kwa
Bros you try sha it are no easy

The thing surprise me sef.

Prechy08:
FP material straight, but bufallo 4 9ja?

I myself am surprised.

salford:
These areas are the most populated in Ogun state and generate most revenue due to their proximity to lagos.

Alot of homes and businesses were destroyed to give way for these flyovers and bridges. Over 60,000 had properties and businesses demolished. People committed suicides and those that did not were never compensated till date despite submitting property evaluations and C of O's.

I remember one woman who collapsed end eventually died after her newly completed 18 million naira shopping mall financed by a bank had to be demolished.

Worst government Ogun state has ever witnessed.

Wowwwwwww!!!!!!

doctor306:
Ur a woman
The life Ur scared of loosing would shorely be lost someday so what's the use
use Ur Tfare and help a hungry folk on the Street

Why is it that it's mostly the people who never experienced warfare before are usually the ones who clamor for it. Look at George W. Bush and Donald Trump, people who never went to join there colleagues in the jungles of South East Asia in the 1960's yet they are the ones who seem to be the most hawkish.

Those that have been there and done that, that have seen there friends brains splattered all over there clothes, that have seen people holding there intestines after being shot or that smelt the horrible stench of burning flesh (a smell that never leaves you) and let's not forget the collateral damage, the children abandoned by the parents on the roadside, the rape of the women and the young girls and countless other atrocities that happen during war.

chiraqDemon:
See this one talking about war, if gunshot blow now na to enter boat go cameroon go be him next move

No mind dem o. It's usually people who have never been to war before who tend to always be shouting war, war, war up and down. Those who have seen the horrors of war and the consequences are the ones who tend to be much calmer and try to avoid it.

Pieromania:
ok oo,i understand u anyway

It's called long term planning which I don't think is part of our culture.

ethereal:
Wats dis was all i culd multer amidst shock as i saw my husband o three yr making out wt his best friend samson.nw i so confusd & ve left d haus wt my son to ph.wat kind of life is dis.i'm stil n shock.

Wait what? So what happened eventually?

But while the deal clearly enhances Shell, it’s at the detriment of Nigerians. For decades, government officials have been accused of flitting away the country’s oil wealth and pocketing large sums of cash through corrupt dealings. The sale of OPL 245, for only snippet of its actual value—most of which went into private pockets—captures that sentiment.

Active in Nigeria since the 1950s, the latest scandal does nothing to boost Shell’s battered reputation among locals, particularly in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The company’s fractious relationship with the region is linked to the 1995 executions of nine Niger Delta leaders, including popular activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. Shell has been accused of collaborating with the Nigerian government in the executions and, in 2009, the company agreed to pay $15.5 million as compensation to affected families.

The company is also notorious for the adverse environmental impact of its work in the Niger Delta. Severe oil spills have resulted in large-scale devastation and pollution which will likely take decades to clean up. In one of such cases, Bodo, a community in Niger Delta, received a $83 million payment from the oil giant in what was the largest ever out-of-court oil spill-related settlement in Nigeria.

https://qz.com/955409/shell-knew-about-opl245-bribes-to-etetes-malabu-and-other-nigerian-politicians-show-emails/

Shell initially denied knowledge of payments made to Malabu, Etete and any other Nigerian officials, saying that its dealings with regard to the acquisition of OPL 245 were legal and that none of the questionable payments “were made with its knowledge, authorization or on its behalf.” But a trove of emails published by anti-corruption charities, Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, suggest that is not the case. Indeed, the emails show “evidence” of Shell’s senior employees “knowingly participating in a vast bribery scheme,” according to Global Witness.

The emails show correspondence between senior Shell officials acknowledging the possibility that almost all the money paid for OPL 245 could be passed to government officials, through Etete, in underhanded deals. Following the published emails, in a reversal of prior denials, Shell has now admitted that it engaged with Etete during negotiations to acquire OPL 245. ENI is yet to respond to Quartz’s email queries on whether any of its officials were aware of the possibility that the money it paid for OPL 245 was to be passed on as kickbacks.

The stink of the scandal reached all the way to the presidency with Goodluck Jonathan, the then-president, named as a beneficiary in documents from Italian prosecutors. Jonathan is said to have received nearly $500 million, which was split with other high ranking members of his administration, including Diezani Alison-Madueke, his embattled former minister of petroleum. For his part, Jonathan has denied any wrongdoing, claiming the allegations are sponsored by people threatened by his “continuously rising profile in the international community.” Italian prosecutors have recommended that Claudio Descalzi, ENI CEO, stand trial for corruption.

Shell took the risk of getting caught up in such a murky deal because of the value of the asset at stake. OPL245 is one of Africa’s largest undeveloped oilfield and is estimated to hold around nine billion barrels of oil. At current market prices, its value is pegged at nearly $500 billion. The oilfield could also see Shell’s global “proven oil reserves” increase by a third, according to Global Witness.

(contd below)

Shell was complicit in a billion-dollar corruption scandal for a lucrative Nigerian oilfield
Royal Dutch Shell’s checkered history while operating in Nigeria has taken another bad turn.

The oil giant is mired in a billion-dollar bribery scandal over its 2011 acquisition of OPL 245, a vast undeveloped but lucrative Nigerian oilfield off the coast of the Niger Delta. Shell first acquired a stake in the oilfield back in 2001 alongside Malabu, a company allegedly controlled by Dan Etete, Nigeria’s oil minister between 1995 and 1998. Etete is believed to have acquired the rights to the oilfield under questionable circumstances while serving as minister. OPL245 is valued at up to $500 billion by some estimates.

After two decades of legal wrangling over ownership of the oilfield, in 2011, Shell, in collaboration with Italian oil company ENI, paid the Nigerian government $1.3 billion to acquire OPL 245. But that money never went into the public trust, as it should have. Instead, nearly all of it went to Etete who was convicted of money laundering in France in 2007. Through Etete, much of the money is believed to have ended up being shared by high-ranking Nigerian government officials in a series of political kickbacks with Shell fully aware.

littlewonders:
In as much as the investigation rolled off stones, its just another way of distracting Nigerians from issues that concern our unity and health. I visit hospitals almost everyday and see the increasing rate of cervical cancer on children which I'm sure most parents are not cognizance of. The pollution rate of incomplete combustion taking over our endocrine glands of which has practically alter our body system yet no awareness of cognitive measures to address this issues. This will one tell how adamant they care less of Nigerians health.


Rather they keep on bringing distractions which are of less concern to the public from certicate forgery, PDP and APC qualms, Birthdays, phony hopes, and yet no one summons issues on this area of health(we only watch on TV and read on News: that's where it ends) to help save lives of the masses.

Now, another tales to cause polite distraction has resurfaced. I *dislike* my leaders. If I have my way I'll organise a death romp for all of them without sparing not even a councillor.

What are you talking about?? Who is distracting who? am i the one distracting people by posting this on here? Are the Europeans who did the investigation distracting anyone by publicizing their findings distracting anyone? Please tell me who is distracting whom?
This is about transparency man.

Statsocial, dominique, Seun, Mynd44, lalasticlala FP please.

WotzupNG:
https://lifestyletonight..com.ng/2017/01/7-ways-poor-guys-survive-without_4.html?m=1

What a pathetic post. Absolutely disgusting. Way to thumb your nose at people that don't have the same opportunities as you.

Wait so in a country where around 70% of the population live on less than 2 dollars a day we are now demonizing poor people simply for being "poor" and not having the opportunities to improve there lives?!?!?!?!? Wow! how incredibly shallow.

littlewonders:
Distractions

You do know this investigation was a joint investigation by the italian govt, the Dutch police, the british and the Americans right?

On Monday, after Global Witness issued a new report outlining the findings of the leaked documents, a Shell spokesman appeared to walk back that position in an email statement to FP.

“Over time, it became clear to us that Etete was involved in Malabu and that the only way to resolve the impasse through a negotiated settlement was to engage with Etete and Malabu, whether we liked it or not,” the spokesman said. He added, “we believe that the settlement was a fully legal transaction.” Shell did not dispute the veracity of the of the leaked documents.

Italian prosecutors beg to differ. According to documents from prosecutor’s office in Milan made public, here’s who got what in the pay-off:

Nigerian businessman Aliyu Abubakar withdrew $54,418,000 in cash.
$466,065,965.44 withdrawn in cash and subsequently funneled to government officials including President Goodluck Jonathan, Attorney General
Mohammed Bello Adoke, Minister of Petroleum Diezani Alison-Madueke, Minister of Defence and former National Security Advisor Aliyu Gusau.
$10,026,280 to former Attorney General Christopher Adebayo Ojo
$11,465,000 paid to former Senator Ikechukwu Obiorah

Eni officials also received funds in retrocession (in essence, reimbursement for multiple layers of insurance after a deal goes through). One, Chief Development — Operations & Technology Officer Roberto Casula, received $50 million delivered in cash.

In Italy, prosecutors have recommended Casula and Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi stand trial in the corruption case. The Eni board issued a statement saying they retained “total confidence” in Descalzi. Eni also released a statement saying it was complying with authorities but denied any wrongdoing. Representatives of Voser, Etete, and Jonathan haven’t yet issued any statements about the revelations.




http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/11/emails-show-shells-complicity-in-biggest-oil-corruption-scandal-in-history-nigeria-resource-curse-etete-eni/

One of Africa’s largest petro-states, Nigeria is ranked 136 out of 176 countries in corruption by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. Meanwhile, famine spurred by the Boko Haram militant insurgency in the country’s north, threatens millions of Nigerians, including some 500,000 children. The money paid by Shell and Eni for the OPL 245 field is about 1.5 times what the U.N. says is needed to resolve the famine crisis.

The deal centered around former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete. While serving as oil minister, Etete secretly acquired rights to OPL 245 through a shadowy front company called Malabu, which later funneled over $1 billion of the deal away from the Nigerian people and directly into the pockets of senior Nigerian officials. (Etete was later convicted in a Nigerian court on a separate money laundering probe.)

Van Beurden suspected the Dutch police must have found some dirt in the records their raids obtained. “There was apparently some loose chatter…particularly the people that we hired from MI6 who, er, must have said things like, ‘Well, yeah, you know, I wonder who gets a pay-off here and whatever,’” he said, referring to former British intelligence operatives Shell hired to help navigate the seedy world of West African oil politicking. But it wasn’t just “loose chatter.”

Senior Shell employees openly discussed in email how they knew over $1 billion of their money would go to Etete and others in political kickbacks, according to email records. The company decided to move forward with the deal anyway, denying for years up to this point its employees did anything wrong and claiming it only knew it was paying the Nigerian government.

One email from Shell official Guy Colegate to colleagues in March, 2010 sums it up: “Etete can smell the money,” Colegate wrote. “If, at nearly 70 years old he does turn his nose up at 1.2 bill he is completely certifiable…but I think he knows its [sic] his for the taking. I don’t think he will push it away,” he wrote. That email was forwarded to then-Shell CEO Peter Voser, one of the world’s most powerful oil execs at the time. No records available show he informed authorities or stood in the way of the deal.

Another Shell advisor, former British intelligence service official John Copleston, wrote about Etete’s graft plan to senior Shell executives in 2009 as they began laying out various deals for a share of the oil field. “E[tete] claims he will only get 40m of the 300m we offering-rest goes in paying people off,” Copleston wrote.

For Shell, the stakes couldn’t have been higher: OPL 245, one of Africa’s most valuable oil fields, contains an estimated nine billion barrels of untapped oil, worth nearly $500 billion even with today’s bargain bin oil prices. Its eventual purchase boosted the world’s fifth-largest company’s proven reserves by a third (proven reserves are a key statistic for shareholders).

The field has been at the center of legal battles since 1998, when Etete first acquired rights to it through his front company. Months before it finally sealed the deal in 2011, Shell had to pay $30 million in a separate settlement on bribery charges in Nigeria.

Now the Anglo-Dutch oil giant was in the lurch once again. “This dawn raid is, I won’t say premature, but it’s, we were not, we hadn’t concluded our own work,” van Beurden said, referring to an internal Shell investigation. They then mulled whether they should inform the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the predawn raid, but opted against it because it would be “share price sensitive.”

“At this point in time, everything seems to be share price sensitive,” Henry says on the phone, chuckling.

Shell denied any knowledge of improper payments to Malabu or others up to Sunday. “It is Shell’s position that none of those payments were made with its knowledge,” Shell said in a statement Sunday.

Leaked Records Show Shell’s Complicity in Massive Oil Corruption Scandal
Shell CEO Ben van Beurden picked up the phone and called his chief financial officer hours after Dutch police raided his offices. “I trust you have been informed about what happened at the office,” van Beurden said to CFO Simon Henry on the phone on February 17 last year. “So it looks as if they have some form of coordination between the Italian prosecutor, possibly … with a link into the [U.S. Department of Justice], but we’re not sure yet,” van Beurden said, not knowing authorities were listening in on the other end of the line.

His suspicions were right, and their subsequent conversation sheds light on Shell’s complicity in one of the largest corruption scandals in Big Oil’s history — after the company vigorously denied any role in it for years.

That early morning February raid centered on an oil deal Shell and Italian oil giant Eni struck with Nigeria. They paid the Nigerian government $1.3 billion in 2011 for rights to a giant oil field off the Nigerian coast. After the deal was struck, most of that money mysteriously went missing from public coffers.

New legal filings, emails, and recorded phone conversations reviewed by Foreign Policy showed top Shell executives played a hand in the huge corruption scheme, which reached the highest echelons of the government. The phone recordings and documents from European authorities were obtained by anti-corruption watchdogs Global Witness and Finance Uncovered. Buzzfeed and Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Or first broke the story.

The new revelations could throw Shell into a world of legal trouble. They also shed light on the shadowy world of oil deals, and how far Shell was willing to go to nab their share of the oil field, known as OPL 245, through a network that spanned former British spies and corrupt Nigerian officials. The tendrils of the scandal reached the highest echelons of the Nigerian government, including former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The latest developments come hot on the heels of the United States repealing an anti-corruption rules for extractive industry companies like Shell, a move Big Oil widely lauded. It also illustrates how resource-rich countries like Nigeria often fall victim to the “resource curse” – where corrupt officials steal the revenue from selling off natural resources, keeping the masses mired in poverty.