₦airaland Forum

deomelo:
There's a clear difference between the largest single refinery in the world


Apple and orange analogy, try again.

Okoroawusa:
Point of correction
Ibru's wealth is Lagos oriented n still lagos depended.
Read my friend its not hard!

GavelSlam:
And what is wrong with it?

Is MTN not our new NITEL?

You must have a PHd: Playa Hater Degree.

GavelSlam:
What is free oil?

Why not turn a rope into a noose and do us all a favour tonight.

No one would miss you in 2018.

surgical:
They will never understand, their thinking is very shallow.

Alikote:
u need knock for supporting import

Alikote:
dangote refinery and petrochemical company hater is not only for petrol it include fertilizer,polyethylene for plastic and petrol etc and export to feed all of west Africa.......at 60m litre daily it going to sufficient for the Nigeria Market and export to west Africa all of our fuel need and fertilizer will be covered no more import like in cement ....the funding for this project is from several developmental institution across the world ....u most be a failed agent of fuel importers that are about to go out of your blood sucking business leeches on the Nigeria state ....Dangote is not after Nigeria govertment subsidy with 14 bn dollar investment 5 trillion naira u dey craze....that almost federal govt budget....he will sell to all depots at market rate then they sell to public and wait for subsidy if any....no more shipping cost and port charges

PPAngel:
Forget Shale Oil, Saudi dumping excess crude.

The US is salivating over the Gulf of Gunea and US energy strategic security is now angling from the troubled middle east to the Gulf of Guinea.

This shale oil nonsense was thrown in as a reason why US cancelled oil shimpments from Nigeria. The truth of the matter has always been with the GEJ administration moving closer with China.


Now, that the whole dynamics of the Syria-Iraqi conflict has been upset by Russia, the US is looking to secure the gulf of Guinea for itself.

Boko Haram exist in the NE to destabilize the last govt.

Buhari will foolishly send troops to the Niger Delta after a series of false flag terror plots by the US blaming the ND militants.

They chose Buhari for his chronic sectarianism and his stupidity.

At the end of the day, the US will justify sending troops to the ND on the guise of stopping the genocide by the Fulani Hausa people, which from there they will set up a military command base to recolonize the rest of Africa.


This is change!

FastShipping:
Just threw in Tinubu's name to create traffic here. Nothing more.......

If not, what does Tinubu gotta do here?

ImadeUReadThis:
Senator Vitter's letter to John Kerry on Hilary Clinton's links and shady dealings with Chagoury


March 17, 2015
The Honorable John Kerry
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Secretary Kerry:
Like many Americans, I am incredibly concerned about the recent revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has kept official federal records hidden from the public, both through an external email domain and in deciding to delete thousands of these records. While the State Department is in the process of reviewing the documents Secretary Clinton has provided, I am requesting that the Department provide all additional files specifically relating to the designation of Boko Haram as a terrorist organization during former Secretary Clinton’s term and seek out any related files which may not have already been turned over by Secretary Clinton.

As I have in the past, I commend your November 2013 decision to designate Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. However, given the drastic foothold Boko Haram was allowed to gain prior to being designated an FTO, the nexus between the Department’s decision against designating Boko Haram as an FTO and connections to outside groups should be brought forward. Associated records should have been preserved as evidence of the agency’s activities, decisions and procedures. These should be presented to the relevant committees and to the American public to be evaluated for corresponding misconduct.

Last year, I presented the Department with evidence that multiple State Department Country Reports on Terrorism, presented to Congress under Secretary Clinton’s direction, failed to include valuable information related to Boko Haram. Inaccuracies within official documents make it clear that the State Department misled Congress and the American people. Additional evidence demonstrates that multiple Department employees who were directly involved in the decision against designating Boko Haram as an FTO, including the Office Coordinator for Counterterrorism, have been Clinton Foundation employees. Disturbingly, while the Department was refusing to make the FTO designation, former President Bill Clinton, also the head of the Clinton Foundation and account owner of the Clinton email domain, participated in events with a long-time donor and major Nigerian land developer, Gilbert Chagoury, who previously agreed to a $66 million plea deal during international investigation into corruption charges against him. We need to know if Mr. Chagoury had any influence in the decision not to designate Boko Haram an FTO, or had any other influence with Sec. Clinton’s foreign policy decisions.

My insert:
Clinton at the launch of Eko Atlantic
https://thecitizenng.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Jonathan-Clinton-Upbeat.jpg

Between this history of involvement and the recent revelations regarding Secretary Clinton’s record keeping, I strongly believe it is essential to re-establish trust in the Department to provide the related materials to the public. If funds from the Clinton Foundation were used to pay for the email server, it would constitute a financial benefit from the Clinton Foundation and donations from foreign businessmen who directly stood to gain from Clinton’s decision, which is questionable at best.

I have long opposed the foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation as a conflict of interest for Secretary Clinton due to the nature of the job. Moreover, as you are aware, the Code of Federal Regulations requires federal agencies to make and preserve records that duly document agency activity. Former Secretary Clinton’s actions in conjunction to information I have previously presented to the Department where she circumvented and misled Congress should be closely examined.

The purpose of the law is to ensure that agency activities are available to be reviewed when needed -- such as for FOIA requests or congressional inquiries. Each federal agency is responsible for maintaining its records in accordance with regulations. Due to the highly unusual nature of the current circumstance, I am asking you to demonstrate the Department’s commitment to transparency and to provide all files related to their decision not to designate Boko Haram an FTO, and all communication with Mr. Chagoury or his affiliated businesses.
These actions, if true, run contrary to the trust placed in the Department, as a representative of the United States and constitutional government. It is imperative to fully disclose relevant information to the American public.

Sincerely,
David Vitter
United States Senate

hardywaltz:
Misleading news

hardywaltz:
Fake news

After More Than 18yrs, Chagoury Returns To Aso Rock

APC leader, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, may have commenced his deft moves as he recently brought the very notorious Chagoury brothers to meet with the president-elect in a closed door meeting.

It was not clear what was discussed but consider the fact the Chagoury brothers, who threw in some cash for the Buhari Campaign, are big players of sundry shades and crooked business deals would have featured prominently.

The Lebanese brothers played a prominent role in helping the Abacha family stash billions of stolen state cash in foreign banks.

Immediately after Abacha’s death, ex EFCC czar, Nuhu Ribadu, who unsuccessfully tried to indict and arrest Chagoury in 2004, then a young police investigator, said he began looking into the dictator’s financial affairs.

“It wasn’t uncommon for Nigerian leaders to put money elsewhere,” Ribadu says. “But the magnitude was beyond anybody’s comprehension.”

The money — estimated at more than $4 billion — was stashed in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and the Isle of Jersey in the names of dozens of individuals and companies. Ribadu argues that it was Chagoury who vouched for Abacha’s sons at banks where the source of their assets might otherwise have been questioned.

Indeed, Chagoury’s Swiss attorney, Luc Argand, said his client served as a reference for Abacha’s sons at Credit Suisse.

The Nigerian government eventually requested help from law enforcement around the world in tracking the stolen assets.

In 2000, Chagoury was convicted in Geneva, Switzerland, of laundering money and aiding a criminal organization in connection with the billions of dollars stolen from Nigeria during the Abacha years.

Six years after Gen. Sani Abacha’s death, Ribadu’s officers stood ready to take Gilbert Chagoury down. Ribadu says that Chagoury made it possible for Abacha to steal billions of dollars and lined his own pockets in the process.

The prosecutor says he indicted Chagoury and ordered his arrest for relatively minor violations related to Chagoury’s businesses so that he could later bring additional charges for his activities in the Abacha era.

Private business tycoons are not left out of the visits, Forte Oil CEO, Femi Otedola, and Oando boss Adewale Tinubu also visited Buhari last week.

Both money men donated millions of dollars to the Buhari Campaign Organisation. Speculations have it that the name of the Oando boss has been suggested to Buhari by Asiwaju as the next Petroleum Minister.

Although Chagoury denies any involvement in the Halliburton bribery case, but his name surfaced in notes taken by one of the indictees, Chodan, who kept detailed records of so-called cultural meetings, where bribes were discussed.

One entry reads, “$250 … to IPCO via Chagoury.”
When I ask Chagoury about these records, he doesn’t dispute that the note refers to a sum of $250 million, but he argues that it refers to a contract, which, he says, was legitimately awarded to one of his companies, IPCO Nigeria Limited, for construction related to the liquefied natural gas plant.

Reports say Buhari, however refused to have audience with the current Comptroller-General of Customs, Abdullahi Dikko Inde, and NSCDC boss , Ade Abolurin, who visited his residence in Daura to “pay homage.”

Yankarireporters.com learnt that the customs boss, immediately after informing the President-Elect of his mission was advised to go back to his duty post.

Dikko, shocked by Buhari’s response tried unsuccessfully to inform the retired General of the situation at all Nigeria’s borders, seaport and the airports, but the President-elect upbraided the 55 year-old that the ideal procedure is to wait until he has been sworn in as president, describing the visit as unhealthy, unethical and disloyalty to a government he is still serving.

The visit of the current Commandant-General of the NSCDC, Ade Abolurin, was reportedly more dramatic. He arrived Daura with top officers of the corps, photographers and some members of

According to a member of the Buhari Campaign from Katsina, “The President-Elect was having his normal quiet time when the delegation arrived”.

The corps officers led by its commandant were left outside in the scorching sun for over an hour, before the commandant and two corps officers were allowed entry into the President-elect’s visitors room.

But shortly after an aide of Buhari, said that the retired General wants him out of his residence and will not be seeing him.

Dumbfounded the corps officers left in a haste to the surprise of other delegation members outside, who were waiting and hoping to see the president-elect and take photographs with him.

A serving minister last week also sent emissaries to the president-elect in a bid to secure a private meeting.

The deluge of top current serving government officials and visitors reaching out to General Buhari at this material time has turned his Daura home to a new Mecca.
https://www.nairaland.com/2276275/after-more-than-18yrs-chagoury#33085513

FastShipping:
Just threw in Tinubu's name to create traffic here. Nothing more.......

If not, what does Tinubu gotta do here?

Lipscomb:
I think something is wrong with you what tinubu got to do with this ? Tinubu a selfless leader and less corrupt Jonathan should be on the list instead of tinubu

Lipscomb:
[s]I think something is wrong with you what tinubu got to do with this ? Tinubu a selfless leader and less corrupt Jonathan should be on the list instead of tinubu[/s]

Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) wants to know whether Hillary Clinton concealed communications with a Nigerian donor to the Clinton Foundation during an internal State Department debate over designating Boko Haram a terrorist group.

Vitter sent a letter last week to Secretary of State John Kerry requesting all of Clinton’s records relating to Boko Haram and her reluctance to label it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

The senator also asked for all of Secretary Clinton’s communications with Gilbert Chagoury, a Nigerian construction magnate who has donated millions to the Clinton Foundation in addition to contributing thousands to an outside group that helped re-elect President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Vitter said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon that he wants to uncover whether Chagoury’s relationship with the former secretary of state influenced her policy toward Nigeria and its radical Islamic insurgency.

As founder of the Chagoury Group, one of Nigeria’s largest construction conglomerates, Chagoury would have a financial interest in the impact on Nigeria that would have followed a FTO designation for Boko Haram, Vitter said.

“He’s not Boko Haram, but he has a clear interest in terms of his commercial developments of not getting this designation, which would put the brakes on a lot of possible development that he wants in Nigeria,” he told the Free Beacon.

“The question I’ve raised is: Is there a similar conflict of interest there? And did that sort of issue have anything to do with Hillary Clinton’s State Department dragging its feet?”

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Chagoury and Republican consultant who formerly worked at the Justice Department and on Capitol Hill, said in an email statement that accusations of an improper relationship between Chagoury and Clinton are “ludicrous and laughable.”

“Chagoury has had no contact with Hillary Clinton for years—predating her time as a U.S. senator,” he said. “So even if Senator Vitter somehow retrieves Hillary’s emails (and I hope he does), he’ll find no emails or correspondence of any kind from Ambassador Chagoury with Secretary Clinton or the Department of State.”

“Furthermore, while he has had a well-publicized friendship with former President Clinton and has donated to the Clinton Foundation, I would point out that he has also donated to the George W. Bush presidential library. Why? Because both President Bush and President Clinton showed a real interest in Africa and Ambassador Chagoury truly appreciated both men and their efforts.”

A spokesman for Clinton did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the State Department also did not respond to a query about whether Kerry had received Vitter’s letter, and how long it would take to provide the communications he requested.

Both Nigerian officials and outside observers who were opposed to the FTO designation for Boko Haram argued that such a move would have a negative economic impact on the country. Chagoury employs tens of thousands of workers in West Africa and has spearheaded some of Nigeria’s most ambitious development projects.

A group of more than 20 academics wrote Clinton a letter in 2012 urging her against the FTO designation, citing its effects on humanitarian and economic aid.

“If economic development is to play a role in alleviating tensions in northern Nigeria, we should not hamper access by USAID or private NGOs in providing aid and assistance in the region,” they wrote.

The criticism of the FTO designation came as Johnnie Carson, former assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Clinton and an opponent of the measure, stressed the importance of private investment in Nigeria. The country is the second-largest destination in Africa for U.S. private investment.

The militant group was eventually declared as a FTO in November 2013 after Kerry became secretary of state.

Chagoury donated between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation and pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009 through the Chagoury Group. His relationship with the Clintons stretches back to the 1990s, when he contributed nearly half a million dollars to a voter registration group that helped re-elect President Bill Clinton in 1996.

At the time, human rights activists pressured Clinton to sanction Nigeria’s Sani Abacha regime for detaining and executing political dissidents. Chagoury, an Abacha associate, was reportedly invited to a White House dinner for Democratic supporters in 1997 and spoke with Clinton administration officials during that period about U.S. policy toward Nigeria. Clinton opted against sanctioning Nigeria’s profitable oil industry, instead pursuing “constructive dialogue” with the Abacha regime. Abacha died in 1998.

Several members of Chagoury’s family also donated thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bid in 2008, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to a 2010 investigation by PBS Frontline, Chagoury was one of the associates of Abacha’s who received government payments in overseas bank accounts.

He was convicted in 2000 in Switzerland for laundering money from Nigeria, but agreed to a plea deal and repaid $66 million to the Nigerian government. The conviction was later dropped. He also returned money in Swiss bank accounts to Nigeria in 1999 to receive immunity from prosecution in a looted assets case.

Corallo said the charges against Chagoury “were vacated and expunged from the record.”

Chagoury was also linked to a scheme in which Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), then a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation, paid $180 million in bribes to the Abacha regime for business contracts in the 1990s. KBR eventually agreed to pay $579 million in fines in 2009, the largest ever payment for a company accused of bribing foreign officials. 

Chagoury was not charged with any wrongdoing during a Justice Department investigation of the exchange.

“You are never going to stop corruption,” Chagoury told PBS.

Chagoury helped plan lucrative speeches for Bill Clinton and attended the former president’s 60th birthday party in 2006 in New York, as well as the wedding celebration in France of top Clinton aide Douglas Band, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Chagoury’s latest project, a land reclamation effort known as Eko Atlantic that will provide residences and amenities to 250,000 wealthy Nigerians outside of Lagos, has been criticized by some for not aiding Africa’s poor. Bill Clinton attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the project in February 2013.

Sen. Vitter has long suggested that State Department officials are downplaying the threat posed by Boko Haram.

He wrote a letter to Kerry last year about apparent discrepancies between statistics provided to the State Department and the actual language included in the department’s annual reports on global terrorism.

For example, the National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) statistical annex for the 2011 State Department report said that a double-digit percentage increase in attacks in Africa was “attributable in large part to the more aggressive attack tempo of the Nigeria-based terrorist group Boko Haram, which conducted 136 attacks in 2011­—up from 31 in 2010.”

However, the actual Country Reports on Terrorism for 2011 only called Boko Haram a “Nigerian extremist group” that “claimed responsibility for some of these attacks.”

hardywaltz:
No wrong analysis.
It's was cheaper to import fuel, over invoice and collect subsidy payments for over invoiced product.

Just the way it is cheaper importing many products into Nigeria than producing them here

GavelSlam:
Sure, they were such sterling businessmen who didn't depend on waivers and backhand deals but managed to build and empire in Nigeria.

It was only the Nigerians within the same line of trading who participated in sleaze.

Abeg tell us another thing.

hardywaltz:
Why didn't u build ur own since 2004 when Obj gave out cheap refining licenses.

yeyerolling:
Fuel wud be sold at wat ever dangotes cost of production is plus 30%. My guess 350

GavelSlam:
So we are to hold grudges against him because our inherent nature as Nigerians is to loot and steal when in public office such that our government-owned refineries cannot function at any capacity no matter who is brought in to manage it.

There have been many rent-seeking business men over the years.

Some have become billionaires within the space of 2 years without owning a factory or even an abode that could be pointed to as the place of business.

Regardless of how you see it, Dangote is risking his money on a venture that could easily go tits-up.

As you've said, we have no stringent legislation which also implies, such legislation if created/adopted tomorrow, could work very much against him.

He's risking top dollar in the face of a future filled with electric cars and possibility of a rail network.

I can't begrudge a man for filling a chasm that had been crying out for a filler.

GavelSlam:
Who stopped you from embarking on a similar project?
Should a project of significant national importance be overlooked?

Are you happy with the way respective governments and civil service have managed our refineries?


What do you suggest?


In the US the government bailed out automakers when the recession kicked in because they were of significant national importance.

Are other refinery projects not at various stages of establishment?

Have the other refinery projects complained about being unable to access dollars at a rebate?