₦airaland Forum

Tycike:
Yeah I saw it in the news but I don't think is due to militancy.

Reuters, Forbes, UK Business Insider, Financial Times and oil traders all blame the global rise in oil prices to the fall in production from Nigeria thanks to NDA.
Seems the militants are doing the oil industry a big favour ironically.

From Reuters
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices hit six-month highs on Monday on worries about global supply outages and as long-time bear Goldman Sachs sounded more positive on the market, although a stockpile build at the U.S. storage hub for crude futures limited gains.

Expectations of resumption in oil exports from a Libyan port, a ramp up in Nigerian crude production by Exxon Mobil Corp and an improved oil-for-loans deal reached by Venezuela with China furthered the tempered the bullish theme in oil.

Brent crude futures settled up $1.14, or 2.4 percent, at $48.97 per barrel. It rallied to $49.47 earlier, its highest since early November, in a test towards $50.

U.S. crude's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures rose by $1.51, or 3.3 percent, to end at $47.72 after touching a six-month high at $47.85. WTI saw a flurry of late buying, with more than 13,600 lots changing hands in the final minute, according to Reuters data, in an attempt to test $48.

Crude futures have rallied for most of the past two weeks from a combination of Nigerian, Venezuelan and other outages, declining U.S. production and virtually frozen inflows of Canadian crude after wildfires in Alberta's oil sands region.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0Y703M

Oil prices are close to hitting $50 per barrel for the first time since November - but it has nothing to do with Saudi Arabia and Iran cutting oil production, as so much of the market has hoped.
It's all down to Nigerian militants.
Nigeria was dethroned as Africa's largest oil producer this month because the deteriorating political and security situations pose such a threat to Nigeria's oil output.
Militant activity from group Niger Delta Avengers is forcing supply disruptions and has made the country's output fall by 800,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day, according to Nigeria's oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu.
Data cited by RBC Capital Markets' commodities team in an early May research note said Nigeria's oil production slipped to 1.69 million barrels per day.
Regardless of either assessment, this is still below the production level of Angola, which held steady in April, at 1.8 million barrels per day.
You can see the effect of the Nigerian militant activity on the oil market on Tuesday, reducing supply and boosting the price:
http://www.businessinsider.in/Nigerian-militants-are-controlling-the-worlds-oil-prices-right-now/articleshow/52305993.cms?from=mdr

donphilopus:
None would get my vote!

Now this is surprising, Is Oshiomhole pushing your leader out of the party too. I think Ize Iyamu would win hands down though.

Cc lalasticlala, obinoscopy

Last Wednesday, the Federal Government announced an increase in the pump price of fuel. What do you think the hike portends for the people?

The price increase of fuel is a natural domino effect of the economic policies of the present administration. The economic style of the government right from its inception, truly speaking, has been on the wrong footing. We know that there were a lot of financial wrongdoings in the previous government.

Yet, you cannot totally condemn their policies. Nothing is 100 per cent bad, and nothing is 100 percent good. As a medical doctor, I can tell you that even the best drug has side effects. And sometimes, poison can be used for treatment.

Bee sting can be used in curing rheumatism. So, in trying to paint a terrible picture of the previous administration, this government is trying to undo every policy of the former government, instead of just correcting what was wrong.

The prophet warned Muslims to be careful of liking or loving something too much because one day it will be your enemy. And if you have an enemy, don’t hate him so vehemently because one day he may be your best friend. What I mean is that the policies that you criticise, you may one day end up doing the same thing.

President Muhammadu Buhari criticised the removal of subsidy when he was in the opposition; now he has just done that. We have been telling them to be careful right from the word go, otherwise, the government will be engulfed in crises and contradictions. Increasing fuel prices is inevitable but what I want the government to look at are the factors that lead to the pressure to increase the prices.

First, the government imports fuel for domestic use. Second, the foreign exchange to finance this importation is dwindling. Even though the refineries are working, the supply of crude oil is being disrupted because the militants are blowing up pipelines. Why are they doing so? Because they feel alienated, that they are not part of the government. So, you can see the domino effect that I have earlier mentioned.

[b]Are you in any way advocating that the Federal Government should negotiate with the militants?

The government should have formed a Government of National Unity right from the beginning. For example, tell the South-East to bring whoever they trust to represent them in the government. The South-West brought Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as running mate; he was not the choice of Buhari.

The same way that you did with South-West do with the South- South and South-East. This is what I mean by Government of National Unity because if the militants believe that they are represented well in the government, they will allow the oil to flow.

If the crude oil flows, our refineries will work. The President needs to listen; he can’t afford to be adamant anymore. He should listen to knowledgeable individuals and not sycophants who supported him. Nigeria is for everybody. It is not for any single political party or the President.

If I understand your analysis, are you opposed to the orders given by the President to the military to deal with the militants who blow up pipelines?

How can they deal with the militants in the first place, when they are holding the nation’s umbilical cord? You are fighting Boko Haram in the North, and you want to fight the militants in the creeks. You don’t fight on two fronts at the same time. That was one of the reasons why Adolf Hitler failed in the Second World War. The government should sit down with them and ask them the reasons for their agitation.

Don’t forget; they were embittered that their man Goodluck Jonathan was defeated. Their argument now is, ‘if you hate our man, then leave our oil.’ No section of the country has the solution of Nigeria’s problem.

So, everybody should be brought on board. Even if the South-South brings Government Tompolo as their man, we should accept him, so long as they trust him; so that we will have stability.

A military solution is not the best option in this circumstance. Former President Umaru Yar’adua could swallow his pride as president and negotiate with the militants. Jonathan also did it. But a military man cannot do it because it will hurt his ego. But if he doesn’t do it, he will kill the nation.[/b]

The Fulani herdsman has been associated with so many evils in recent times, ranging from cattle rustling, kidnapping, and armed robberies. As a Fulani man, what will you say is responsible for the recent transformation of the herdsman?

It is really unfortunate. I remember, during the Jonathan administration, a soldier came to me. He said that there was an ongoing military operation which was wiping out Fulani communities around Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State. He said that more than 10 communities had been wiped out by the soldiers. I was so agitated that I called a Fulani lieutenant. I also confronted very influential people in government, telling them of the plot to wipe out Fulanis.

The Fulani lieutenant told me that all the kidnappings and the cattle rustling that were being carried out in that community were done by Fulanis. But the Qur’an tells us that when ‘’Fitna’’ (trouble) comes, it will not affect only those who commit the sin or atrocity.

It is unacceptable for the Fulani communities in the bush, to allow their brothers to go out and commit all these crimes and keep quite. Even those that do not engage in them will one day become victims of the reactions of these atrocities. I am calling on the Fulani associations like Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association to sensitise their members on an almost one-on-one basis.

The association should tell them to stop killing and kidnapping people and rustling the cattle of fellow Fulanis. There is no need denying it.

Fulanis are involved in armed robbery and all these crimes that I have mentioned. But the question is, why did the Fulanis start engaging in these crimes? But what do you expect of a population that has been left in the bush without education or social amenities and without government’s assistance of any kind? The so-called Nomadic Education is just on paper. Even religious organisations do not go to preach to them. So, what do you expect from this kind of population?

It has been a time bomb all the while. The government and Miyetti Allah should intervene so that the crisis will not escalate like Boko Haram.

An FM Radio station should be dedicated specifically to addressing the Fulanis because they listen to radio. They should also be given incentives. That is the only way to avert the disaster. But to deny that these atrocities are not being committed by Fulanis is the wrong way to approach the issue. My brother was kidnapped some few months back. When we secured his release, he told us that the kidnappers were asking him to beg Allah for them so that they will be reformed.

Now, they have discovered that kidnapping is a gold mine. Before they used to rustle cattle, and it was so difficult to sell the cows. So, they resorted to the easier crime of kidnapping. Truly, the Fulanis are involved, and it is very unfortunate.

The All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government will be one year in office in about two weeks from now. What is your assessment of President Muhammadu Buhari in office, a man whom you had earlier opposed?

Actually, I was not opposing a particular person. What I feared was a scary scenario. I wasn’t opposing Buhari or Jonathan. I never hated them at all. If anything, I pity them because much as they wanted to correct things, they couldn’t.

What the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, is doing is evil but he believed in what he is doing, and he has given his life to it. Out of all these leaders, nobody is ready to give his life like him but what he is doing is wrong, and he is evil.

So, it is not enough to sacrifice, but you have to do the right thing. So, there must be pragmatism in governance. Interests and alliances should be based on pragmatism. So, I’m not opposed to any politician at all, but I’m concerned about how Nigeria can get out of this problem. I’m very passionate about that. I have children, and I don’t want them to be messed up by someone’s vision of how to run Nigeria, which I know will not work.
http://saharareporters.com/2016/05/15/sheikh-gumi-why-buhari-won’t-dare-biggest-thieves

LAGOS, May 11 (Reuters) - Nigeria needs a "substantial" review of its foreign exchange policies and will see very soon a more flexible approach, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Wednesday, as it faces dollar shortages and investor complaints about a high naira rate.

Asked whether Nigeria needed to devalue the naira, Osinbajo said that "there is an ongoing debate" in government circles and among other parties but that it was too early to say whether such a move made sense. Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has said he does not favour devaluing the currency.


Osinbajo told a Lagos business conference he hoped to persuade the central bank to change some policies to improve foreign exchange supply as current supply management is not working well.

"We believe there must be some substantial revaluation for the foreign exchange policy," Osinbajo said. This would help boost foreign exchange supply and encourage capital inflows and a free flow of remittances, he said.

"There has been a sharp decline in foreign exchange earnings. The executive is not responsible for monetary policy but we have made the point clearly that demand management will not take us out of the woods," he said.

"We need a review," he said in response to questions from investors. "Very soon we will see a more flexible approach," he added, but he declined to go into specifics.

The central bank has imposed hard currency curbs and frozen the naira rate to the dollar, which has hit investment as foreign firms expect Nigeria to devalue the currency anyway at some point due to a slump in oil revenues.

The naira has fallen 40 percent below the official rate on the parallel market where firms go to get hard currency to fund their imports.

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/nigerian-vice-president-says-needs-193256929.html

[b]
Since the program’s fourth round began, former President Goodluck Jonathan, a major proponent of YouWin, lost the presidency to Muhammadu Buhari. It is not yet clear how this political transition impacts the future of YouWin, the elimination of the program is under consideration. Michael Wong is optimistic that the new government will see the benefit of the scheme, and that it will continue. He recognizes that business plan competitions are only a “small tool” in the economic development toolbox, but he believes the program has demonstrated a excellent return on investment.

***

Over the last decade, economists found that giving cash to the poor, sometimes conditional on their children going to school or seeing a doctor, is a surprisingly efficient way to help people out of poverty. Some of the more famous examples include Mexico’s Oportunidades and GiveDirectly, which works in Kenya and Uganda. Contrary to the expectations of critics, the recipients rarely squander this money on drugs or gambling. They generally invest it in their family’s most basic needs.

The YouWin program may be seen as a logical extension of these cash transfer programs. The work of GiveDirectly and Oportunidades suggests that recipients of aid often know best how to use it effectively. YouWin’s early success has a similar message. If we want to support entrepreneurs in developing countries, maybe we should just give them the money. 
http://priceonomics.com/what-happened-when-nigeria-created-the-worlds/
[/b]

In the early 1980s, several MBA students at the University of Texas were jealous of the law students. They wanted access to a fun, competitive activity like the “moot court” competitions available to those at the law school. So they created a business plan competition for MBAs. Student competitors generated business ideas, developed a detailed business plan and presented that plan to possible financiers.  

The inaugural competition in 1984 was a grand success. Since then, over 50 American business schools have developed similar business plan competitions. Today, Rice University’s competition awards over a million dollars to winners. Billion dollar companies like Pinterest and Akamai emerged from business plan competitions. 

In the last decade, business plan competitions have grown popular as a way to stimulate entrepreneurialism in developing countries. Business plan competitions have been launched across the Middle East, Africa, Central America and South Asia. The World Bank’s support for such programs suggests it believes in their promise.

These competitions have an added appeal in the developing world. While ambitious entrepreneurs in the United States can raise funds through Kickstarter or venture capital, the capital markets in Nigeria do not operate as efficiently. As a result, many Nigerian entrepreneurs have have to borrow at real annual interest rates of about 20%—or go without funding. Business plan competitions can address this gap in the market. 

Nigeria went all in on this idea. The government created the largest business plan competition the world had ever seen.

In 2011, the former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan formally launched the first round of  the business competition YouWin. In the first of four rounds, the government granted $58 million to 1,200 entrepreneurs. This article focuses on the results for this first round, because there is limited data available on the following three rounds.



Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan congratulates a YouWin grantee.
The program was a partnership between the Nigerian Ministry of Finance, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Bank. The Ministry of Finance paid for the grants, DFID contributed $2 million for administrative costs and the World Bank funded a large impact evaluation.

Nigeria’s reputation for corruption and disorder led people to doubt the project. Michael Wong, an economist at the World Bank who helped design and administer the program, explained, “When I told people we were doing a business plan competition in Nigeria, they would keel over laughing.”

Nigerian leaders were optimistic. Jonathan believed this program would identify the next, great Nigerian businessperson:  

“... Bill Gates’ Microsoft and Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook are eloquent testimonies to the capacity of the youth to dream big and win big in an innovative manner. We have such men and women in this land too: our challenge is to find them early, nurture them and encourage them.”
The government encouraged all Nigerians younger than 40 and interested in creating a new business or expanding their existing one to submit an application. 24,000 applications came in from across the country. 85% of these applications were for new businesses and 15% for existing ones. The vast majority came from men.

The submissions were made anonymous and scored by the Nigerian Enterprise Development Center based on business viability, likelihood of job creation and the passion of the applicant. Existing businesses were preferred, under the assumption that having already set up a business displayed some level of commitment. This process whittled the applications down to 6,000 candidates.

The last step of the process was the development of a more detailed business plan. Applicants had to precisely characterize their business’s product, market and projected finances. As part of developing this final business plan, the remaining 6,000 candidates were required to attend a mandatory 4-day business training session. 1,100 applicants did not show up, and the government received about 4,500 fully completed applications. The Enterprise Development Center and PriceWaterHouseCoopers scored the final business plans.

The 480 plans with the best scores were automatically selected as winners. The next 1,920 best submissions were then put at the mercy of chance. 720 of those 1,920 were randomly selected for this grant.

This random selection was done for two reasons. One, as an assurance against corruption. If done properly, this randomization would not allow for applicants to be chosen based on political or ethnic ties. Second, randomization would allow for a robust evaluation of the program. Researchers would compare the outcomes of the 720 winners against the other 1,200 businesses to see if the program really created jobs and spurred business growth.



Eden Andrew-Jaja started an etiquette refining company with her grant.
So can business plan competitions save the world? No. But they seem like they can help.

In August 2015, the World Bank published an evaluation of the YouWin program by the economist David McKenzie. McKenzie analyzed survey data on the 1,920 firms three years after the program began, and found that the grant had a larger impact than he expected. The selected firms were substantially more likely to launch, survive, make profits, and, most importantly, to generate new jobs.

Of the firms evaluated, approximately 60% were new and 40% already existed. McKenzie analyzed these groups separately.

The main impact of the grant was that it seemed to have helped firms get off the ground and survive. Three years after the competition, 91% of entrepreneurs who launched their business after winning the grant were still in operation compared to only 54% of the losing entrepreneurs. For existing businesses, 96% of the grant-winners survived, while only 76% of the losers continued to operate.



Dan Kopf, Priceonomics; data McKenzie
On average, the new businesses that received the grant employed 5.2 more workers than those that did not. For existing businesses, the randomly selected winners employed 4.4 more workers. As McKenzie explains, this is partly due to firm survival. But even when he looked exclusively at surviving firms, McKenzie found that the winning firms employed more than two additional workers.



Dan Kopf, Priceonomics; data McKenzie
It is famously difficult for a business in the developing world to grow to ten employees. In Nigeria, 99.6% of firms have less than ten people. One of the goals of YouWin was to help businesses surpass this number.

The program’s success in this respect was impressive. The new business grant-winners reached 10 employees at a rate 4 times greater than those who did not receive the grant. For existing businesses, it was double.



Dan Kopf, Priceonomics; data McKenzie

The winning firms also had higher profits and revenues. New firms receiving grants had 32% higher sales and 23% higher profits. The existing firm winners had 63% higher sales and 25% higher profits. McKenzie points out that the 480 winners with scores so high that they were not submitted to randomization had even greater profits and sales.

For Michael Wong, a designer of YouWin, the biggest surprise was the success of the new businesses. “Startups are a fairly risky bunch,” he says. “We assumed the failure rate would be extremely high…. with a few doing extremely well.” When the program was being designed, Wong advised the government to focus on granting prize money to existing firms, which he believed would be less risky investments. 

After reviewing the results of the study, Wong believes this preference for existing firms was a mistake. Thus far, the new firms have survived at a rate close to that of existing firms, and they have created even more jobs.

McKenzie estimates that the first round of the program generated over 7,000 jobs. He writes, “The business plan competition seems an effective tool for identifying entrepreneurs with much greater scope for growth than the typical microenterprise.” In the very restrained tone of economic papers, this counts as a rousing endorsement.

He calculates that under the most pessimistic scenario, assuming that all 7,000 jobs disappeared immediately after the survey, the cost per job created would be $8,538. This conservative number already “compares favorably to many job creation policy efforts in developing countries,” McKenzie writes, “which have struggled to find significant effects on employment.” Wage subsidy and vocational training programs, some of the most common employment creation interventions, are estimated to have a cost per job of $11,000 to $80,000.



Television producer Anyanyo Ozioma Grace was one of the !YouWin winners.
Wong was pleasantly surprised by the variety of the business plans submissions for YouWin. He had figured that almost all of the businesses would be in agriculture and industry, but, in fact, those kinds of businesses only made up half of the winners. He was particularly taken aback by the number of winners in education. A number of private schools won grants, as did a company that made educational comic books.

The YouWin website profiles several winning entrepreneurs. The highlighted winners include Saeed, a young man who is attempting to establish a chain of  “one-stop dental centers”, and Alice, a young woman who has expanded her retail and wholesale bakery.

The chart below displays a sector breakdown of the YouWin businesses.



Dan Kopf, Priceonomics; data McKenzie
Many Nigerians, who were originally skeptical of YouWin, have been won over. Utibe Item, a web developer who received a YouWin grant to expand his company, was amazed that the program was administered so fairly. He told the website AfterSchoolAfrica, “Initially when I saw the advert I didn’t believe it was real. I just said to myself ‘it’s the Nigerian thing. It’s not going to work. One of the ministers will just go to his constituency, pick his family members, and list them as winners’. So I didn’t believe it.” Eventually, Item was sold on the project. He now believes that the project’s intent really is “to empower as many Nigerians as possible” and he has since encouraged others to apply.

There are those that see the program as a failure. When announcing the program, the politicians supporting YouWin suggested it would create 80,000-110,000 jobs. It is unlikely that the program will reach such lofty projections, and pundits have slammed it for not doing so. But this is the fault of political overpromising rather than a blight upon the program. 

Other critics see the program as “elitist” because it is oriented towards people with college degrees and the wherewithal to pay for help crafting their business plan. According to Wong, a YouWin consultant industry has popped up across the country.

Youth unemployment in developing countries is one of the world’s great problems. The Economist referred to it as an “epidemic” with possibly disastrous economic and political consequences. Using World Bank data, The Economist estimated in 2013 that almost 25% of 15- to 24-year-olds worldwide are neither working nor in school, and more than 50% are outside the formal economy. The vast majority of these people are from developing countries that are experiencing skyrocketing population growth. 

Nigeria, the 7th most populous country in the world and the largest in Africa, is the poster boy for high unemployment combined with high population growth. The Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics reported a youth unemployment rate of over 50%, while the country’s population is growing at 2.8%, easily the highest growth rate among the world’s 20 most populous countries.

Facing this seemingly intractable problem, the Nigerian government had a radical and surprising idea: The largest business plan competition the world has ever seen. 

From 2012 to 2015,the government gave away over $100 million dollars to over 3,000 entrepreneurs as part of the YouWin competition. More than $50 million has already been disbursed. The winning entrepreneurs have received grants averaging $50,000 dollars to start or expand a business, and thus create jobs. Only people ages 40 and younger were allowed to apply.

The World Bank recently released an impact evaluation of this program, and the results were remarkable. Where many other attempts to increase employment have failed, YouWin has seen impressive success. Many businesses it funded grew into sizeable and profitable operations, and over 7,000 jobs were created. 

After reviewing the results, economist and blogger Chris Blattman asked, “Is this the most effective development program in history?”



A government notice promoting the YouWin program.
Since Nigeria gained its independence from the British in 1960, the country has been beset by political instability and, until about 2000, slow economic growth. Over the last 15 years, the country’s economy has grown rapidly, but at the same time, the unemployment and poverty rate has been on the rise. In Nigeria’s case, rising tides have not lifted all boats. The growing inequality and lack of jobs has been a boon to the recruiting efforts of Boko Haram, a terrorist group fighting an insurgency in the Northeast part of the country.

The Nigerian government has implemented a variety of initiatives targeting youth unemployment. These programs include skills development programs to place people in industry, paid internships to connect college graduates to firms, and an assistance program for young people interested in high yield agriculture. 

The effectiveness of existing programs is up for debate, but they have not solved the problem. Over half of the over 30 million Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 35 are still unemployed.



By 2050, Nigeria is projected to be the the 3rd most populous country in the world. Via Economist
Many economists believe that the best ways to create new jobs is to improve conditions for startups. Unlike well-established businesses, successful startups can grow fast and hire extensively. Some researchers have found that almost all of yearly job growth in the United States comes from new firms less than 5-years-old.

Until recently, Nigeria has seen little of this high-growth entrepreneurship. The government wanted to change that. But how do you stimulate entrepreneurialism? Get the needed capital to the ambitious Nigerian who will start the next IROKO, a Nigerian internet platform called the “The African Netflix”? 

The Nigerian government found a potential answer, the business plan competition, whose origins lay 7,000 miles away and thirty years in the past.
http://priceonomics.com/what-happened-when-nigeria-created-the-worlds/

What's the big deal? He visited Nigeria in 2014 for the Centenary celebrations, Cameron visited Nigeria in 2012, Merkel in 2013....Jonathan hosted several top world leaders unlike the noisy Buhari who junkets around.

Apt now....lalasticlala, profile of the GOVERNMENT himself

.

andresia:
are you serious? 'pipeline protection contracts' with thieves served their purpose? which country have you ever seen this type of arrangement? In other words, the country should be held ransom by social misfits. Gosh!

Misfits all right who kept Nigeria's production stable while they held sway. The reality is that the Nigerian Armed Forces can't protect the thousands of km of pipelines across the Niger Delta. Host communities and "misfits" are in a better position to do so. Nigeria is far from an ideal society, a wise government would have worked with what was currently available.

andresia:
It seems these economic sabotages gives you pleasure. It's either you are not a Niger Deltan or you are plainly steeewpid not to know there will be grave repercussions

No I don't support economic sabotage but blame the government who foolishly chose to fight on multiple fronts
The pipeline protection contracts however flawed they were served their purpose, Ending them led to this.

Nigeria is suffering a worsening bout of oil disruption that has pushed production to the lowest in 20 years, as attacks against facilities in the energy-rich but impoverished nation increase in number and audacity.
Chevron Corp. shut down about 90,000 barrels a day of output following an attack on a joint-venture offshore platform that serves as a gathering point for production from several fields. Even before that strike on Wednesday night, Nigerian oil production had fallen below 1.7 million barrels a day for the first time since 1994, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“This is some very, very sophisticated brazen attack,” said Dolapo Oni, the Lagos-based head of energy research at Ecobank Transnational Inc. “It is a resurgence of militancy. These guys don’t seem to be after money. They just want to frustrate the government.”

The fresh round of attacks come after President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to stamp out corruption and oil theft. They echo a campaign waged by the self-proclaimed Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta between 2006 and 2009, which cost the Nigerian government billions of dollars of lost oil revenue. That violence abated after thousands of fighters accepted an amnesty from late-President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and disarmed, in exchange for monthly payments from the government in some cases.
Facility Breached
Chevron said it shut down its Okan offshore facility after it was “breached by unknown persons” and had sent “resources to respond to a resulting spill.” The U.S company on Friday said that 35,000 barrels a day of its own net production was affected. Okan, which feeds crude and gas into Escravos, one of the country’s largest export facilities, is jointly owned by Chevron, with a 40 percent stake, and state-owned Nigeria National Petroleum Corp., which has the rest, according to NNPC’s website.
A group calling itself the Niger Delta Avengers said on its website that it was responsible for the attack. The authenticity of the claim could not be verified by Bloomberg News.
The Nigerian government is struggling to contain the economic damage of the slump in energy prices and separate attacks in the north of the country by the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency. The country’s foreign reserves have fallen to less than $27 billion, the lowest since 2005. The International Monetary Fund expects the economy to expand 2.3 percent this year, the weakest growth since 1999.
"Lower oil prices have meant that the poorer oil-producing countries don’t have enough money to pay for social services,” said Ehsan Ul-Haq, senior oil analyst at KBC Process Technology Ltd. “Protests are increasing as a result."
Force Majeure
In February, Royal Dutch Shell Plc declared force majeure -- a legal clause that allows it to stop shipments without breaching contracts -- after an attack on a pipeline feeding the Forcados terminal, which typically exports about 200,000 barrels a day.
The International Energy Agency estimated last month that Nigeria could lose an estimated $1 billion in revenue by May, when it expects repairs on Forcados to be completed. The terminal may not restart until June, Nigerian Oil Minister Emmanuel Kachikwu said April 20.
Major oil companies like Shell, Chevron, Total SA, Eni SpA and ConocoPhillips, which for five decades dominated the Nigerian oil industry, have been selling onshore and shallow water oil fields in the Niger delta to local companies, concentrating their investments in deep-water fields outside the reach of militants.
"If prices remain low, we will see more and more problems including these kind of sabotage attacks," said Ul-Haq.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-06/nigerian-oil-output-plunges-to-20-year-low-as-attacks-escalate

Cc lalasticlala

Cc lalasticlala

Newly formed Nigerian Niger Delta militia group, the "Niger Delta Avengers," has carried out its threats to wreak havoc country's economy by blowing up oil and gas pipelines. 

The latest attacks on pipelines occurred 24 hours after a major destruction was carried out on Chevron's platform at Escravos.

In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Mudoch Agbinibo, the group  claimed responsibility for blowing up "crude line feeds that links Warri and Kaduna refineries respectively". It also claimed to have damaged  the gas line that feeds the Lagos and Abuja electricity power supply. "With this development, the Warri and Kaduna refineries will be shut down and all cities that depend on the gas line for power will all be in total darkness like the creeks of the Niger Delta," the group said.

The group added that on Thursday,  its Strike Team 7  blew up Well D25 in Abiteye. The well is a   major gas facility owned Chevron. The team  also blew up major pipelines in  Alero, Dibi, Otunana and Makaraba flow stations, which  feed the Chevron tank farm, putting it out of operation. Currently, Chevron's operations  in the Niger Delta have been totally  disrupted.

The group boasted that it is undeterred by ‎heavy military presence in the area. It said it carried out the bombing about 100meters away from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) pipeline, where a military houseboat is stationed to protect the pipelines.

"We want you public to know that despite the heavy presence of military operatives, our activities can’t stop and it just waste of funds and time to let the Nigerian military protect oil installations,"the group bragged.

Mudoch Agbinibo,the Niger Delta Avengers spokesperson, warned  the people of the Niger Delta against undermining the group's agenda  "This is a clear warning to all Niger Delta politicians, traditional rulers, community leaders and the likes of Tompolo to mind their business and leave the liberation of the Niger Delta people to the Avengers. Those who believe  taking sides with the federal government to fight Niger Delta is the best option,  Avengers are here on the ground.  Neither you nor the federal government can stop us. If you don’t stay clear and let us carry out our activities, we will bring the fight to your individual doorsteps. Our major goal is to cripple the Nigeria economy," warned

Agbinibo also called on  all Niger Deltans to attack  oil installations in their  communities and urged them to see the war as theirs.

http://saharareporters.com/2016/05/06/niger-delta-avengers-blow-oil-pipelines-kaduna-warri-refineries‎-dare-military

On one hand, Nigeria is losing valuable revenue but the supply disruptions in Nigeria is helping crude oil prices rise

Militants attacked a Chevron (CVX.N) platform in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta region late on Wednesday, the U.S. energy company said on Thursday, amid growing fears of a revived militant campaign in the region.

It is the latest in a series of attacks on oil facilities in Africa's top oil exporter. President Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to crack down on "vandals and saboteurs" in the Delta region, which produces most of the country's oil.

In a statement, the energy company said Chevron Nigeria Limited, operator of a joint venture with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said an attack took place at about 11.15 pm (1715 ET) on Wednesday.

"Its Okan offshore facility in the Western Niger Delta region was breached by unknown persons," said Chevron in the statement. "The facility is currently shut-in and we are assessing the situation, and have deployed resources to respond to a resulting spill."

There were no immediate details of any casualties. The company could not be reached for further comment.

A group known as the Niger Delta Avengers claimed responsibility for the attack, and in a statement it said it blew up the platform.

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"This is what we promised the Nigeria government since they refuse to listen to us," the group said.

The same group has said it carried out an attack on a Shell (RDSa.L) oil pipeline in February which shut down the 250,000 barrel-a-day Forcados export terminal.

The militants say they want a greater share of oil revenues. Crude sales account for around 70 percent of national income in Africa's biggest economy.

Pipeline attacks and violence have risen in Nigeria's southern swampland since authorities issued an arrest warrant in January for a former militant leader on corruption charges.

Buhari has extended a multi-million dollar amnesty signed with militants in 2009 but upset them by ending generous pipeline protection contracts.

The militancy is a further challenge for a government faced with an insurgency by the Islamist militant Boko Haram group in the northeast and violent clashes between armed nomadic herdsmen and locals over land use in various parts of the country.

(Aditional reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram, in Lagos, Anamesere Igboeroteonwu, in Onitsha, and Libby George, in London; editing by Susan Thomas and Alexandra Hudson)
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0XW1PL

Following the blowing up of Chevron’s Valve Platform Wednesday night by Niger Delta militants, Nigeria will be losing an estimated $5.3 million daily, equivalent of N1.05 billion.
The militants blew up the platform located on the high sea near Escravos in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State.
It was gathered that Chevron operations in the area would be halted as the platform is a major connecting point where all other platforms link up and serves as a fulcrum to Chevron BOP and the Chevron tank farm.
Also, it was learnt that nothing less than 130,000 barrels of oil per day would be lost to the incident.
By calculation, and going by the current price of crude in the international market, $41.02, the country would be losing an estimate of $5.3 million daily.
An oil expert described the attack as a major setback to the country’s oil production, saying the facility is among the company’s most significant platforms.
Though Chevron was yet to come out with an official statement on the attack, a new militant group in the region, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), has claimed responsibility.
According to a statement issued by the group’s spokesman, Madoch Agbinibo, “The high command of the Niger Delta Avengers wants to use this medium to thank Strike Team 6 for successfully blowing up the Chevron Valve Platform. And we are ready to protect the Niger Delta people.
“This is what we promised the Nigerian government. Since they refused to listen to us we are going to zero the economy of the country.
“As for zeroing the Nigerian economy, the Niger Delta Avengers is done with Delta State major oil installations. Now, we are taking the fight out of the creeks to the Niger Delta. We are taking it to Abuja and Lagos now.
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“We want to pass this message to the international oil companies operating in the Niger Delta that the Nigeria military can’t protect their facilities. They should talk to the Federal Government to meet our demands else more mishaps will befall their installations.”
The group had earlier claimed responsibility for the attack on the Forcados 48-inch Export Pipeline, which was attacked two months ago.
Meanwhile, report of this latest attack was broken by navy spokesman, Chris Ezekobe, on Thursday, saying that the attack occurred about 40 nautical miles from the Escravos terminal, around the southern city of Warri.
The commander of the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS) Delta, Raimi Mohammed, who said he got the news as well but said he could not say much on the incident until after it has been confirmed.
“We got news like that this morning but we are yet to confirm. We have asked our people in Escravos to confirm. It happened deep offshore but we need confirmation to know what really happened,” he said.
The latest attack, however, happened less than three weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari threatened to treat pipeline vandals like Boko Haram Islamist militants.
Buhari had told some Nigerians resident in China that “the government is still being dared, but those who are sensible should have learnt a lesson. Those who are mad, let them continue in their madness.
“I am aware that in the last two weeks, the national grid collapsed a number of times. I hope this message will reach the vandals and saboteurs who are blowing up pipelines and installations. We will deal with them the way we dealt with Boko Haram.”
The militants said they would not relent until they grind the economy to a halt
https://www.today.ng/news/national/117441/nigeria-lose-5-daily-militants-blow-chevrons-platform

Lalasticlala front page nah

lalasticlala, obinoscopy. should be on front page not hidden in a corner of empty foreign affairs section.

evy1:
Wall street will do everything possible for Clinton to become president come novmeber.

True, Clinton is the safe and logical choice but this has been a strange and illogical election season, who could have thought Trump would be the Republican nominee a year ago or that Sanders would almost beat Clinton....The Donald is dangerous, never underestimate him

Shed a tear for Ted Cruz, the conservative who has prepared for the presidency since high school.
It's Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton, a match made in heaven.
Ignore the match up polls for now, anything could happen in November.
Cc CFCfan

Donald Trump won a resounding victory in Indiana’s Republican Primary on Tuesday, all-but winning his party’s presidential nomination and closing off the path to the nomination for Sen. Ted Cruz, his one serious remaining rival.

The result, called at 7 p.m. by the Associated Press, is a decisive milestone in the Republican primary, and it ended what was Texas Sen. Cruz’s only remaining hope to force the race into a contested convention. The Democratic race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton remained too close to call.

Cruz was set to announce he is dropping out of the Republican primary shortly after the results were called, according to a person familiar with his thinking, a shocking blow to a GOP establishment that hoped to prevent Trump from winning the nomination.

After a sweep of major victories in five Atlantic states from Rhode Island to Maryland last week and in New York the week before, Trump is in a strong position to claim the Republican nomination by the last primary in June.

The Republican primary continued its bitter tone it has taken on in recent weeks, with the candidates trading charges of desperation, dishonesty, and even questioning each other’s basic morality. Cruz spent his final day before polls closed in the state making an urgent push to block Trump from winning a victory that would virtually seal up the nomination for the billionaire businessman.

As he has campaigned in the Hoosier State this week, Cruz has engaged with pro-Trump protesters, touted his support of Second Amendment rights, and worked to sway evangelicals and Christian conservatives. At a campaign stop in Evansville, Ind., on Tuesday, Cruz criticized Trump for statements he’s made about women and his weakness with female voters, describing him as “terrified of strong women.” An Indiana

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump fired back at comments by Cruz’s father, Rafael, who called on evangelicals and constitutionalists to vote for his son and warned that “the alternative” candidate could cause “the destruction of America.

“I think it’s a disgrace that he’s allowed to do it. I think it’s a disgrace that he’s allowed to say it,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. “I’m backed by—you look at Jerry Falwell Jr. and you look at so many of the ministers that are backing me, and they’re backing me more so than they’re backing Cruz, and I’m winning the evangelical vote.”

Trump also baselessly accused Rafael Cruz of being affiliated with Lee Harvey Oswald and involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

“Let’s be clear: this is nuts. This is not a reasonable position. … This man is a pathological liar,” Cruz said from Evansville, rejecting the criticism of his father. “The man is utterly immoral.”

Several polls have showed Trump with a strong advantage in Indiana, and he has declared the Republican primary over if he wins the state’s primary, which is why the Cruz campaign’s stops in the state on Tuesday represent something of a last stand.

The Texas Senator plans to hold a rally in Indianapolis on Tuesday night, as the results come in. Trump will hold his election-night event at Trump Tower in New York City.
http://time.com/4316170/indiana-primary-results-donald-trump-ted-cruz-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-republicans/

CFCman:
I can't see past one of Adamu Mu'azu, Dankwambo, and Sule Lamido becoming the PDP nominee in 2019.

Governor Dankwambo (Gombe) also has the additional experience of being a former Accountant-general of the federation during the Obasanjo administration.

Peter Obi, due to his wealth of experience in politics and business, would be the most likely VP nominee. Someone like Okonjo Iweala has, at best, an outside chance of being on the ticket. Soludo won't be a bad choice as VP either.

The odds favour Dankwambo especially with PDP's love for ex governors. However Dankwambo has very poor name recognition and visibility despite him being regarded as easily the best performing governor in the North. For someone who wants to be President, he's way too quiet.
Heard the Jonathan camp is rooting for Ribadu, that's why they wanted him to be PDP Chairman early in the year but he declined to go for the chairmanship choosing to bide his time till 2019.
Peter Obi is certainly going to be the VP nominee

Ribadu, Dankwambo, Lamido, David Mark should start building their profile for the presidency now, Same for Peter Obi, Ekweremadu and Okonjo Iweala for VP.
Primaries are going to be fair and democratic.....The APC will likely field Elrufai who lacks Bubu's Northern popularity