₦airaland Forum

[size=15pt]It’s time to play by a different (ethical) set of rules (Part 13) Nigeria 7[/size]

___Even if justice takes time, be patient and never lose faith.

The International Tribunal appointed by the Chief Justice of the Federal High Court of Nigeria took four years to complete the process of arbitration. This included hearing from lawyers representing all the shareholders who had been involved in the original sale to Zain (the company from the Middle East), and also lawyers from Bharti Airtel (the company from India) that had bought Zain's shares.

The Tribunal issued its ruling on 22nd December 2011. It was a great Christmas present!

Key findings in the Tribunal's ruling:

# Econet had never ceased to be a shareholder despite the cancellation of its share certificate. We remain shareholders to this day, and those shares are now worth more than $200m.
# There was sufficient evidence that Econet had raised $1.5bn in cash to buy the shares that were sold illegally to Zain.
# The sale of shares, first to Zain of Kuwait, and then later to Airtel of India, were found to have violated Econet's rights of first refusal under the Shareholder's Agreement. The sale was declared "null and void" in law.
# The people who bought the shares (Zain and Bharti Airtel) were ordered to pay us hundreds of billions of Nigerian Naira in compensation, and damages for their violations.
# All shareholders who had supported the sale were ordered to pay compensation.
# The local shareholders who had stood with us throughout were absolved of any wrongdoing.

In short, after being presented years of evidence, the Tribunal agreed there been multiple breaches of the Shareholders Agreement.

Whilst most of the Nigerian local shareholders immediately paid the money due, Bharti Airtel and Zain refused to pay what they had been ordered to pay. This was despite the fact that all parties are supposed to accept an Arbitration ruling as final. Instead they took the unusual decision to go to court, in Nigeria, and try to overturn the decision of the international Tribunal:

First, they went to the High Court of Lagos State; it ruled in OUR favour. (October 2012)

Then, they went to the Nigerian Federal Court of Appeal; it also ruled in OUR favour, supporting previous rulings in OUR favour. (February 2014)

___We had our hearings. We were heard. We've had patience and faith, and the rule of law prevailed.

Finally, they went to the Nigerian Supreme Court. We are now waiting for their ruling. I will let you know when it comes.

In a separate ruling, the Nigerian Federal High Court and its Appeals Court dismissed the allegation that Econet had not originally paid for its shares. This allegation had been widely circulated in newspapers as the reason for our departure.

They accepted evidence that Econet paid for its shares just like all the other shareholders, calling the allegation spurious and malicious. It took 10 years to get this ruling from the courts.

Like in any major conflict, all sorts of skirmishes have taken place. We had to fight other related legal battles in England, in Denmark, and in The Netherlands (including at The Hague Court of International Arbitration).

Throughout this saga in Nigeria, I had with me a few Nigerian brethren (and sisters) who stood by me. They were prepared to risk all to ensure justice prevailed. I salute them and all who stand up to protect the rule of law.

During the long period that went by, more than 10 years, I never stopped going to Nigeria despite the threats. I never stopped investing in new things in the country that interested me. I deepened my understanding of the country. I learnt to avoid many of the pitfalls of the past. I stayed true to my deepest convictions.

__I enjoyed myself.
__I love Nigeria.

The ensuing years have also been years of unprecedented growth and expansion of our business interests in Africa and around the world. We set up businesses as far afield as New Zealand, and invested in places as far as Latin America.

Yes, we prospered and we went from strength to strength. The path of those who stand for justice is as a "shining light, getting brighter and brighter unto the perfect day…"(Proverbs 4:18)

The end.

That's Papi Luwe naa!
Aluwe!

It is low esteem that makes an ebony fellow change to ivory!

Until nigeria ditch foreign construction companies and start developing local technologies to meet nigerian problems, we are still joking!
Using local materials, Nigeria should embark on massive construction of roads and other physical infrastructures and stop inflating road construction contracts.
Then we will start!

Ntorr

Wike should be ready to relocate to Otuoke to continue to keep Patience happy!

Chief Judge of the Federal Court of Nigeria.
Hon. Justice Ukeje. 
See your life!

[size=13pt]It’s time to play by a different (ethical) set of rules (Part 12) Nigeria 6
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___Rights, wrongs, and rule of law in Africa.

If this were a movie, I can only give you a trailer...

When we set up the company in Nigeria, all 22 shareholders had to sign an agreement governing our relationship, known as a Shareholders Agreement. This was April 2001.

The purpose of a Shareholders Agreement is to protect the shareholders' investment in the company. It sets out the shareholders’ rights and obligations and regulates the sales of shares in the company. It also governs how a company is run and seeks to establish fair and transparent relationships between shareholders. Any company with more than one shareholder should ideally have such an agreement.

Among the most important issues for us was to ensure legal compliance with two specific provisions:

1. What do shareholders do if they want to sell, transfer or dispose their shares in the company and get out?

Answer: They must first offer them to another member. They can only sell them to an outsider if the other members either decline or fail to pay within 30 days.

2. How do shareholders resolve any disputes between members involving the company?

Answer: Any aggrieved party must ask for Arbitration (rather than go to court). According to our Shareholders Agreement, a three-member international commercial arbitration panel had to be appointed by The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court of Nigeria. The decision of this panel was to be final and binding on signatory parties to the Shareholder Agreement.

When the other shareholders, led by Delta State Governor James Ibori, decided to throw us out of the company, they did two things that violated the provisions in our Shareholders Agreement, as well as Nigerian law:

1. They "cancelled" our shares and removed our name from the share register of the company. No one has power to do this except a court and usually only the highest court in a country, as it is tantamount to expropriation of property rights. They did it anyway and dared us to go to court. We did, and it took us exactly 10 years to reverse what they did. The judges of the courts of Nigeria were harsh in their criticism of this decision by the other shareholders. They called it "disgraceful.” It was a form of gangsterism!

2. They did not offer us the right of first refusal. Instead they offered their shares to a third party (a company from the Middle East) without first offering them to us as an existing shareholder. Of course, in their minds, it was not necessary because they had first "cancelled" our shares.

___There's no legal right for other shareholders to say, "We no longer recognise you as a shareholder," then hold private meetings and make resolutions as if you don't exist. (Protection of shareholder rights is sacrosanct if we want to mobilise investment and see the people of our continent prosper. Otherwise the whole investment climate is thrown up in the air!)

To right these wrongs, we first had to approach the Chief Judge of the Federal Court of Nigeria. Her name was Hon. Justice Ukeje. She inexplicably refused to grant our request for nearly five years. When she retired in 2008, we petitioned her successor Hon. Justice Mustapha. He granted our request and appointed a three-member international panel of legal experts to serve on the Tribunal. Two of them, including a retired judge, were Nigerian. It took him less than three months to make the appointments, for which we have waited nearly five years!

This Commercial Arbitration Tribunal was constituted under the auspices of the UN Commission for International Trade Law. The Tribunal ordered all the shareholders to appear before them with their lawyers.

It took almost four years of hearing evidence and arguments from lawyers and financial experts. We counted that there were more than 50 lawyers involved in the case, many of them from Europe and the United Kingdom, as well as leading lawyers from Nigeria.

The Tribunal issued its ruling on 22 December 2011.

To be continued. . .

I will only take them serious if they provide a true unlimited broadband with no data cap for less than 10k!

So when I'm in nigeria I can watch my Roku!
Bye bye to DSTV

kettykin:
Very shameful, how do they hope to tackle the biafran forces that are swifter, faster, deadlier and more courageous than boko haram if external countries remain neutral

Take a bow and go?

Nigeria will never break!
Goodluck Jonathan had the opportunity to dismember this union and he balked!
It will never happen!
The elites has more to gain in nigerian than its pieces!

These people are not going to heaven o!

So I saw this movie yesterday and it was followed by a Q&A with Cary Fukunaga.

Some things that I thought were interesting from that Q&A:

-Cary specifically stated that they were really focused on working with the local Ghana actors and child actors (where they shot the film) but the number was low so they starting scouting for kids everywhere they thought kids would gather (orphanages, after-school programs, parks, soccer fields, etc).

-Abraham (Agu) was scouted when he was playing soccer one day. He actually showed up to rehearsal because he thought that he was being scouted for a soccer team.

-There were around 30-40 scouted kids that went through an intensive acting workshop and Abraham was always the one who stood out after each workshop.

-Abraham's 1st kill was actually a scouting director who didn't find anyone and Cary said that the role was his punishment for not finding anyone.

-Preparing for Agu's 1st kill was actually very technical. There was a tube of blood sticking out of the man's head (removed in post) and the machete actually wasn't there (also added in post). The audience I was a part of was really focused on how this might've impacted Abraham so Cary repeatedly said that they explained everything to Abraham and his parents and that in the moment, with all of its technicality, it isn't as violent as it's edited.

-Cary got malaria while filming and other crew got gross parasites and sick.

-Idris Elba got involved with Beasts in 2013. Cary had a brief conference call with him right before going off to shoot the long shot of True Detective.

-Filming took 7 weeks

-Initial budget of film was 4mil and it went up to 8mil and they had to persuade financiers to give an additional 50%.

-Initial script had Agu killing the Commandant but Cary changed it because he felt like it was too neat and easy. He also said that he felt it was appropriate that there was an uncertainty and fear that the Commandant was out there somewhere.

-Worst parts of filming: weather - it would rain suddenly and for long periods of time. Unstable electrical power when filming.

-He knew for sure he wanted to film in West Africa but certain countries were uninsurable (Sierra Leone was one I remember him mentioning).

And that's all I remember for now but I'll edit my post if I remember any other questions.

EDIT 1: Audience asked about Cary Fukunaga movie commentary or physical DVD release. Netflix spokesperson who was there said that there are no plans for a physical release and any new/additional content would be released through Netflix.

I just watched the film and I must confess, the cinematography is brilliant but the film is very sad.
Good job welldone by Idris Elba and that boy Agu.

I liked it a lot. It kinda loses something seeing it online streaming but at the same time I feel like it's good to be seeing it at home because you can take breathers.

There was a great scene towards the middle which was a long 4 minute shot of the kids taking a building which culminated in Agu thinking a random woman was his mother and what happens after. To me that was kinda the crescendo of the film. I really liked that scene and I wish there were more like it.

I would say it was good but I felt that the violence was kinda underplayed for a war movie. Some of the cuts were really great. I liked the transitions of time with the Commandant waiting to be seen by his commander. I also feel like he arranged to have Spoiler 2nd-I-C killed because he was going to take over.

I didn't mind the lack of specificity to the region and conflict because it felt universal. I expected more scenes from Idris Elda but it was still really good.

I just feel like aside from the Attah's really genuine performance that there wasn't really anything that blew me away like some people were hyping it up. But it was still an interesting, thoughtful and heartbreaking movie.

Give that man a Darwin award!

When did vanguard newspaper becomes the voice of radio biafra?
How are the mighty fallen!

And some people are clamoring for this thief, Ibori to be released!
And they are even planning to give him a royal welcome,
What a shame!

[size=13pt]It’s time to play by a different (ethical) set of rules (Part 11) Nigeria 5
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___The long arm of the law.



Abraham Lincoln once observed, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to see a man's character give him power."



As governor of the oil-rich Delta State in Nigeria, James Ibori had a great deal of power. What he did with some of his power was blatantly steal from the Nigerian people. Public money meant for building schools, health clinics, roads, etc. was instead diverted by slick operators to several personal overseas bank accounts across the globe.



As a public sector official, Governor Ibori had a constitutional responsibility to administer state resources to benefit the people of Delta State. Instead, he even tried to bribe the Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission!


In addition to trying to solicit bribes from me, and successfully extracting them from others, another crime was to steal about 10% of the share payments that SHOULD have gone into Delta State coffers. This was a lot of loot so as usual he decided to stash it overseas



___As I’ve told you before, to track the trail of destruction that is corruption… Follow the money!


Unbeknownst to him at the time, the British government had passed a similar law to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, known as the British Anti-Bribery Act. Although he had been under investigation since 2005, when Mr Ibori decided to divert some of the stolen funds to London, the UK bank receiving the money alerted the authorities, as they are required to on such large amounts.


Mr Ibori managed to elude justice for a while because he had immunity as a state governor. Even when his term ended, he was still protected by powerful people in President Yar'Aduah's government. However, when President Yar’Aduah died, Mr Ibori knew he would be arrested under warrant from Britain because the London lawyer (and accomplice) Bhadresh Gohil had exposed the truth.

Mr Ibori fled to Dubai but the British traced him there and used Interpol to arrest him and bring him to the UK for trial.

In February 2012 he pleaded guilty because his associates including Mr Gohil had already pleaded guilty to money laundering, implicating him in several crimes. He eventually pleaded guilty to 10 offenses including conspiracy to launder funds from the state, money laundering and obtaining money transfer by deception and fraud. In April 2012, Mr Ibori was sentenced to 13 years.


___This was a stunning victory in the fight against corruption.

We will not end corruption on this continent unless we are prepared to pay a price to end it! This means that you and I must be prepared to lose what may appear to be the deal of our lives. And let me tell you, when it is happening it is never easy; of course, it is hard.

Jesus said, "What is it for a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul?"

If you engage in corruption, you will likely become rich, probably very rich, with all the material things in this life. Most likely you will never be caught like the hapless Ibori, and his advisors, BUT, The Master said, "YOU WILL LOSE YOUR SOUL."

To be continued . . .

ochejoseph:
The world Has not been fair to this woman nor her family.......

Its quite heartbreaking!

The blacks really suffered in America o!
I'm presently reading her biography, "The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Its an unbelievable read.
Wow!

yanabasee:


Poor thang!

The woman has actually blessed the world more when she was dead than alive!
If you had taken polio vaccine?
You have this woman to thank for that!

Sometimes ago, i was in biomedical field and I must confess I never knew of the HeLa cells!
The story is wow to me!

[size=13pt]In 1951 a poor woman's cells were taken without permission, and they revolutionised medicine[/size]

https://www.sciencealert.com/images/art-jan-15/henrietta2-8368209e906e72d5bc86dab0ba831c877ba8693a-s1100-c15.jpg

Henrietta Lacks' immortal cells are one of the most important and prolific tools in medicine, used in developing the polio vaccine, cloning and gene mapping.

Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old mother of five when she died of cervical cancer on 4 October 1951. While the poor tobacco farmer was being treated at the John Hopkins Hospital, two samples of her cervix were removed - a healthy part and a cancerous part - without her permission or knowledge.

These cells were passed onto Dr George Otto Gey, who discovered they could do something never seen before in humans cells - be kept alive and keep growing indefinitely. Before this, cultured cells had only survived a few days in the lab.

Gey was able to isolate one specific cell and start the first ever immortal cell line,which he named HeLa after Henrietta. 

Since then these cells have been exposed to toxins, viruses and raidation, sent into space and replicated countless times. They've been involved in thousands of medical breakthroughs and helped to develop the polio vaccine, cloning and gene mapping. 

Scientists have grown around 20 tons of HeLa cells, and there are almost 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells. One researcher has estimated that if you laid all the HeLa cells in existence end-to-end, they'd wrap around the planet at least three times.

In 2010, a tube of HeLa cells was sellingfor around US$260. But unfortunately Henrietta's family were never compensated for her donation and most of them could't afford health insurance.

Journalist Rebecca Skloot wrote a best-selling book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks on the subject in 2010. 

After reading it, Dr Roland Pattillo of the Morehouse School of Medicine in the US donated a headstone for Lacks. For decades, her grave had been unmarked. 

The headstone, which is shaped like a book, reads:

Henrietta Lacks, August 01, 1920 – October 04, 1951.

In loving memory of a phenomenal woman, wife and mother who touched the lives of many.

Here lies Henrietta Lacks (HeLa). Her immortal cells will continue to help mankind forever.

Eternal Love and Admiration, From Your Family

Thank you, Henrietta.


http://www.sciencealert.com/in-1951-a-poor-womans-cells-were-taken-without-permission-and-they-revolutionised-medicine

jaxxy:
FG might end up making this man d Mandela of the East! Hmmm

I thought Jonathan was the Mandela of the east?

Ngasky:
You people claim you are strong and determined. Oya go and rescue him from the DSS. Are you not ready to stage a grand prison break?
Kanu will now understand the kind of cowards that are pushing him to commit suicide.
Lets see the Igbos that will dare come to rescue him

Dont mind them!
At least Boko haram get liver pass them!
Do you know how many times, Boko raided military Barracks and DSS offices to release their people?
Make Ipob launch attack and release Kanu naa!
It's only then will I take them serious!
Presently , they are a bunch of jobless jokers!

billyG:
May he die of HIV.

How many of those names you mentioned, established a radio station to sponsor hate messages and propaganda against a state?
And how many of them are actively and openly going about to carry them out?
You can't step on a hornets nest and hope not to be bitten!

And the Darwin's award goes to ...

FYI
The Darwin Awards commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives: by eliminating themselves in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, thereby improving our species' chance of long-term survival. In other words, they are cautionary tales about people who kill themselves in really stupid ways, and in doing so, significantly improve the gene pool by eliminating themselves from the human race.

Oba kole pe meji laafin!

These people don't learn anything!