Tuesday 16th December 2008

 Opposition slams PDP over victory statement
 Legal battle over gas flaring
JTF warns it won’t tolerate trouble in Delta    
 Officials to brief on naira fall
NNPC blamed for losing millions
Inflation rises to 14.8% on food
Hostage watch
 And then there’s this…

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Opposition slams PDP over victory statement 

“If the PDP had been a party of genuine democrats, the party would have known that democracy thrives better when there is a virile and responsible opposition”

Nigeria’s most vocal opposition political party, the Action Congress (AC), has described as ‘typically ungracious and demeaning’; the reaction of ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the victory handed to President Yar’Adua by the Supreme Court on Friday.

AC said in a statement that by asking Abubakar and Buhari to defect to the PDP just because they ‘lost’ their challenge against the ruling party’s electoral heist, the PDP, “who made the satanic offer”, was trampling on the nation’s democracy and seeking to impose a one-party rule on the country.

“If the PDP had been a party of genuine democrats, the party would have known that democracy thrives better when there is a virile and responsible opposition, the type our party and its leaders have been providing. To ask such leaders to now jump on a train that is going nowhere is the greatest disservice anyone can do to our democracy. That such a statement came from the supposed largest party in Africa shows the hollowness of such claims,” AC said.

According to the party, the ruling from the Supreme Court calls for sober reflection, not infantile comments, because the dissenting judges, whose views represented equity, fairness, justice and rare courage did not mince words in declaring the result of the 21 April 2007 presidential election invalid, because the process that led to it was fatally flawed.

Legal battle over gas flaring 

Communities in the Niger Delta are bracing up for a sustained legal battle in 2009 with oil majors as the deadline for the stoppage of gas flaring expires this month.  Acting in collaboration with local environmental rights advocacy groups, such as the Environmental Rights Action (ERA), whose director, Nnimmo Bassey, was recently elected chairperson of Friends of the Earth International, a global federation of environmental
rights advocacy groups and the Stakeholder Democracy Network, oil producing communities in the region are being sensitised on the need for oil companies to adhere to the 31 December, 2008 deadline on gas flaring. ‘There are presently Bills before both the Senate and the House of
Representatives that seek to enforce proposed fines and effectively ban routine gas flaring in Nigeria,’ said Gaia Sprocati, a co-ordinator for one of the civil society groups.

He argued that there were major local and international gains that could be made from ending gas flaring in Nigeria, adding that ‘we would recommend it as an area of priority for all leaders, who can wield influence on the various parties involved’.

JTF warns it won’t tolerate trouble in Delta    

The Joint Task Force (JTF) yesterday strengthened security around communities and oil facilities in Escravos, Delta State, following growing tension between the Ijaw and the Itsekiri over the ownership of a tiny Ijalagha community in Warri South West Local Government Area.

The Ijaw of Gbaramatu Kingdom and their Itsekiri neighbours are laying claims to the little town – a development residents fear could undermine the relative peace in the area. The Ijaw have accused their Itsekiri neighbours of beating the drums of war over their claim to the community, adding that it would be resisted.

The JTF has warned the parties to resolve their differences peacefully saying that any threat to peace would not be tolerated. JTF’s spokesperson Lt.-Col. Rabe Abubakar advised the Ijaw and the Itsekiri to learn from their
past experiences, saying “it is better to jaw-jaw than to war”.

Officials to brief on naira fall

Nigeria’s top economic officials will meet with key lawmakers today to discuss the naira’s swift depreciation against the U.S. dollar, which has
rattled foreign investors.  The Central Bank Governor and the Finance Minister are expected to brief the Senate Finance Committee about how
the government is responding to the naira’s 16% fall against the dollar in the last few weeks.

Background:  The central bank has allowed the naira, broadly stable against the dollar for months, to tumble to around 135.50 from 117,
causing the interbank foreign exchange market to effectively shut down. The central bank said on Thursday it would boost its activity in the
interbank market, participating on a daily basis instead of the usual twice weekly, to stabilise the currency.

Comment:  Economists say it is in Nigeria’s interests for the local currency to fall as the country tries to mitigate the effects of lower global demand for crude, which is eating into its foreign earnings.  A weaker naira gives the government greater spending power in naira terms for every dollar earned, which will help to manage an ever widening deficit.  Forex dealers are due to meet to take a position on problems afflicting the market.

NNPC blamed for losing millions

Nigeria has recorded a drop in revenue of about N177.62 billion following the crash in oil prices on the international market, according to the
Technical sub-committee of the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FACC).  The loss is said to have been caused by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) withholding its revenue from the Federation Account.

Revenue collection by the NNPC is estimated to account for about 90% of the total revenue accruing to the Federation Account every month,
which is distributed amongst the three tiers of government.

The revenue agencies including the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) were said to have remitted their November revenue collections into the Federation Account before last Thursday but the same could not be said of the NNPC, which was said to withholding its collections.  The NNPC was said to have held up the FAAC meeting as revenues from both domestic and foreign sale of crude oil in November in its care were not paid into the Federation Account at the Cental Bank of Nigeria.

Factoid:  The revenue that accrued to the Federation Account from oil, slumped from N530.86 billion in October to N353.34 billion in November.

Inflation rises to 14.8% on food 

The inflation rate in country has risen to 14.8% in November, from 14.7% the previous month, as food prices increased, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics said in a statement on its Web site. 

The rise in the index was caused by a marginal increase in the prices of staple foods such as maize, yam, guinea corn, millet, meat, fruit and
vegetables, the agency said. 

Comment:  Inflation in Nigeria is surging, contrary to a central bank forecast of a declining rate after good rains earlier in the year improved food harvests. The central bank left the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 9.75 percent on Dec.

Hostage watch

Today marks Day 99  in captivity for two British hostages

Today marks Day 99  in captivity for the following men….  Militants are currently holding two British citizens and are refusing to release them until the Federal Government frees Henry Okah, who is on trial facing charges which include treason and gun running. 

MEND, ‘rescued’ the men after they were taken from a vessel, the HD Ocean Blue by gunmen on 9 September.  See Chief’s Briefs 10.09.08.  

Chief’s Briefs Team:  this is not a record that we ever wanted to see broken but………. the milestone of 98 days as a hostage now equals the longest period of detainment of expatriates we have recorded since we started tracking incidents and abduction on OOL.  The previous record holders were two Italian nationals employed by Agip who were held for exactly this number of days.  MEND were responsible for their capture also.  The men were released in January 2007. 

For a breakdown of hostage numbers, incidents and locations – view our abduction databases here.  Archives date back to 2006

Also – a man was taken from his vehicle on 1 December in the border region of Rivers and Bayelsa States.  A ransom has been demanded.  His employers are being very tight lipped about this incident and are releasing no information at all – not even his nationality. See Chief’s Briefs 02.12.08

1 Russian and 1 Mexican were taken from the Oceanic Orion.  The Russian man who is the captain of the vessel is believed to have been shot and wounded in the attack. See Chief’s Briefs 04.12.08

And then there’s this…

 
MEND want Julius Berger back in Niger Delta

Politicians, Youth leaders and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) yesterday indicated their resolve to write to
the Federal Government on the refusal of the construction giant, Julius Berger, to return to project sites along the Bayelsa-Rivers State axis of
the ailing East-West road after months of assurances and plea. Julius Berger, six months ago, following persistent acts of violence and
abduction of its expatriate staff, withdrew all personnel from the Niger Delta region with no indications of if/when they would return.

One national newspaper claims that the sympathy of the state governments of Rivers and Bayelsa towards the construction company’s harassment from armed militias is now turning to anger over its refusal to return to sites.

Chief’s Briefs Team:  In our hostage watch, we outlined the ‘wheres and whens’ of some of the more recent abductions of expatriates in the Niger Delta. All of the incidents currently listed happened in either Rivers or Bayelsa states.  
So…  MEND is going to write to the government?  About what?  Perhaps if they stopped targeting workers in the region – specifically companies like JB who build roads and schools that actually benefit the people they claim to be fighting for – then maybe this company, and others, might consider returning.

When are the officials of both these states going to get serious about security and stop blaming companies for refusing to put their staff in the firing line?  And when will MEND realise that they helped create the current monster.  Did the militants and the ministers think that Julius Berger would just forget about the number of attacks, assaults and abductions it has had to endure over the past two years or what?