Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{The BBC has seen evidence that top executives at Shell knew money paid to the Nigerian government for a vast oil field would be passed to a convicted money-launderer.

It also had reason to believe that money would be used to pay political bribes.}

The deal was concluded while Shell was operating under a probation order for a separate corruption case in Nigeria.

Shell said it did not believe its employees acted illegally.

OPL 245 is an oilfield off the coast of Nigeria whose estimated nine billion barrels of oil are worth nearly half a trillion dollars at today’s prices. Shell has been active in Nigeria for nearly 60 years and was keen to acquire the field.

New evidence shows just how far Shell was prepared to go to get its hands on it.
Standing between Shell and its prize was Dan Etete, whose company acquired the rights to OPL 245 for a tiny sum while he was oil minister of Nigeria. He was later convicted of money laundering in a different case.

Shell and the Italian oil company ENI eventually acquired OPL 245 in 2011 – by paying $1.3bn to the Nigerian government. That’s more than the entire health budget of Nigeria but it didn’t get spent on public services.

The government promptly passed on more than $1bn of the money to a company called Malabu, which was controlled by Dan Etete.

Emails obtained by anti-corruption charities Global Witness and Finance Uncovered, and seen by the BBC, show that Shell representatives were negotiating with Etete for a year before the deal was finalised.

In March 2010, an email from a former MI6 officer employed by Shell shows the company believed Etete stood to benefit from the deal.

“Etete can smell the money. If, at 70 years old, he does turn his nose up at 1.2 bill he is completely certifiable and we should then probably just hold out until nature takes its course with him.”

That email was forwarded to the then Shell chief executive Peter Voser – one of the most powerful men in the oil business – showing knowledge of Etete’s involvement went right to the top.

Representatives of Peter Voser declined to comment.

Shell also had good reason to suspect that hundreds of millions would end up in the pockets of Nigerian politicians including the former President Goodluck Jonathan.

In an email from July, the same Shell employee says Etete’s negotiating strategy is “clearly an attempt to deliver significant revenues to GLJ [Goodluck Jonathan] as part of any transaction.”

Italian prosecutors allege that $466m were laundered through a network of Nigerian bureaux de change to facilitate payments to President Jonathan and other politicians.
A spokesperson for Goodluck Jonathan told the BBC that no charges or indictments have been brought or secured against the former president relating to this transaction and described the allegations as a “false narrative”.

The BBC is still awaiting comment from Dan Etete, but in the past he has previously denied any wrongdoing.

The controversy around this deal has attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies in Italy and the Netherlands.

In February of 2016 Shell’s offices in the Hague were raided and documents removed.
On the day of the raid, the current chief executive, Ben van Beurden called the now former chief financial officer Simon Henry to discuss the raid. That call was recorded by Dutch law enforcement officials and has been heard by the BBC.

On that call, Ben van Beurden said that Shell’s own investigation had turned up correspondence from the former MI6 officers which he described as “just pub talk in emails which was stupid but nevertheless it’s there” and acknowledged they were “really unhelpful”.

{{‘Doubled down’}}

The emails the BBC has seen seem more than pub talk. They seem to show that a number of Shell executives were aware that a company controlled by Etete would ultimately receive over a billion dollars and were advised by their own employees that the money was likely to end up being paid in political kickbacks.

In a statement Shell said it did not believe that any current or former employees had acted illegally. It also said that if any payments were made by Malabu to government officials then it was done without its knowledge, authorisation or on its behalf.

ENI did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment but has previously stated it did not believe that the company or its ENI personnel had been involved in any wrongdoing.

It should be remembered that this deal was concluded just months after Shell had paid $30m to settle previous allegations of bribery in Nigeria and elsewhere.

As part of a deal to spare the company a damaging criminal conviction in that case, Shell agreed to what was, in effect, a probation order, by giving an undertaking to the US Department of Justice to tighten up its internal controls in order to stay in compliance with America’s tough anti-corruption laws.

The question for Shell is what on earth were they doing negotiating with a convicted money launderer, who they suspected might pass the money to the president, months after reaching a previous bribery settlement in the same country.

Matthew Page worked for the US State Department in Nigeria for 15 years. He told the BBC: “At a time when Shell should have been cautious having just settled a previous case, rather than walk away from a deal with clear corruption risks, they doubled down.”

Italian courts will decide whether to proceed with criminal proceedings against Shell and its partner ENI on 20 April.

Corruption may be a stubbornly regrettable fact of life in Nigeria. And it may be very difficult to drill for oil there without buying access through corrupt payments to politicians. Western companies – and their investors – have to decide if that is a price worth paying.

Law makers will have to decide whether the weapons they have to stop it are sufficient to deter it.

Source:BBC

{Somalia’s new army chief escaped a car bombing Sunday that killed at least 10 people in a bloody response by al-Shabaab militants to the president’s declaration of war on the group. }

A suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives into Ahmed Mohamed Jimale’s convoy near the defence ministry in Mogadishu, just days after he was named to the top army job Thursday by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

“Initial information indicates that the military chief has narrowly escaped the attack,” the al-Shabaab said in a statement published on the website of the jihadist group’s Andalus radio station, claiming responsibility for the blast.

Senior army official Muktar Adan Moalim said that seven civilians and three members of the security forces had been killed in the bombing.

“A minibus loaded with explosives rammed a civilian bus while trying to hit the convoy of the military chief,” he said.

This reporter reporter saw five dead bodies and body parts scattered across the scene of the explosion after the attack around midday.

Security forces blocked off the entire district around the defence ministry.

Security official Ali Abdirahman confirmed that the army chief — better known to Somalis by his nickname Irfid — was unhurt, as were other senior military leaders who had been in the convoy.

A witness, Abdirahman Isa, said the passenger bus that had been passing the scene “was completely destroyed and there were several dead bodies” which were “completely smashed and burned in the blast”.

The attack was the latest deadly incident in days, after a car bomb in Mogadishu left seven dead Wednesday, a landmine killed 19 Thursday and a mortar attack left three dead on Friday.

While the Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab have lost large swathes of territory and were forced out of Mogadishu by African Union troops in 2011, they continue to strike in the capital and countryside.

{{‘State of war’ }}

Widely known by his nickname Farmajo, the president took office in February and faces a struggle to improve security in the deeply unstable Horn of Africa nation.

Bomb attacks have become a regular and bloody feature of daily life in the capital since the Shabaab were forced out of Mogadishu six years ago.

Farmajo had told a press conference on Thursday that he was declaring a new war on the Shabaab and offering an amnesty to militants who surrendered within 60 days.
The rest, he said, would “face the consequences”.

“I am announcing a state of war in the country and call on the public to stand with the national army to help fight terrorists,” said Farmajo.

“We request you put down your arms and call on you to come out of them and join the development of your people. We promise you will get good care if you join us,” he said.

“We will not wait for the violent elements to continue blowing up people, we must attack them and liberate areas they are stationed.”

The fragile central government continues to have international backing as well as the 22,000-strong AU force.

But the al-Shabaab have vowed to defeat Farmajo’s new administration, promising a “merciless” war against him.

Source:Daily Monitor

{Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a three-month state of emergency following twin church bombings by the Islamic State group that killed dozens on Palm Sunday, the deadliest attacks on the minority in recent memory.}

The attacks in the Nile Delta cities of Tanta and Alexandria followed a Cairo church bombing in December and came weeks before a planned visit by Catholic Pope Francis intended to show support for Egypt’s Christian minority.

Sisi declared the “three-month” state of emergency, which he must present to parliament within a week, during a defiant speech warning that the war against the jihadists “will be long and painful”.

The first bombing at the Mar Girgis church in Tanta city north of Cairo killed 27 people, the health ministry said.

Emergency services had scrambled to the scene when another blast rocked St Mark’s church in Alexandria where Coptic Pope Tawadros II had been leading a Palm Sunday service.

Seventeen people including at least four police officers were killed in that attack, which the interior ministry said was caused by a suicide bomber who blew himself up when prevented from entering the church.

The ministry said Tawadros was unharmed, and a church official said he left before the explosion.

The private CBC Extra channel aired footage of the Alexandria blast, with CCTV showing what appeared to be the church entrance engulfed in flame and flying concrete moments after a guard turned a man away.

Eyewitnesses said a police officer detected the bomber before he blew himself up.
At least 78 people were wounded in Tanta and 40 in Alexandria, the health ministry said.

Egyptian officials denounced the violence as an attempt to sow divisions, and Francis sent his “deep condolences” to Tawadros.

IS claimed two Egyptian suicide bombers carried out both attacks and threatened further attacks in a statement published on social media.

After the bombings, Sisi ordered military deployments to guard “vital and important infrastructure”, his office said.

State television reported that the interior minister sacked the provincial head of security and replaced him after the attack.

“I heard the blast and came running. I found people torn up… some people, only half of their bodies remained,” Nabil Nader, who lives in front of the Tanta church, said.

At St Mark’s in Alexandria, at night the bodies were brought in wooden coffins decorated with golden crosses to the church yard where hundreds of sad and angry Copts gathered and a priest was saying prayers.

A Muslim funeral was also held in El Behira province for one of the four policemen killed in the St Mark’s attack.

Worshippers had been celebrating Palm Sunday, one of the holiest days in the Christian calendar, marking Jesus’s triumphant entrance to Jerusalem.

Egypt had been ruled under emergency law — which allows police expanded powers of arrest and surveillance — for decades before 2012.

{{Pope prays for victims}}

Pope Francis, who is due in Cairo on April 28-29, offered prayers for the victims.
“Let us pray for the victims of the attack unfortunately carried out today,” he said.

“May the Lord convert the heart of those who sow terror, violence and death and also the heart of those who make weapons and trade in them.”

Copts, who make up about one tenth of Egypt’s population of more than 92 million and who celebrate Easter next weekend, have been targeted by several attacks in recent months.

Jihadists and Islamists accuse Copts of supporting the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, which ushered in a deadly crackdown on his supporters.

In December, a suicide bombing claimed by IS killed 29 worshippers in a Cairo church.

The group later released a video threatening Egypt’s Christians with more attacks.
A spate of jihadist-linked attacks in the restive Sinai Peninsula, including the murder of a Copt in the city of El Arish, led some Coptic families to flee.

US President Donald Trump led international condemnation of Sunday’s attacks.
“So sad to hear of the terrorist attack in Egypt. US strongly condemns. I have great confidence that President Al Sisi will handle situation properly,” he tweeted.

UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed the hope that the perpetrators will be swiftly brought to justice after a Security Council statement condemned the bombings as “heinous” and “cowardly”.

{{String of attacks}}

The Cairo-based Al-Azhar, an influential Sunni Muslim authority, said the attacks aimed to “destabilise security and… the unity of Egyptians”.

Egypt’s Copts have endured successive attacks since Morsi’s ouster in July 2013.
More than 40 churches were targeted nationwide in the two weeks after the deadly dispersal by security forces of two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo on August 14 that year, Human Rights Watch said.

Sisi, who as then army chief helped remove Morsi, has defended his security forces and accused jihadists of attacking Copts in order to divide the country.

In October 2011, almost 30 people — mostly Coptic Christians — were killed outside the state television building in Cairo after the army charged at protesters denouncing the torching of a church in southern Egypt.

A few months earlier, the unclaimed New Year’s Day bombing of a Coptic church killed more than 20 people in second city Alexandria.

Source:Daily Monitor