Panama Papers: Nigerian Aliko Dangote, Africa’s Richest Man, Facing Scrutiny

Business magnate man Aliko Dangote, ranked by Forbes Magazine as the richest man in Africa, speaks during a send off ceremony of 250 Nigerian health workers on a mission to fight Ebola virus in affected West African countries and launch of African initiative operating under the hash tag #AfricaAgainstEbola in Lagos on December 3, 2014. Two hundred and fifty volunteer Nigerian medical corps under the auspices of the African Union Support to Ebola Outbreak in West Africa (ASEOWA)  were given a send off to fight Ebola Virus Diseases in the affected three West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The African Union, which is collaborating with the private sector to raise funds to support and strengthen the Unions response to the crises, is sending more than 1000 health workers before Christmas. AFP PHOTO/PIUS UTOMI EKPEI        (Photo credit should read PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images)
According to Premium Times, Dangote (pictured) along with his half-brother Sayyu Dantata, both bought shares in 2003 in Ovlas S.A., a shell company registered in the Seychelles. A company co-owned by Dangote and Dantata, MRS Oil and Gas Co. Limited, also bought shares in the Seychelles-based company at the same time.

 

BY  (Newsweek) – The head of Africa’s largest cement producer, Aliko Dangote has built his substantial fortune upon solid foundations.

But these could be shaken following the Panama Papers leak, which involved the disclosure of 11.5 million confidential tax documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Dangote has become one of several high-profile Nigerians— including Senate President Bukola Saraki and disgraced former Delta state governor James Ibori—to be implicated in the leak, which exposed how the world’s rich and famous use offshore facilities and shell companies to hide their wealth. The use of offshore shell companies is not necessarily illegal but is often a tactic employed to avoid paying tax.

Ranked as Africa’s richest man by Forbes in 2015 and currently worth an estimated $17.3 billion, Dangote—the chief executive of the Dangote Group—has been closely linked to at least four offshore shell companies—and as many as 13 through his family and business associates—according to Nigeria’s Premium Times, a reporting partner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which broke the leak.

According to Premium Times, Dangote along with his half-brother Sayyu Dantata, both bought shares in 2003 in Ovlas S.A., a shell company registered in the Seychelles. A company co-owned by Dangote and Dantata, MRS Oil and Gas Co. Limited, also bought shares in the Seychelles-based company at the same time. The trio ceased to be shareholders in Ovlas S.A. in 2006, according to the leaked Mossack Fonseca files, but it appears that the three simply sold the shares back to themselves. In 2009, Dangote finally ceased to be a shareholder, but apparently sold his shares to Dantata and MRS.

The trio reportedly repeated a similar practice by purchasing shares in another Seychelles-based company, Petrowest S.A., also in 2003, before apparently re-selling the shares to themselves in 2006. In a confusing turn of events, the shareholders filed to change the name of Ovlas S.A. to Petrowest S.A. in 2011. Dangote was also linked to two other shell companies based in Panama—SID Holdings Corp and Chalmers Shipping Inc—and another based in the Seychelles, Paseo Trading Ltd, according to the investigation.

The Dangote Group’s spokesman, Tony Chiejina, has rebuffed any links between the Nigerian billionaire and the companies. “I wish to state categorically that neither Aliko Dangote nor Dangote Industries Ltd has any form of relationship with these alleged four offshore companies [Paseo Trading Ltd, Petrowest S.A., SID Holdings Corp, Chalmers Shipping Inc],” said Chiejina. “The Group has four quoted companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and cannot afford to tarnish our reputation or conduct our business in an unethical manner given this profile.”

Despite such denials, however, the alleged links are likely to raise questions for Dangote, whose group is currently undertaking a $14 billion project to build an oil refinery in Lagos that has beentouted as the solution to Nigeria’s fuel crisis.

Dangote was born in the northern Nigerian city of Kano and has previously expressed an interest intaking over English football club Arsenal. He is held in high regard in Nigeria and aided the government’s response to the Ebola virus, with his group donating $150 million in 2014 to stop the deadly virus spreading in the West African nation. Dangote has, however, previously faced scrutiny following the Swiss Leaks scandal of February 2015. A leak from HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary revealed that scores of high-profile world figures were operating secretive accounts with the bank to evade tax. Dangote was found to have opened an account with HSBC’s Swiss arm in 2003 and the account was registered to a company located in the British Virgin Islands, though it was never proven that Dangote used the account to evade tax.

South Africa: Dlamini-Zuma to step down from AU ahead of possible ANC leadership bid

African Union chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, pictured at the Valletta Summit on Migration in Matla, November 12, 2015, is stepping down from her role in July.
African Union chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, pictured at the Valletta Summit on Migration in Matla, November 12, 2015, is stepping down from her role in July.

By Conor Gaffey (Newsweek) – The African Union’s chairwoman is to step down in July amid speculation she could take over from her ex-husband Jacob Zuma as the head of South Africa’s ruling party.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who previously served as home and foreign minister in South Africa, will not seek to renew her leadership of the continental organization, which she has led since 2012, Reuters reported. Dlamini-Zuma’s spokesperson, Jacob Enoh Eben, said the decision was personal and did not give any further details.

Dlamini-Zuma was married to the embattled South African president for 26 years until 1998 and remains on good terms with her husband, whom she served under as home minister between 2009 and 2012. Zuma survived an impeachment motion in the South African parliament on Monday and the African National Congress (ANC) has given the president its full backing. This came after a ruling from South Africa’s highest court that Zuma had failed to uphold the constitution after ignoring a 2014 report by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela ordering him to pay back some of the costs of state-funded upgrades to his Nkandla homestead, which cost an estimated 246 million rand ($23 million at the time).

There is speculation, however, that the party could choose to replace its leader depending on its success in local government elections across South Africa scheduled for August. “There is no doubt that some behind-doors lobbying on her [Dlamini-Zuma’s] behalf is already underway,” Mcebisi Ndletyana, associate professor of political science at the University of Johannesburg, told AFP.

The ANC will hold its elective conference in 2017, when the party will choose its leader and de facto candidate for the next presidential elections, due to take place in 2019. Zuma is bound by South Africa’s constitution to step down in 2019, as he will have served two consecutive terms. Dlamini-Zuma is seen as a party heavyweight untainted by the Nkandla scandal, but she would have to defeat Zuma’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC’s second-in-command who is likely to run for the party leadership.

South Africa’s Winnie Madikizela-Mandela fails to inherit home

Ms Madikizela-Mandela grew apart from Nelson Mandela during his many years in prison
Ms Madikizela-Mandela grew apart from Nelson Mandela during his many years in prison

Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife has lost her legal bid for ownership of the former president’s rural home in South Africa.

A High Court dismissed Winnie Madikizela-Mandela’s application and ordered her to pay all legal costs.

She argued that the house in Qunu village belonged to her under customary law.

Mr Mandela, who became South Africa’s first black president in 1994, bequeathed the property to his family when he died in 2013 aged 95.

The government opposed Ms Madikizela-Mandela’s bid to inherit the home after she launched court action in 2014.

Mr Mandela divorced Ms Madikizela-Mandela in 1996 after a 38-year marriage, and left her out of his will.

They were South Africa’s most celebrated political couple until their marriage collapsed unexpectedly, some six years after his release from 27 years in prison for fighting apartheid, which legalised discrimination against black people in the country.

Mr Mandela stepped down as president after one term in 1999.

South Africans regarded him as the “father of the nation”, and his death, following a series of hospital visits, led to an outpouring of emotions.

2,000 hostages freed as African troops close in on Boko Haram

Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin established a joint military force last year to combat the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers killed at least 300 Boko Haram militants and liberated at least 2,000 people during security operations. File photo by Oleg Zabielin/Shutterstock
Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Benin established a joint military force last year to combat the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers killed at least 300 Boko Haram militants and liberated at least 2,000 people during security operations. File photo by Oleg Zabielin/Shutterstock

ABUJA, Nigeria, April 6 (UPI) — At least 2,000 hostages were freed and more than 300 Islamist militants killed as government troops closed in on Boko Haram in northern Nigeria.

The regional security operation took place Sunday and Monday in and surrounding Nigeria’s northern town of Walassa, near the Cameroon border. Cameroon is part of a 8,700-strong coalition with Benin, Chad, Nigeria and Niger, united in the fight against Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in March 2015.

Cameroonian soldiers of the Multinational Joint Task Force and Nigerian Army soldiers from the 152nd battalion also destroyed a Boko Haram logistics base where explosives were manufactured. The operation seeks to flush out Boko Haram militants from hideouts along the borders of Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

“We recovered several weapons, destroyed vehicles, generators and other war materials,” Cameroonian Gen. Bouba Dobekreo said Tuesday.

Dobekreo said 17 villages had been freed and that his forces are prepared to eradicate the Boko Haram threat.

Nigeria’s defense headquarters recently established a camp to rehabilitate former Boko Haram members. The effort, called Operation Safe Corridor, is “geared toward rehabilitating and reintegrating the repentant and surrendering Boko Haram members back into normal life in the society,” Nigerian Army public relations Brig. Gen. Rabe Abubakar said in a statement.

Boko Haram was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2013. The militant Islamic group seeks to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria and has ruthlessly targeted civilians.

Parents of missing Nigeria schoolgirls hope 2 year event reminds world of their fate

chibok2

By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani  | Thomson Reuters Foundation

ABUJA, Nigeria (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Nigerian officials gave permission on Tuesday for a memorial event at a school in northeast Nigeria from where Islamist rebels abducted 276 girls two years ago with parents hoping this would remind the world their daughters are still missing.

The event, a prayer session integrating both Muslim and Christian faiths, will mark the second anniversary of the girls’ abduction by Boko Haram militants from Chibok that provoked an international outcry and a viral campaign #bringbackourgirls.

It will be held on April 14 – exactly two years since Boko Haram fighters stormed the Government Secondary School in Chibok in the middle of the night and kidnapped 276 girls. In total 57 managed to escape but 219 remain missing.

Lawan Zanna, secretary of the Parents of the Abducted Girls from Chibok association, said the government had agreed to give the parents access to the school that is heavily guarded and all the parents of the missing girls are expected to attend.

The parents were hoping the event would again garner attention for the girls who have not been seen since the night of their abduction despite calls to find them from celebrities and politicians including U.S. first lady Michelle Obama.

“We have also invited all the government officials from Chibok .. and they also promised to allow any person from the media to join us,” Zanna, whose 18-year-old daughter is among the missing girls, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of boys and girls in northeast Nigeria over the past seven years, turning them into cooks, sex slaves, fighters, and even suicide bombers to attack their own villages, according to Amnesty International.

But the Chibok abduction remains the most high-profile.

On the first anniversary of the abduction the parents held a memorial event at the school but then a military checkpoint was then set up outside the school and the area ruled out of bounds.

Visitors are required to seek official permission from the government or the military to get access to the school and also to Chibok town.

The parents received permission to use the venue for this year’s event on Tuesday after three representatives of the parents’ association met with government officials.

In March last year, the previous Nigerian government of President Goodluck Jonathan began work on rebuilding the school that was razed by the militants on the night of the abduction.

But weeks later Jonathan was forced from power by Muhammadu Buhari in a national election and no buildings have yet been erected on the school site.

Buhari ordered a new investigation into the kidnappings in January. [nL8N14Y501]

Panama Papers heap pressure on Nigeria Senate chief facing trial

Saraki is alleged to have failed to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin's name that appear in the leaked documents, according to the investigation's media partner Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.
Saraki is alleged to have failed to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin’s name that appear in the leaked documents, according to the investigation’s media partner Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.

Lagos (AFP) – Embattled Nigerian Senate president Bukola Saraki on Tuesday brushed off allegations of wrongdoing concerning his wife’s offshore assets revealed in the Panama Papers, as he went on trial in Abuja on fraud charges.

The latest graft claim to hit the senate president emerged from the “Panama Papers” investigation into a trove of 11.5 million tax documents leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in creating offshore shell companies.

Saraki is alleged to have failed to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin’s name that appear in the leaked documents, according to the investigation’s media partner Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.

Under Nigerian law, it is mandatory for the president, the vice-president, state governors and their deputies to declare their assets along with those of their wife and children under 18 when they take office and before stepping down.

But Saraki said he did not do anything illegal and argued that the assets are listed as part of his wife’s “family estate”.

“I’ve fully complied with (the) law on asset declaration,” Saraki said in a statement issued on Monday and posted on his website.

“The law does not require a public officer to declare assets held by the spouse’s family,” Saraki’s spokesman Yusuph Olaniyonu said.

“It is public knowledge that Mrs Saraki comes from a family of independent means and wealth with numerous and varied assets acquired over decades in family estates and investments.”

– Huge payments –

Saraki’s corruption trial finally got under way before the Code of Conduct Tribunal in Abuja on Tuesday after months of delays.

He faces charges including false declaration of assets while he was governor of the western state of Kwara from 2003 to 2011, all charges that he denies.

Michael Wetkas, head of the team that investigated Saraki at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, took the stand as the first prosecution witness, telling the court Saraki had made massive payments into private company accounts.

He used the deposits to repay personal loans from a local commercial bank and purchased property in Nigeria and abroad, Wetkas said.

Wetkas also said Saraki had laundered money through his British and US Bank accounts and failed to properly declare most of the assets.

Between 2005 and 2013, his Nigerian account had a total inflow and outflow of up to 4 billion naira ($20 million, 17.6 million euros), Wetkas said, with the local bank loan being the major source of the inflow.

A trained physician and former banker, the senate president is considered Nigeria’s third most senior politician behind President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

Yet anti-corruption campaigners fear that the powerful politician will, like others before him, outmanoeuvre the law.

“The latest revelation about Saraki’s family should not surprise anybody,” Debo Adeniran, chairman of the Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders lobby group, told AFP of the Panama Papers leaks.

“We suggest that the Nigerian anti-graft agencies should collaborate with their foreign partners to move against Saraki and make him accountable,” Adeniran added.

“If Saraki escapes the Nigerian laws because of the loopholes and leniency in our laws, the international community should not allow him to escape.

“He should get the Ibori’s treatment,” Adeniran said, referring to the case of former Delta state governor James Ibori who was acquited in Nigeria on corruption charges but jailed in London for a similar offence.

Several high-profile politicians are currently standing trial as part of Buhari’s drive to tackle endemic corruption in Nigeria, Africa’s largest crude producer and biggest economy.

South Africa: ANC backs Zuma ahead of impeachment vote

African National Congress (ANC) secretary Gwede Mantashe addresses the media in Johannesburg, April 1. The ANC offered its backing to President Jacob Zuma ahead of a parliamentary debate on whether the president should be impeached.
African National Congress (ANC) secretary Gwede Mantashe addresses the media in Johannesburg, April 1. The ANC offered its backing to President Jacob Zuma ahead of a parliamentary debate on whether the president should be impeached.

BY   |  Newsweek/

South Africa’s governing party have backed President Jacob Zuma, ahead of an upcoming vote to impeach him.

The motion to remove Zuma from office—which is being spearheaded by the main opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA)—came after South Africa’s top court ruled that Zuma had failed to uphold the constitution in a scandal relating to state-funded improvements on his homestead in Nkandla, in the coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal.

The Constitutional Court ruling concerned Zuma’s failure to heed a 2014 report by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, which found that the president had “benefited unduly” from upgrades to his home—including a swimming pool and cattle ranch—that cost an estimated 246 million rand ($23 million at the time) and that the president should pay back some of the funds. Zuma apologized live on television on Friday for the “frustration and confusion” the Nkandla scandal had caused and said he would comply with the court’s ruling.

After meeting in Cape Town on Monday, top ANC officials accepted Zuma’s apology and offered the president their full support. ANC General Secretary Gwede Mantashe said that the party wanted to see the Constitutional Court ruling “implemented to the letter” but insisted that the ruling did not mean that the president had broken his oath of office, according to South Africa’s Times Live news site.

Veteran ANC figures, including Ahmed Kathrada —who was jailed alongside Nelson Mandela in 1964 for trying to overthrow the apartheid government—have called on Zuma to resign in the wake of the scandal. Mantashe said that the ANC would engage with dissident voices in the party in the wake of the decision to back Zuma.

The motion to impeach Zuma is to be debated in South Africa’s Parliament on Tuesday, but is unlikely to pass due to the ANC’s massive majority—Zuma’s party controls 249 out of 400 seats in the National Assembly and a two-thirds majority is required by the opposition for the motion to pass. DA leader Mmusi Maimane told Newsweek that ANC assembly members must stand “in defense of the constitution” and vote to impeach Zuma.

Zuma’s potential impeachment gained traction on social media on Tuesday, with numerous South Africans calling for the president to be removed from his post:

South African Parliament to Debate Impeaching President Zuma

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South Africa’s parliament will open debate Tuesday on an opposition motion to impeach President Jacob Zuma for violating the constitution.

The Constitutional Court ruled last week that Zuma “failed to uphold, defend, and respect the constitution” by failing to pay back some of the public funds he used to make improvements on his private home.

More than $20 million in remodeling included adding a swimming poll, an amphitheater and a fenced-in area for cattle.

The federal anti-corruption office ordered Zuma to repay the money spent on renovations unrelated to security.

Zuma said in a televised address to the nation last week that he “never knowingly or deliberately set out to violate the constitution, which is the supreme law of the republic.”

He made no mention of the scandal during a rally Sunday to announce aid for drought-stricken areas.

Zuma’s ruling African National Congress dominates parliament and any effort to impeach him will likely fail.

Previous efforts to impeach Zuma or force him from office were also voted down.

Cameroon: Joint forces arrest 300 Boko Haram fighters

Cameroonian soldiers stand guard at a lookout post on Feb. 25 as they take part in operations against the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram in northern Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria.
Cameroonian soldiers stand guard at a lookout post on Feb. 25 as they take part in operations against the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram in northern Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria.
YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Cameroon says multinational forces fighting Boko Haram have arrested over 300 Islamic extremists and freed at least 2,000 people from their strongholds along Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad borders.
Cameroon’s commander of the joint forces, Bouba Dobekreo, said Tuesday that during the three-day operation, forces also destroyed a Boko Haram training and logistic base about 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of the Nigerian town of Kumshe.
The governor of Cameroon’s Far North province, Midjiyawa Bakari, has asked that all displaced people be directed by the military to the Minawao refugee camp in northern Cameroon to be better tracked.Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Benin have contributed about 9,000 troops to fight the six-year insurgency launched by the Nigeria-based militants. More than 1,000 humanitarian workers have also been deployed.

Ethiopia: 28 people killed in floods in remote regions

ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — The state broadcaster in Ethiopia says 28 people have been killed in severe flooding in two remote regions.

The Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation reported Monday that 23 people were killed and 84 more people were injured when a river that crosses Jigjiga, the regional capital of the Somali region, burst its banks on Sunday.

It said intense rains in another drought-stricken region, Afar, led to floods in which five people were killed.

Ethiopian meteorology officials said thick clouds around the Indian Ocean could lead to more flooding in the coming days and the government is taking precautionary measures to assist people in the two affected regions.

 

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