Nigeria: 347 shiites buried in mass grave, inquiry told
The rubble of a Shiite mosque demolished in Zaria, Kaduna state, Nigeria, is pictured on February 2. An inquiry into clashes between Shiites and the Nigerian Army in Zaria has heard that 347 Shiites were buried in a single mass grave. Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters
Hundreds of Nigerian Shiites were buried in a single mass grave following clashes with the military, an inquiry heard on Monday, as lawyers for the detained Shiite leader demand his release.
Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN)— led by Iranian-backed Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky —clashed with the Nigerian army in the northern city of Zaria, Kaduna state, between December 12-14, 2015. A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) published in December estimated that at least 300 IMN members had been killed in the clashes, which the army claimed started after members of the sect tried to assassinate the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai. The IMN maintains that the clashes were unprovoked.
The Kaduna State Government is holding a judicial inquiry into the events. The Secretary to the State Government, Balarabe Lawal, told the inquiry on Monday that at least 347 Shiites were killed and buried in mass graves in the aftermath of the clashes. Lawal said that 191 corpses were transferred from the Nigerian Army Depot in Zaria to a burial site in the Mando area of Kaduna, Nigeria’s Premium Times reported. A further 156 corpses were taken from the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria to the same burial site. Lawal also said that the corpses were of youth members belonging to the IMN and that they were committed into a single grave.
Another witness to the inquiry, Namadi Musa—the director-general of Kaduna’s state interfaith agency—said that the burial took six hours to complete and was undertaken with authorization from a magistrates’ court in Kaduna.
The IMN’s spokesperson Ibrahim Musa told Newsweek that the burial took place “in the middle of the night” and was not done according to Islamic burial rites. “None of their families have seen them, none was contacted and told they are going to be buried,” says Musa, who adds that more than 700 members of the movement remain missing after the clashes.
Zakzaky remains in detention and held in the custody of Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the State Security Service (DSS). Barrister Maxwell Kyon, one of the lawyers representing Zakzaky, told Newsweek that his legal team had only been allowed access to the sheikh on one occasion during his four-month detention. Kyon says that, when he met with Zakzaky on April 1, the IMN leader told him that he had lost some movement in his left arm and walked with a limp after suffering gunshot wounds during the clashes. Kyon adds that Zakzaky was blinded in his left eye and is at risk of losing sight in his right eye.
Zakzaky’s legal team are filing a motion with the Federal High Court in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Tuesday, to demand the unconditional release of Zakzaky, says Kyon, on the grounds that he has not been charged and that his ongoing detention violates the fundamental rights afforded by Nigeria’s constitution.
Child suicide bombers increase 11 fold in West Africa
Children walk down the street of Chibok in Borno State, northeast Nigeria. In April 2014, Boko Haram militants kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from their dormitories at the government run girls’ secondary school in Chibok, drawing global attention to the Islamist insurgency in northeast Nigeria. Photograph: Stefan Heunisstefan/Getty Images
Boko Haram child suicide bombings have surged 11-fold in West Africa over the last year, UNICEF said on Tuesday. There were 44 child suicide bombings in West Africa last year, up from four in 2014, mostly in Cameroon and Nigeria. Children as young as eight, mostly girls, are detonating bombs in schools and markets.
Suicide bombings have spread beyond Nigeria’s borders, with an increasing number of deadly attacks carried out by children with explosives hidden under their clothes or in baskets. “The use of children, especially girls, as so-called suicide bombers has become a defining and alarming feature of this conflict,” Laurent Duvillier, regional spokesman for UNICEF said. “It’s basically turning the children against their own communities by strapping bombs around their bodies.”
Some young children probably do not know they are carrying explosives, which are often detonated remotely, Mr Duvillier said. It is two years since Boko Haram abducted 276 Nigerian schoolgirls in Chibok, many of whom were forced to convert to Islam and marry their captors. Three-quarters of the suicide bombers have been girls who are often thought less likely to arouse suspicion, although that may be changing now, UNICEF said.
Abducted boys are forced to attack their own families to demonstrate their loyalty to Boko Haram, it said. Although many children are being released from captivity as the military reclaims territory from Boko Haram, they often face stigma and rejection. “Some women would beat me,” 17-year-old Khadija, who lives in a camp for displaced people in Nigeria, told UNICEF. She and her baby, born of rape, escaped captivity during a Nigerian army attack on Boko Haram.
“They said: ‘You are a Boko Haram wife, don’t come near us!’” she told UNICEF. Children are the main victims in one of Africa’s fastest growing humanitarian crises, UNICEF
said. They make up the majority of the 2.3 million people displaced since mid-2013. Those separated from their families by the conflict and out of school are vulnerable to recruitment by armed groups, Mr Duvillier said. Almost one million Nigerian children are missing out on education as Boko Haram has destroyed more than 900 schools and killed more than 600 teachers, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
Islamist Boko Haram’s six-year campaign to set up an Islamic emirate in northeastern Nigeria has killed some 15,000 people, according to the US military. Outmaneuvered after a regional offensive drove it from strongholds in Nigeria last year, Boko Haram is increasingly using children to carry out attacks.
The tactic has proven effective in increasing the number of casualties as people do not usually see children as a threat. It is not clear how Boko Haram coerces children to carry out the attacks, but those who have been raped are more psychologically damaged and vulnerable, the US army says.
Amnesty International estimates Boko Haram has kidnapped about 2,000 women and girls since 2014 for use as cooks, sex slaves, fighters and suicide bombers.
Nigeria: Northeast Children Robbed of Education
“In its brutal crusade against western-style education, Boko Haram is robbing an entire generation of children in northeast Nigeria of their education,” said Mausi Segun, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch.
(Abuja) – Boko Haram’s attacks on schools, students, and teachers in northeast Nigeria have had a devastating impact on education. The conflict has left nearly 1 million children with little or no access to school, and Nigeria’s security forces have contributed to the problem by using schools as military bases, putting children at further risk of attack from the Islamist armed group. The 86-page report, “‘They Set the Classrooms on Fire’: Attacks on Education in Northeast Nigeria,” documents Boko Haram’s increasingly brutal assaults on schools, students, and teachers since 2009 in Borno, Yobe, and Kano states. Between 2009 and 2015, Boko Haram’s attacks destroyed more than 910 schools and forced at least 1,500 more to close. At least 611 teachers have been deliberately killed and another 19,000 forced to flee. The group has abducted more than 2,000 civilians, many of them women and girls, including large groups of students.
“In its brutal crusade against western-style education, Boko Haram is robbing an entire generation of children in northeast Nigeria of their education,” said Mausi Segun, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The government should urgently provide appropriate schooling for all children affected by the conflict.”
Boko Haram’s initial tactics of threats and intimidation to interfere with what it sees as Western education became more severe by early 2012, Human Rights Watch found. The insurgents began to destroy, burn, and pillage school buildings and property, claiming the attacks were in response to government forces’ attacks on Quranic schools.
In late 2012 and early 2013, as Nigerian security forces expanded military operations against Boko Haram, the insurgents became more brutal, deliberately targeting and killing teachers, school administrators, and education officials. The group also attacked students to keep them out of school and forcibly recruited students into Boko Haram’s ranks. Its fighters abducted female students as “wives,” effectively for sexual slavery. As security tightened, Boko Haram adopted suicide bombings as a tactic at schools and other locations, killing increasing numbers of children and school staff.Boko Haram’s attack on Chibok Government Secondary School has become emblematic of the group’s tactics against education. On the night of April 14, 2014, it abducted 276 girls from their dormitories, with 219 remaining captives two years later. Many have been forced to convert and marry their captors, witnesses have said. In a video released in May 2014, the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, said women and girls would continue to be abducted to “turn them to the path of true Islam” and to ensure they did not attend school
On November 24, 2014, Boko Haram attacked Damasak, a trading town near the border with Niger, taking more than 300 elementary school students captive. They used the school as a military base, then escaped with the captives as soldiers from neighboring Chad and Niger advanced on Damasak in March 2015, as part of a cross-border military operation against the insurgents.
Nigerian security forces have also been implicated in crimes in its operations against Boko Haram, including the killing, harassing, and intimidation of Quranic school teachers and students. Government forces have also used schools for military purposes, which is contrary to the Safe Schools Declaration that Nigeria endorsed in 2015 and may place schools at risk of attack.
An estimated 2.2 million people, including about 1.4 million children, have fled the fighting in the northeast, according to UNICEF, which says that 952,029 of the displaced are children of school age. Only about 10 percent of the children are in government-recognized displacement camps, where some educational services are provided by volunteer teachers. The remaining 90 percent are with friends and family members, with little or no access to schooling.
In his election campaign, President Muhammadu Buhari pledged to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency and to develop Nigeria’s northeast, but at least 1,000 civilians have died in the conflict since Buhari took office in May 2015. Although the government said in December that Boko Haram had been “technically defeated,” attacks continue.
In April 2016, the government said that the reconstruction of the damaged northeast will cost $9 billion. Nigerian authorities should improve security at schools in the northeast, ensure that displaced children are promptly given access to alternative schooling, and consistent with its commitments under the Safe Schools Declaration, ban the use of schools for military purposes, Human Rights Watch said. Those responsible for these attacks should be investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“Boko Haram’s attacks and the government’s neglect and misuse of schools have contributed to the dismal state of education in the northeast,” Segun said. “It is up to both sides to immediately stop the attacks on education and end the cycle of poverty and underachievement to which far too many children in the region are being sentenced.”
Nigeria grapples with abrupt end to rapid growth
Back home, Africa’s top oil producer is unable to import enough gasoline. Drivers in this city of 21 million have spent days inching through miles-long lines to fill their tanks at the few pumps still operating.
By Drew Hinshaw and Drew Hinshaw | WSJ
LAGOS, Nigeria—In Africa’s top economy, the oil bust is beginning to hit the streets.
With 187 million people, and trillions of dollars in untapped crude oil, Nigeria was meant to power Africa’s rise. Instead, it is becoming—for the moment—a symbol of how fast and far low oil prices have dragged emerging markets down.
Months of dwindling oil revenue have prompted a scarcity of dollars here, as the government hoards foreign currency to safeguard shrinking reserves. That is starting to hit Nigerians rich and poor alike: On Monday, the country’s stock market fell almost 3% on news that MSCI is considering removing the country from its benchmark frontier markets index.
Meanwhile, the World Bank said Nigeria’s economic growth slid to 2.8% in 2015 from 6.3% the year before, and the International Monetary Fund says this year’s growth will slip to 2.3%, slower than the population, which adds 13,000 people daily.
Factories are closing because they can’t find dollars to import parts. Supermarkets are struggling to keep shelves stocked. Power plants have virtually stopped producing electricity because they can’t pay for maintenance. New shopping malls are empty and ordinary citizens are going to lengths to find some basic goods.
To keep his economy growing, President Muhammadu Buhari is traveling to China this week, hoping to secure a multibillion-dollar loan for new infrastructure, including railroads, spokesman Garba Shehu said. This year, Nigeria may issue its first yuan-denominated bond, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said on Saturday.
Back home, Africa’s top oil producer is unable to import enough gasoline. Drivers in this city of 21 million have spent days inching through miles-long lines to fill their tanks at the few pumps still operating. To keep order, soldiers snap whips at oil can-toting line-jumpers and break up fights between exasperated drivers.
“We are hungry and angry,” said Victor Eten, a taxi driver who slept in his cab for three days to buy gas. “No shower, no toothbrush.…If this continues, there will be big trouble.”
Until recently, Nigeria and its economic capital were symbols of Africa’s new consumer class. Cineplexes, car dealerships and a fast-food arms race—KFC and Domino’s, among others, opened here—spoke to the aspirations of the continent’s largest city, Lagos. A decade of 7% economic growth brought Nigeria close to entering the world’s 20 largest economies. It also lured home Nigerian talent from jobs and schools in the U.S. and Europe.
These days, the euphoria has dimmed in Africa’s most populous nation. The government, which sees the downturn as an opportunity to industrialize—breaking Nigeria’s dependence on imports in an economy that relies on oil for three-quarters of revenue—also concedes that its constituents could face years of pain.
“It will take a minimum of 18 months before we begin to see a recovery,” said presidential spokesman Femi Adesina. “Through deft economic engineering, things will bounce back, but it’s not going to be magic. It’s not going to be overnight.”
Mr. Buhari has made progress in beating back the jihadist insurgency Boko Haram since taking office in May. Soldiers now hold down towns and highways once controlled by the Islamist group, whose violence occurs far from the country’s economic nerve center.
He is also making moves against corruption: Each day at 3 p.m., the new finance minister calls a different government agency and combs through its expenditures, item by item.
But on the streets, daily frustrations are mounting. Electricity is so scarce that the country’s national power plants didn’t produce a single watt for several days last week—they couldn’t import parts and services, said two senior members of Mr. Buhari’s administration. Internet providers face similar woes.
Nigerians abroad are stuck with ATM cards they can’t use because the central bank has limited withdrawals outside the country. Bitcoin trades are up as Nigerian professionals scrounge for ways to move money—and increasingly, themselves—out of the country.
“The structural worry I see is the middle class,” said Keith Richards, a Guinness executive who has worked in Nigeria for four decades. “We could see an exodus of the future of this country. People are already leaving.”
Mr. Buhari says he hopes the scarcity of foreign goods will lead Nigerians to buy from their own farms and factories, sparking an industrial renaissance. Many new regulations encourage people to use Nigerian steel, eat local rice, and spend within the country’s borders. To show his commitment, the central bank governor recently buried his mother in a made-in-Nigeria funeral, with food, drink and decorations all sourced locally: “The central bank governor practiced what he preached,” said one senior bank official.
Civil servants have been particularly hit: Mr. Buhari says his government inherited an empty treasury after crude prices collapsed starting in 2014. Twenty-seven of the country’s 36 states are struggling to pay civil servants, he has said. He has asked lawmakers to cut spending, but they have balked, leaving the president without a budget he is willing to sign.
Revenue recently took a second hit when saboteurs went underwater to break open a pipeline that carries 130,000 barrels of crude a day. The government says that attack, which it sees as a political move to undermine the president, cost the state $122 million in February alone.
Aggravating the oil shock is a mounting foreign-currency crisis. In a bid to defend the naira, Nigeria’s central bank has sharply restricted the availability of dollars. A weekly committee stipulates which banks are allowed to sell dollars and to whom, for what purchases, and at what price.
The result: Businesses are increasingly unable to get the foreign exchange they need to import spare parts, pay off foreign lenders, travel internationally, and keep the economy running. Nigerians entrepreneurial enough to find dollars sell them for as much as twice the official exchange rate in back-alley trading shops, restaurants and on the street.
Mr. Buhari’s administration, which rode into power in May 2015 with a pledge to oust corruption, is running out of political room to act. Last year, his supporters danced at rallies waving his campaign logo—a broom—signifying a clean start. In recent months, newspapers have run stories about disenchanted voters burning brooms in bonfires.
“They’ve got to get started,” said Bismarck Rewane, managing director of Lagos research firm Financial Derivatives Co. “People are getting a bit impatient. That means there has to be action.…There’s some tension growing.”
From her laptop emporium in a four-story Lagos mall, saleswoman Joyce Nwando has watched young professionals who were meant to power her country’s rise vanish. A year ago, selfie-snapping shoppers packed the food court: “It used to be that everything that happens in Lagos happens here,” she said. Now, many stores are vacant, the lights are often off and some shopkeepers say they may close in the next few months. On Friday, a 3-D theater upstairs was about to screen the debut of “Batman v. Superman.” Not a single customer was there. “People really don’t have the money,” said the theater’s general manager, Franson Davis. “Everybody is just waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Pirates ‘kidnap crew’ of Turkish cargo ship off Nigeria
Many Niger Delta militants joined an amnesty programme in 2009
Pirates have attacked a Turkish cargo ship off the coast of Nigeria kidnapping six of the crew, says the Nigerian navy.
The ship carrying chemicals was believed to be travelling from Gabon to Ivory Coast.
The pirates attacked the ship late at night as it was sailing close to the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Analysts say winding down an amnesty to former Niger Delta militants has resulted in an increase in piracy.
The Nigerian navy say the vessel’s captain and the chief engineer were among those kidnapped.
The ship’s Turkish owners say none of the crew were injured in the attack but that they have no information on their whereabouts.
Nigerian officials say they are working with Interpol and the country’s secret police to secure the crew’s release.
Nigeria’s coastal areas are increasingly becoming a hotspot for piracy, reports the BBC’s Nigeria correspondent Martin Patience from the commercial capital, Lagos.
Most of Nigeria’s oil wealth comes from the Niger Delta, but the area remains underdeveloped.
An amnesty in 2009 for tens of thousands of militants in the region – who receive a monthly stipend from the government – stemmed the level of violence there.
But some of the former militants are believed to have turned to piracy.
Nigeria’s SSS accuses Biafra activists of killing, burying 5 ‘Hausa-Fulani’ residents – Premium Times
By Samuel Ogundipe – Nigeria’s spy agency, SSS, announced on Saturday that it has discovered mass graves of “Hausa-Fulani” residents abducted and murdered by suspected members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, IPOB, in Abia State.
The agency said IPOB carried out the massacre of people of northern Nigerian origin as part of its efforts to destabilise the country.
In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Tony Opuiyo, the SSS said the killing has triggered tension among different communities in Abia State.
Although Mr. Opuiyo said five men were killed alongside several other unidentified persons, only the names of four individuals were provided.
“The Service has uncovered the heinous role played by members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), in the abduction/kidnap of five Hausa-Fulani residents, namely Mohammed Gainako, Ibrahim Mohammed, Idris Yakubu and Isa Mohammed Rago at Isuikwuato LGA in Abia State,” Mr. Opuiyo said.
“The abducted men were later discovered at the Umuanyi forest, Abia State, where they were suspected to have been killed by their abductors and buried in shallow graves, amidst fifty (50) other shallow graves of unidentified persons.
“Arrest and investigation conducted so far, revealed that elements within the IPOB, carried out this dastardly action,” he added.
Mr. Opuiyo said he was alerting Nigerians to the ‘divisive’ and ‘gruesome’ activities of IPOB operatives, allegedly led by fiery broadcaster, Nnamdi Kanu.
Mr. Kanu has been standing trial for treasonable felony since he his arrest on October 17, 2015, after entering Nigeria from the UK where he lives.
“It is pertinent therefore to alert the general public that IPOB, is gradually showing its true divisive colour and objectives, while steadily embarking on gruesome actions in a bid to ignite ethnic terrorism and mistrust amongst non-indigenes in the South-East region and other parts of the country.
“Following this act, tension is currently rife among communal stakeholders in the State with possibilities of spillover to other parts of country,” Mr. Opuiyo said.
In a related development, the SSS has released an update on the recent incarceration of Khalid al-Barnawi, a former Boko Haram leader, in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, describing it as a major breakthrough.
“This Service wish (sic) to inform the general public that further to its efforts to stem the tide of terrorism in the Country, it has recorded another major breakthrough in the arrest of one Mohammed USMAN, widely known as Khalid al-Barnawi, alias Kafuri/ Naziru/Alhaji Yahaya/Malam Dauda/Alhaji Tanimu.
“Khalid al-Barnawj was apprehended by this Service on 1st April, 2016, in Lokoja, Kogi State, while hiding under a false cover. Al-Barnawi was a founding member of the Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid Da’wah Wa’l-Jihad (Boko Haram) and later the Amir of the break-away faction, Jama’at Ansarul Muslimim Fi Biladi Sudan (JAMBS).
“Khalid al-Barnawi is a trained terrorist commander, who has been coordinating terrorist activities in Nigeria, while talent-spotting and recruiting vulnerable young and able Nigerians for terrorist training by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in North African States and the Middle-East.
“Subject was involved in many terrorist attacks in States of the Federation, including Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Sokoto and FCT-Abuja. This resulted in the killing and maiming of innocent citizens of this Country. Al-Barnawi is also responsible for the bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja, on 26th August, 2011; the kidnapping of two European civil engineers in Kebbi State in May, 2011, and their subsequent murder in Sokoto State; the kidnap of a German engineer, Edgar Raupach in January, 2012, the kidnap and murder of seven expatriate staff of Setraco Construction Company at Jama’are, in Bauchi State in February, 2013, the attack of Nigerian troops at Okene in Kogi State, while on transit to Abuja for an official assignment.
“Meanwhile, subject would soon be charged to Court to face his charges after investigation is completed.
“This arrest is a major milestone in the counter-terrorism fight of this Service. This arrest has strengthened the Service’s resolve that no matter how long and far perpetrators of crime and their sponsors may run, this Service in collaboration with other sister security agencies, will bring them to justice.”
Nigeria may issue Chinese Panda bonds to help fund 2016 budget
Nigeria’s Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun speaks at a news conference in Lagos, Nigeria, April 9, 2016. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye
Nigeria is considering a sale of Chinese Panda bonds to help fund a record budget aimed at reviving Africa’s biggest economy as it suffers a slump in global oil prices, the finance minister said on Saturday.
The OPEC member, which is Africa’s No. 1 crude producer, could also dip into cash set aside for energy investment projects to help meet the 2016 budget if tax revenue misses targets, Kemi Adeosun said in an interview.
“Initially we were looking simply at the Eurobond market but then we began to explore opportunities in the renminbi market, so there is a possibility of issuing a Panda bond,” she said.
China launched the market for Pandas – yuan-denominated bonds sold by overseas entities on the mainland – in 2005 but only a handful of foreign entities have raised debt there. HSBC (HSBA.L) and Bank of China (Hong Kong) Ltd did so late last year.
Adeosun declined to put a figure on the size of the possible issue, saying only: “We were looking, originally, at doing about a billion dollars on the Eurobond market so may split that between the renminbi and the Eurobond.”
“We’re going to see what the pricing comes out as. At the moment indicative pricing is a bit cheaper – about 1.5 lower than the Eurobond,” she said.
When asked about the timing, Adeosun said: “Our objective was always to be in the market early Q3.” Later, she told a news conference Nigeria may also sellJapanese Samurai bonds.
Adeosun said the government might use money set aside for funding joint-venture investment projects with private oil firms. Nigeria plans to boost tax income by 33 percent in 2016 to offset a slump in oil revenues.
“If the revenue doesn’t come in we have got 1 trillion (naira) in the budget for cash calls,” she said.
Cash calls are the government’s obligations to joint venture projects between state oil firm NNPC and foreign and local oil firms — Nigeria has been late in payments which has undermined plans to boost oil output.
Nigeria has previously asked oil companies for loans when unable to fulfill its obligations on the cash calls.
Nigeria is expected to post budget deficits for the next two to three years, Adeosun said. In 2016, the deficit is seen at 2.2 trillion naira ($11.6 billion), slightly less than a previously stated 3 trillion naira.
President Muhammadu Buhari has not yet signed the 2016 bill into law due to wrangling with parliament.
Detained leader of Nigeria’s Shiite Muslims near-blind – human rights lawyer
Photo of injured Shiite Leader-Sheikh Zakzaky after his brutal arrest By the Nigerian Soldiers
KANO, Nigeria (AP) — The detained leader of Nigeria’s Shiite Muslims has been left near-blind and underwent several operations to remove bullets from when he was shot in an army raid on his home, a human rights lawyer said Friday.
Lawyer Femi Falana spoke after he was granted access to Ibraheem Zakzaky for the first time since he and his wife, Zeenat Ibraheem, were detained in December and denied access to their doctors and family.
Falana gave The Associated Press a copy of a letter dated April 5 to the director general of Nigeria’s secret service, the Department of State Security, demanding “the unconditional release” of the couple from “unlawful detention.” Neither has been brought to court, which the law says must be within 48 hours of arrest.
Hundreds of other Shiites also are detained and some have died for lack of medical care, the Shiite movement has charged.
Human rights groups say the military killed hundreds of them over three days in northern Zaria town. The Shiites, a minority believed to number about 5 million, last week petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate the alleged military killings of nearly 1,000 Shiites, calling them crimes against humanity.
The raids were ordered by chief of army staff Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, who claimed unarmed Shiites tried to assassinate him, Falana said.
Falana saw his clients a week ago, after refusing to cooperate with a commission of inquiry until he got access. Iran has protested the killings and demanded compensation for victims.
Panama Papers: Nigerian Aliko Dangote, Africa’s Richest Man, Facing Scrutiny
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.
BYCONOR GAFFEY (Newsweek) – The head of Africa’s largest cement producer, Aliko Dangote has built his substantial fortune upon solid foundations.
But these could be shakenfollowing 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 Sarakiand 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 anestimated $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 toNigeria’sPremium 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 solutionto 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 theSwiss 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 wasfound to have opened an accountwith 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.
Panama Papers: Nigeria’s Senate President Bukola Saraki Under Pressure after Leak
Nigerian Senate President Bukola Saraki, at a hearing at the Code of Conduct tribunal in Abuja, September 22, 2015, has been implicated in the Panama Papers leak. AFP/Getty Images
In Nigeria, the Panama Papers leak could be about to claim its latest high-profile victim.
Bukola Saraki, the president of the Nigerian Senate, has been caught up in the scandal relating to the leak of 11.5 million tax documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
Saraki—who is currently on trial in Nigeria on charges of fraud, including false declaration of assets, all of which he denies—is accused of failing to declare at least four offshore assets listed under his wife Toyin’s name. The assets include a property in London’s plush Belgravia neighborhood, as well as two companies registered in the British Virgin Islands and a third in the Seychelles, both known tax havens, according to Nigeria’s Premium Times, a media partner in the Panama Papers investigation.
Holders of public office in Nigeria are required by law to declare their own assets, as well as those of their spouse and children under 18 years of age.
Saraki issued a statement on Monday protesting his innocence, saying that he has “fully complied with the provisions of the law” on declaration of assets. The statement said that the properties in questions were held by the family of Saraki’s wife and that “the law does not require a public officer to declare assets held by the spouse’s family.”
Combined with the ongoing fraud trial, however, the revelation is likely to heap pressure on Nigeria’s third-most powerful politician behind President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
The All Progressives Congress politician previously served as the governor of Kwara state in west Nigeria between 2003 and 2011 before entering the Senate, the upper house of Nigeria’s National Assembly. A qualified physician and former banker, he was elected as Senate president in June 2015. The issuing of an arrest warrant for Saraki in September 2015 by Nigeria’s Code of Conduct Tribunal on 13 counts of alleged corruption was the first time in Nigerian history that a sitting Senate president had been subjected to such a warrant.
Saraki’s trial revolves around his time as Kwara state governor. Charges against him include acquiring wealth beyond his legitimate earnings and holding a foreign bank account while in public office, which violates the fifth schedule of Nigeria’s constitution.
Prosecution witness Michael Wetkas, who headed up the anti-graft agency team that investigated Saraki, said on Tuesday that Saraki had laundered money through British and U.S. bank accounts and had failed to properly declare most of his assets. According to Wetkas, Saraki’s Nigerian account had a total inflow and outflow of up to 4 billion naira ($20 million) between 2005 and 2013, AFP reported.
