Shell Under Investigation in Italy Over Nigerian Oil Deal

Children play on broken pipework at an abandoned oil-flow station operated by Royal Dutch Shell in K-Dare, Nigeria.

By Eric Sylvers | Sarah Kent | WSJ/

Italian prosecutors are investigating Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s involvement in a Nigerian oil deal, a person familiar with the matter said, drawing the oil company into a corruption probe that has dogged Italy’s energy giant Eni SpA.

The prosecutors are investigating whether Shell’s piece of a $1.3 billion payment to acquire a rich oil field off the coast of Nigeria constituted a bribe, according to a person familiar with the probe. Italian and Dutch police last month raided Shell’s headquarters in The Hague looking for evidence that could be used in the case, the person said.

Shell on Wednesday confirmed it had received “notice of proceedings” from Italian prosecutors in connection with the Nigerian oil block and that its offices had been “visited” recently by Dutch authorities. The Anglo-Dutch company said it is cooperating with the investigators and is looking into the allegations.

Shell and Eni have jointly owned a Nigerian license, known as OPL 245, since 2011 to develop giant Atlantic Ocean oil fields thought to contain nine billion barrels of oil. It is a substantial project for the companies in a country that has been of historic importance to both of them.

Shell first pursued the oil fields in 2001, when it bought a stake from Malabu Oil & Gas Ltd.—a Nigerian company that was awarded the license when the African country was under military dictatorship. A new Nigerian government soon rescinded Malabu’s license, awarding Shell sole ownership and prompting years of legal disputes.

Malabu eventually reached a deal with the Nigerian government that gave it the license back, and attracted Eni as an investor. Shell agreed to drop its own legal challenges to Malabu’s ownership and together with Eni acquired the oil license in 2011 with a $1.3 billion payment to the Nigerian government.

Italian prosecutors are investigating where that money went and whether Shell and Eni knew its destination, according to Italian court documents.

The documents show the government later transferred almost all of the money to Malabu, and say the prosecution “believes that a considerable part of that sum was destined for the remuneration of Nigerian public officials.” Italian prosecutors aren’t investigating Malabu.

In 2014, prosecutors in Milan placed Eni and its chief executive, Claudio Descalzi, under investigation for international corruption in connection to the OPL 245 deal. Eni and Mr. Descalzi have denied wrongdoing.

Eni has always maintained that it paid the government directly and isn’t responsible for where the money eventually ended up. A Shell spokesman said that any payments for the license were made only to Nigeria’s federal government and any questions about where the money ended up should be directed to the government and to Malabu. Eni again denied any wrongdoing on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal wasn’t able to reach Malabu for comment.

The long-running dispute over OPL 245 now threatens to cast a new cloud over Shell’s investments in Nigeria, where it has been present for 80 years and is the biggest Western investor in the country’s oil sector. Last year, Shell got nearly 10% of its output from Nigeria and the country remains a major pillar of its business even though it has sold some onshore assets in the Niger Delta in recent years that have been subject to attacks and theft.

Shell, which had already made large investments by 2011 developing the field, paid much less than half of the $1.3 billion acquisition price for a 50% stake in the oil field, according to Italian court documents. Italian prosecutors suspect most of the amount ended up being paid in bribes, potentially making Shell responsible for its part, the documents said.

Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported the investigation into Shell’s role in the Nigeria deal on Wednesday.

Nigeria’s Mission to Free Boko Haram’s Hostages

NSHIRA TURKSON | The Atlantic

Nigerian refugees prepare food and go about their daily lives at a United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) camp in Baga Sola on January 29, 2015. The refugees arrived in the camp after the attack by Boko Haram millitants in the Nigerian town of Baga. (Sia Kambou/AFP/Getty Images)

Nigerian troops have freed hundreds of hostages held by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in recent counter-terrorism efforts in Nigeria’s northeast.

The military missions, aimed at driving out terrorists and rescuing their captives,freed 829 people last week. The army rescued 520 people in the village of Kusumma, and 309 others from 11 other villages. Troops have also rescued 72 people held captive in northeast villages in two “clearance operations,” army Public Relations Director Sani Usman said in statements Sunday. The group still holds an unknown number of hostages.

“The gallant troops cleared the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists hibernating in Kala Balge general area,” Usman said of one of last week’s missions.

Soldiers also destroyed a terrorist training camp, warehouse, and factory in Tilem, a northeast village, he added. Twenty-nine insurgents were killed and troops recovered weapons from Boko Haram hiding spots in the operations that freed 72 people.

Since 2013, Boko Haram has carried out mass abductions in Nigeria and neighboring countries in its quest to drive out Western influence and establish an Islamist state. The kidnapping of 276 Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 brought the group to global attention, birthing the viral hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Two years later, 219 girls are still missing. Last week, one of two girls arrested in north Cameroon carrying explosives claimed to be one of the kidnapped girls.

The human-rights organization Amnesty International estimates Boko Haram has abducted about 2,000 girls and women over their seven-year history. Women are forced into marriage and sexual slavery, and are often made to carry out suicide attacks—at times in their own villages.

Earlier this month, two women blew themselves up at the Molai-Umarari mosque on the outskirts of Maidugrui, a northeast city that has long-endured Boko Haram’s violence. Twenty-four people were killed, and Nigerian officials suspect Boko Haram was responsible for the attack. The mosque had reopened just days before the attack after a near-identical bombing in October forced it to close. Two suicide bombers killed six people in that incident. One of the attackers was reportedly a woman.

Boko Haram has recently increasingly targeted public places like mosques, markets, and schools. The Global Terrorism Index 2014 Report found “terrorist activity in Nigeria has more in common with the tactics of organized crime and gangs, focusing more on armed assaults using firearms and knives than on the bombings of other large terrorist groups,” but recent months show an uptick in suicide bombings for Boko Haram. The group’s violence is said to be responsible for the displacement of more than 2 million people since 2013.

Four days after the mosque bombing in Maiduguri, Nigeria’s Information Minister Lai Mohammed said Nigerian army efforts have reduced Boko Haram’s ability to carry out large-scale attacks, in an interview with Al Jazeera.

“Before these villagers (in Maiduguri) were under the control of Boko Haram insurgents; today they have been dislodged, now they’re attacking soft targets, which is what happens with a insurgency on its way out,” he said.

Nigeria Defense Minister: Military Made Gains Against Boko Haram

James Butty | VOA

FILE - Soldiers are seen on a truck along a road in Maiduguri in Borno State, Nigeria. — FILE – Soldiers are seen on a truck along a road in Maiduguri in Borno State, Nigeria.

Nigeria’s defense minister said the military under President Muhammadu Buhari has made enormous gains in the fight against Boko Haram.

Retired General Dan Ali said Wednesday the military has reclaimed much of the land once occupied by the terrorist group and that Boko Haram has been reduced to waging mostly guerrilla warfare. “Within one year, the coming of our president has changed the game. Look at what was happening before whereby three states, the whole eastern region, was under the terrorists. Now we may have maybe two local governments,” he said.

Ali said the military should be able to clear the terrorists out of the Sambisa Forest within two or three months.

Shortly after President Buhari was inaugurated as president in May 2015, he confidently declared that Boko Haram would be defeated by the end of the year. Before 2015 was over, Buhari announced that he had succeeded in his pledge, claiming that Boko Haram is now “technically defeated”.

Ali said President Buhari’s regional and international approach to the fight against Boko Haram has also made a huge difference. “We have been receiving specialized training and intelligence sharing. If you can remember, my president has been going around. In the fact, the five neighbors, including Cameroon, Chad, Benin, have been integrity. We are all working together and we are sharing information, and the international community is also advising us in the right direction,” Ali said.

On the identity of the would-be girl suicide bomber who told Cameroon authorities this week that she is one of the 276 Nigerian school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014, Ali said the Nigerian military has information that while the girl was captured from Chibok, she was not among the 276 captured in 2014.

“She was one of the Chibok girls but not associated with the earlier ones. We have gotten a report on that that the girl was taken from Chibok but not among those that were earlier captured,” he said.

General Ali said the Nigerian military has been trying to find the girls, but apparently Boko Haram has dispersed them in different locations.

“All along we have been trying to track them [the girls]. Specifically, if I tell you that they are in a specific place, it is difficult. Nobody can keep all 250 girls in a particular place. So these girls might have been distributed. Remember that for some time now, they have been using these girls as bombers,” he said.

President Buhari still hasn’t signed off on Nigeria’s delayed budget

By Conor Gaffey | Newsweek

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, pictured speaking at the State House in Abuja, Nigeria, February 11, is holding off from signing the budget that was proposed back in December 2015.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has refused to sign off on the country’s record budget a week after it was sent to him, further delaying the implementation of the fiscal plan.

Buhari proposed a record 6 trillion naira ($30 billion) budget in December 2015, which included plans to increase public spending by 20 percent and reduce the country’s reliance on oil, which accounts for 35 percent of GDP and more than 90 percent of the value of Nigerian exports.

Nigeria’s National Assembly finally passed the budget on March 23, after months of delay due to a series of errors and discrepancies. Hard copies of the budget went missing from the Nigerian Senate in January, forcing back a scheduled debate on its contents. When an amended version of the budget was debated,huge irregularities were found in the plan, such as 795 million naira ($4 million) being set aside to revamp the website of one unnamed ministry. Several officials publicly disowned the budget and Buhari sacked the head of Nigeria’s budget office, Yahaya Gusau, in February, just six months into his four-year term.

But Buhari is holding off from approving the budget as he had not been given sufficient details about it, a presidency official told Nigeria’s Premium Times. Buhari is leaving Nigeria on Wednesday to attend a three-day nuclear conference in the U.S., meaning the budget’s signing off could be delayed until he returns.

Nigeria’s economy has been hit by the fall in oil prices, which have dropped from $64 per barrel when Buhari was sworn in in May 2015 to around $40. The West African country, Africa’s biggest oil producer, has reportedly turned to the World Bank and African Development Bank to request billion-dollar loans to fund its budget.

Official: Arrested Girl Suicide Bomber Not a “Chibok Girl”

FILE - This Monday May. 12, 2014 file image taken from video by Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist network, shows the alleged missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok. Dozens of girls and young women are being abducted by Islamic extremists in northeast Nigeria, raising doubts about an announced cease-fire and hopes for the release of 219 schoolgirls held captive since April. Thirty teenage girls and boys have been kidnapped since Wednesday Oct. 22, 2014, from villages around Mafa town, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, the local government chairman Shettima Maina told reporters. (AP Photo/File) — FILE – This Monday May. 12, 2014 file image taken from video by Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorist network, shows the alleged missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok. Dozens of girls and young women are being abducted by Islamic extremists in northeast Nigeria, raising doubts about an announced cease-fire and hopes for the release of 219 schoolgirls held captive since April. Thirty teenage girls and boys have been kidnapped since Wednesday Oct. 22, 2014, from villages around Mafa town, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, the local government chairman Shettima Maina told reporters. (AP Photo/File)

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian official says a girl suicide bomber arrested in Cameroon is not one of the 276 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from a school in the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok nearly two years ago, but is from a nearby community.

The official says Cameroonian authorities gave them the names of the girl and an older accomplice but are holding them for questioning about how the Islamic extremists operate. The official is in Yaounde, the Cameroonian capital, waiting for the girls to be handed over. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is sensitive.

In Nigeria, Chibok Parents Association chairman Yakubu Nkeki said he is waiting to go to Cameroon to see the child.

The girl, arrested Friday with explosives strapped to her body, appears heavily drugged and suffering injuries, Cameroonian officials said.

She said she was from Chibok and appeared to be about 10 years old. Nkeki’s niece was one of the youngest students abducted from a government boarding school in Chibok. She was 14 at the time of the mass kidnapping in the early hours of April 15, 2014. Dozens of the girls escaped on their own but 219 remain missing.

Boko Haram continues to kidnap even as Nigerian troops have rescued thousands from captivity in recent months. None has been from the Chibok school.

Special:

The failure of Nigerian officials and the military to rescue the girls promptly brought international condemnation and helped President Goodluck Jonathan lose elections last year.

The Chibok kidnapping propelled Boko Haram into notoriety.

Nigeria’s Promise Turns to Peril as Investors Head for the Exits

By Paul Wallace | Bloomberg

The promise of Africa’s biggest economy has turned to peril.

Companies drawn to Nigeria by the prospect of a population bigger than Germany and Turkey’s combined are retreating; those staying have publicly criticized the president, a military strongman in the 1980s who came back to power via an election last year; and foreign investors are pulling their money out.

The corporate tribulations that began with a slide in oil prices and accelerated after the imposition of capital controls are also entangled in a global emerging-market slump. In propping up the naira in a futile bid to contain inflation, officials have jacked up pressure on an economy running out of cash, deepening a black market in currency trading and causing shortages of imported goods from fuel to milk. U.S. officials said they will press their Nigerian counterparts to change tack during talks in Washington this week.

“Our clients, Fortune 500 and other multinationals, are all quite concerned by the state Nigeria finds itself in,” said Alexa Lion, a senior analyst at Washington-based Frontier Strategy Group, which advises companies looking at developing nations. “Sentiment has worsened. There’s a lot of anxiety.”

Frustration too.

After four years trying to gain traction, Truworths International Ltd., a South African clothing retailer, last month gave up. It closed its last two outlets in Nigeria, in the southeastern cities of Enugu and Warri. Willing to tolerate dilapidated infrastructure, complicated red tape and expensive rent, the company said the import and foreign-exchange restrictions caused it to throw in the towel.

‘Impossible’

“We were happy to lose money for a few years while we developed the business and opened new stores,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Mark said in an interview. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was not being able to get stock into Nigeria. You can’t have a clothes shop with no clothes. With all the other things, it just wasn’t worth it. It was impossible to do business.”

Nigeria’s appeal has faded as the price of oil, source of 90 percent of export earnings, has crashed. Growth slumped to 2.8 percent last year, the slowest since 1999, and will decelerate to 2 percent in 2016, according to Morgan Stanley. In dollar terms, the economy in 2019 will still be 17 percent smaller than its 2014 peak of $542 billion. Only two years ago, McKinsey & Co. said Nigeria had the potential to grow 7.1 percent annually until 2030 and build a $1.6 trillion economy.

As Nigeria lags, other countries in sub-Saharan Africa have gotten more appealing. Last month, Nigeria fell from first to fourth, behind Ivory Coast, Kenya and Tanzania, in a ranking of business prospects by the research unit of Nielsen Holdings Plc.

Portfolio investors including Aberdeen Asset Management Plc and Ashmore Group Plc, which together oversee about $450 billion of assets, have retreated from Nigerian markets. The main stock index is down 10 percent this year, while the MSCI Frontier Markets Index has lost 2.8 percent. Nigeria’s local-currency bonds are the only ones among 31 emerging markets tracked by Bloomberg to have generated aloss this year. Foreign direct investment this year is set to be the lowest since the 2008-09 global financial crisis, according to data from the central bank.

For now, President Muhammadu Buhari and Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele say they aren’t budging from their strong-naira policy. While both acknowledge that businesses are struggling to source enough dollars, Buhari says that a devaluation and easing of capital controls would be akin to “murdering” the naira and send prices up. That’s already happening as manufacturers struggle to buy foreign inputs, with inflation accelerating to a three-year high of 11.4 percent in February.

Markets are betting Nigeria will be forced to follow oil exporters from Russia to Kazakhstan and Mexico and let the currency weaken. While the naira has been all but pegged at 197-199 per dollar since March 2015, forward prices suggest it will drop 29 percent to 280 in a year. The black market rate has weakened to 320.

Bruno Witvoet, the Africa President of Unilever, whose Nigerian subsidiary has seen its shares plunge 31 percent since Buhari came to power, said it would be “very insane” for the country to persist with the currency policies. Nestle SA says its local unit, which has fallen 18 percent in that period, has had to widen the number of banks it uses so that it can access enough foreign exchange.

Not all companies are gloomy. In January, Coca-Cola Co. agreed to pay about $240 million for a 40 percent stake in Chi Ltd., which is based in Lagos, and makes fruit juice and dairy products. Boston Consulting Group this month opened its first office in Nigeria.

“It’s an immense market,” said Geoffrey White, CEO for Africa at Kuwait-based Agility Public Warehousing Co K.S.C., which plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building four warehouse and logistics parks in Lagos and the capital Abuja by 2020. “You can’t really have an African policy without having Nigeria high up on the list.”

For Frontier Strategy Group’s Lion, Nigeria is too important for foreign companies to exit en masse.

“But a lot will depend on what happens with the currency,” she said. “For now, the opportunity cost of not being there is too high. That could change if the currency situations worsens. It’s definitely a pivotal time.”

U.S. to press Nigeria on foreign exchange rate flexibility

WASHINGTON | BY LESLEY WROUGHTON

Nigerian naira notes are seen in this picture illustration March 15, 2016 REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE/ILLUSTRATION — Nigerian naira notes are seen in this picture illustration March 15, 2016
REUTERS/AFOLABI SOTUNDE/ILLUSTRATION

The United States said on Monday it would press Nigeria in talks this week to adopt a more flexible foreign exchange rate to boost growth and investment in Africa’s largest economy.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told an audience at the U.S. Institute of Peace that Nigeria should ensure that the value of the naira currency versus the U.S. dollar was “more realistic.”

“While most people complain about the possibility of there being a devaluation, people are already operating on a devalued currency, and the only people who are not, are people who are doing it officially,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

“Our recommendation is, and we will have discussions about it … that they should look at the exchange rate and try to make the exchange rate more realistic to what the value of the naira is to the dollar,” she added.

She spoke before talks in Washington to be launched by Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday and which will focus on Nigeria’s economy, security and development.

Nigeria faces its worst economic crisis in decades as the falling price of oil has slashed revenues, prompting the central bank to peg the currency and introduce curbs to protect foreign exchange reserves, which have fallen to an 11-year low.

Some members of Nigeria’s central bank monetary policy committee have said the naira should be devalued.

Thomas-Greenfield said the parallel currency market in Nigeria was “alive and well,” warning that a rigid exchange rate, capital controls and import bans could undermine President Muhammadu Buhari’s efforts to expand economic growth and fight corruption. Buhari has rejected the idea of devaluing the naira.

“Capital controls that limit access to foreign exchange rewards insiders and undermines the stated goals of Nigeria to increase domestic production because both Nigerian and expat investors alike tell us many businesses are unable to obtain the capital to purchase badly needed intermediate goods,” she said.

The naira trades some 40 percent below the official rate on the black market versus the dollar. The central bank last year pegged the exchange rate to curb speculative demand for the dollar and conserve foreign exchange reserves after it restricted access to hard currency for imports of certain items, frustrating businesses.

The International Monetary Fund called on Nigeria to lift the curbs and let the naira reflect market forces more closely, as the restrictions have significantly affected the private sector.

Nigerian Army Officer Kidnapping Update: Col. Samaila Inusa Found Dead In Kaduna State

By Morgan Winsor | International Business Times

One of Nigeria's senior army officers, who was kidnapped by unknown abductors on March 26, 2016, was found dead three days later in northern Kaduna state. In this picture, Nigerian troops inspect the former emir's palace that was used by Boko Haram as their headquarters before it was burned down in Bama, Borno state, on March 25, 2015. PHOTO: NICHOLE SOBECKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES — One of Nigeria’s senior army officers, who was kidnapped by unknown abductors on March 26, 2016, was found dead three days later in northern Kaduna state. In this picture, Nigerian troops inspect the former emir’s palace that was used by Boko Haram as their headquarters before it was burned down in Bama, Borno state, on March 25, 2015.
PHOTO: NICHOLE SOBECKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A Nigerian senior army officer who was kidnapped over the weekend was found dead Tuesday night. Col. Samaila Inusa’s body was found near a village in northern Kaduna state, where he was abducted, and investigators believe he was killed the same day he was taken, the Nigerian army said.

“The Nigerian Army wishes to regrettably inform the public that Colonel Samaila Inusa who was kidnapped on Sunday 27th March 2016, was found dead today at about 6:00 p.m.,” Nigerian army spokesman Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman said in an online statement Tuesday. “Preliminary investigation revealed that most likely the late senior officer was killed same day he was kidnapped by his abductors. This is because the body was found already decomposing around Ajyaita village off Eastern Bypass Kaduna, Kaduna state.”

Inusa, a serving officer at the Nigerian Army School of Infantry in Jaji, was in his car with his wife when unknown gunmen intercepted his vehicle Saturday night near the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.’s refinery junction in the Chikun local government area. They later dropped off Inusa’s wife and drove away with him in his car, heading toward Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. It remains unknown how many abductors there were and what their motive was for the kidnapping.

The Nigerian army has offered a 1 million naira reward (about $5,020) to anyone with useful information that could lead to the arrest of Inusa’s abductors. It also launched a manhunt to rescue the colonel, but the operation has proved unsuccessful. His kidnappers reportedly never communicated any demands, according to Nigerian newspaper THISDAY.

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria, a minority Shiite Muslim sect in the north, has denied any involvement, after THISDAY quoted a “reliable intelligence officer” saying the kidnapping might be revenge against the Nigerian army over the deadly raids last year in the northern city of Zaria in Kaduna state. The military raids ended in the reported killings of several members of the group and the arrest of their leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky. The Islamic Movement of Nigeria called the claim “false, unsubstantiated and mischievous” and condemned all forms of violence, saying its members would never use crime to meet any of its objectives.

“Crime and criminal activities are fundamentally sinful and are not in our character,” Ibrahim Musa, a spokesman for the religious group, said in an online statement Monday.

The raids on the Shiite sect occurred a day after members tried to block a convoy carrying Nigerian army chief of staff Lt. Col. Tukur Buratai to an inauguration ceremony for recruits in Zaria, witnesses had told Reuters. At least seven people, including Zakzaky’s deputy and chief spokesman, were apparently killed in the clash. Usman, the Nigerian army spokesman, accused Islamic Movement of Nigeria members of trying to assassinate Buratai and said soldiers were forced to shoot in defense when the group’s members refused to move out of the convoy’s way.

______________________

UPDATE ON KIDNAP OF COLONEL SAMAILA INUSA

The Nigerian Army wishes to regrettably inform the public that Colonel Samaila Inusa who was kidnapped on Sunday 27th March 2016, was found dead today at about 6.00pm. Preliminary investigation revealed that most likely the late senior officer was killed same day he was kidnapped by his abductors. This is because the body was found already decomposing around Ajyaita village off Eastern Bypass Kaduna, Kaduna State.

Arrangements are in progress to move the body to 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, Kaduna. May His soul rest in peace, Amen.

We wish to state in unmistakeable terms that whoever is behind his abduction and murder would be fished out to face the full wrath of the law.

You are kindly requested to disseminate this information to the public through your medium.

Thank you for your kind cooperation.

Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman
Acting Director, Army Public Relations

Afcon 2017: Nigeria fail to qualify after defeat by Egypt

Nigeria have failed to qualify for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations after falling to a 1-0 defeat in Egypt in their Group G match on Tuesday.

With just one game remaining and only the group winners to qualify, Nigeria cannot make up their five-point deficit to table-toppers Egypt.

Ramadan Sobhy’s 65th-minute winner puts Egypt on the verge of qualification.

Egypt face Tanzania in June and will book their place in Gabon with any result better than a 3-0 defeat.

Nigeria won the Nations Cup in 2013 but have now suffered back-to-back eliminations in qualifying.

Tuesday’s match in Alexandria became a virtually all-or-nothing tie after Chad withdrew from the group on Sunday, citing financial difficulties, and all results from their matches them were erased.

That left only three teams in Group G and in accordance with the rules of the Confederation of African Football only the winner would qualify for the finals.

Egypt have seven points with one match to play, against bottom club Tanzania, who have only one point but two games remaining.

To have any chance of qualification Tanzania would need to beat Egypt by a better scoreline the 3-0 defeat they suffered in Egypt last June because head-to-head records would come into effect in the event of the sides finishing level on points.

Tanzania would then have to beat Nigeria in their final match.

‘Impossible’

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