$31 Billion Stolen Under President Jonathan Of Nigeria

President Goodluck Jonathan

By Toyosi Ogunseye, Allwell Okpi and Leke Baiyewu

Over N5tn in government funds have been stolen through fraud, embezzlement and theft since President Goodluck Jonathan assumed office on May 6, 2010, aSUNDAY PUNCH investigation has found.
Our correspondents arrived at the stolen sum after poring over the reports of the various committees set up by the President to probe some sectors of the economy, particularly oil and gas. SUNDAY PUNCHalso relied on disclosures by some senior government officials.
Five trillion naira is the summation of government funds said to have been stolen, according to the Mallam Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Task Force report; the Minister of Trade and Investment’s report on stolen crude; the House of Representatives fuel subsidy report and investigations into the ecological fund, SIM card registration and frequency band spectrum sale.
The Ribadu report on the oil and gas sector put daily crude oil theft at a high 250,000 barrels daily at a cost of $6.3bn (N1.2trn) a year. This puts the total amount lost through oil theft in the two years of Jonathan’s government at over $12.6bn (N2trn).
Oil theft is common in the Nigerian oil and gas sector. In June, a special naval team impounded a French ship, MT Vannessa, at Brass Loading Terminal, Bayelsa State, for allegedly stealing 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the country.
Our sister publication, SATURDAY PUNCH, had reported that the suspects, in their confessional statements, indicted some political office holders, many fuel marketers and some officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and Department of Petroleum Resources.
In October, Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, in a letter to the President, said 24 million barrels of oil worth $1.6bn (N252bn) was stolen between July and September.
According to Aganga, his signature was forged on the Export Clearance Permit that was used to export the crude oil from Nigeria.
Confirming that oil theft was depleting Nigeria’s resources, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in May, said the government lost a fifth of its oil revenues to theft in April.
Apart from income lost through oil theft, the Ribadu report also said ministers of Petroleum Resources between 2008 and 2011 handed out seven discretionary oil licences and that government lost $183m (N29bn) in signature bonuses via these deals.
The Ribadu panel discovered that three of the oil licences were awarded under the current petroleum minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, who took up her position in 2010. Alison-Madueke, however, denied knowledge of the discretionary awards.
Shortly before the Ribadu report, the House of Representatives had raised the alarm that the N2.6trn the Federal Government paid for oil subsidy in 2011 could not be properly accounted for.
The House said, “Fuel subsidy payments amounted to N261.1bn in 2006, N278.8bn in 2007 and N346.7bn in 2008, but, even after the subsidy on diesel had been removed, the ‘subsidy’ payments jumped to N2.58trn in 2011 — more than 900 per cent of the sum appropriated for the year (N245bn).”
A subsequent report by the Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel Subsidy Payments, led by Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, revealed that in 2011, 197 subsidy transactions worth N232bn were illegitimate.
These frauds are not limited to the oil industry, as similar probes have shown that almost all sectors are involved.
In July, the House of Representatives Committee on Environment discovered a tree seedling fraud worth N2bn awarded by the Ecological Fund office.
Chairman of the committee on environment, Mrs. Uche Ekwunife, said this during an investigative hearing on the mismanagement of ecological funds for the development of tree nurseries and seedlings in the 36 states.
According to her, out of the N3bn approved by the Presidency in 2010, N2bn was released to the contractors and consultants without government getting value.
Minister of Environment Hadiza Mailafia, however, said the contract was awarded by her predecessor.
In the telecommunications sector, the House instituted a probe into the sale of the frequency brand spectrum, which was reportedly sold for less than its value.
The 450MHz frequency, which was valued at over $50m, was allegedly sold for less than $6m (a difference of $44m or N6.9bn) by the Nigeria Communications Commission.
In the same sector, the reps, earlier this year, commenced investigations into the N6.1bn SIM card registration project embarked upon by the NCC in 2011.
The investigation followed the delay in completing the exercise and the request by NCC for additional N1bn for the project in its 2012 budget.
The lawmakers insisted that the NCC had no business embarking on the project since various service providers were already registering their subscribers.
Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Communications, Mr. Usman Bawa, had said, “The NCC has no business with SIM card registration. Apart from that, the service providers have done about 80 per cent of the registration because they started before the NCC. To me, for the regulatory body to be involved in the registration is a duplication of effort, a waste of resources and time.
“Even, the manner with which the bill for the N6.1bn was passed during the Sixth Assembly showed that there was more to it than meets the eyes. From our investigations, from which our report was compiled, our interactions with the NCC contractors for the SIM card registration and the service providers, a lot has been exposed and this was part of the reason why we removed the N1bn that was budgeted for the same SIM card registration in the last budget.”
It would be recalled that the then Minister of Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili, had, in August, 2010, agreed that the amount budgeted for SIM card registration was exorbitant.
Reacting to the massive frauds that have greeted Jonathan’s tenure, Transparency International, told one of our correspondents that Nigeria would continue to slack in development as long as it keeps paying lip service to the fight against corruption.
It said via electronic mail, “President Jonathan should insist that those accused of corruption are properly investigated and punished if found guilty, irrespective of their positions and connections. The judiciary must be seen as impartial and fair.
“To signal a break with the past, the government should set up an independent investigatory panel to review charges of corruption within government and the private sector. President Jonathan should endorse the panel and commit to ensure it has both the scope and the power to investigate and prosecute.
“This is not just a matter of justice; fighting corruption can affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. The current culture of corruption hurts the majority of Nigerians while the inequality gap widens.”
Also speaking to SUNDAY PUNCH, the Director, Centre for Applied Economics, Lagos Business School, Prof. Pat Utomi, said the spate of corruption in the country was unprecedented.
The political economist argued that prosecution and jail terms for corrupt individuals would not be as effective as building a societal institution that would prevent corruption.
A former Vice Chancellor, Crescent University, Prof. Sheriffdeen Tella, also warned that corruption would spell doom for the country if the trend continued.
He said, “It is unfortunate that the country will not be able to meet the Millennium Development Goals. There is a need for the masses to hold a three-day protest against corruption to force government to prosecute those indicted for corruption.”
Similarly, Executive Chairman, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, Mr. Debo Adeniran, said, “For Jonathan to fight corruption, he must start with his cabinet. The way Jonathan is going about his campaign against corruption is not the best way to go about it.”
A global audit and financial advisory firm, KPMG, had on Thursday stated that Nigeria accounted for the highest number of fraud cases in Africa in the first half of 2012.
The cost of fraud in the country during the period was put at $1.5bn (N225bn).
  Saharareporters

Private Jets For Jesus By Sonala Olumhense

Should a pastor own a private jet? That this is even a debate issue in Nigeria reflects just how wayward some of our Christianity has travelled, particularly since the end of the civil war and the arrival of large piles of oil money.
We are good adopters, and in the past 20 or 30 years, these Christian strands in Nigeria have “grown” side by side with the monies flowing in the streets and the technologies produced by others. Christianity has moved from the pews into the realm of business, and from the pulpits to American-style television.
In the process, some of the emerging Christian leadership, adopting the culture of American television and stage, became celebrities and rock stars. Christianity became marketable, and marketability became mistaken for commercialization.
These pastors also became instant television producers, concerned about their looks and make-up as they prepared for worship services tailored for broadcasting. They worked on scripts and colours and lighting, and arrived in stardom wearing expensive suits and jewelry.
They became stars as their Ministry became a business. And since there is no business without politics, business took politics in its arms and kissed her.  Increasingly, pastors prayed not for right over wrong, nor simply for the mercy of God or the wisdom of Solomon, but for specific individuals or political parties.
Increasingly, pastors enshrined and preached the immediacy and centrality of prosperity, often praying for prosperity answers before nightfall.
Prosperity is good. In a way, our entire journey as homo sapiens is about prosperity: health, education, longevity; heaven is prosperity over earth, and if we make heaven, we triumph—that is, prosper—over humanity.
The problem is that some of our Christian leaders often neglected the fact that prosperity is not always about materialism. From their glittering thousand-dollar suits, some of them prospered into the best cars, alligator-skin shoes, suites in five-star hotels.
All of this often happened alongside barbaric businessmen, guzzling governors and looting legislators many of whom, in moments of guilt or periods of sickness or sadness, sought the comfort of a pastor.
As you know by now, many pastors pray with their eyes closed. It helps focus on the celestial, but also conveys the impression of holiness.
Evidently, it also helps block out the obvious: that some of the powerful people appearing for prayers in the dead of night, or conveniently arranging to meet with the pastor in faraway lands, are thieves who have robbed the people blind.
Now, forgiveness is normal in Christianity.  It is the foundation of the Christian Church, as the entire mission of Jesus Christ, in the Christian faith, was to take away sin and effect reconciliation with the Father.  It is the place of a Christian leader to help with that process, so when he engages a sinner, it is to be expected.
The only problem is that in Nigeria, some pastors have often seemed to close their eyes a little too much and too long: allowing celebrity thieves to impoverish the people longer or escape justice.  The pastor thereby becomes an accomplice, accepting vast “contributions” they had reason to know could not have come from a legitimate income.
In 2007, Archbishop Peter Akinola, the leader of the Anglican Church, showed up at a “glorious homecoming” celebration for one Olusegun Obasanjo, who had recently, reluctantly, and vindictively, given up the job of President of the Federal Republic.
“You have got the best in the world and your eyes have seen the worst in the world.  All that is left now is to make heaven,” he told Obasanjo.
He assured the former president that while he had finished his “horizontal fights,” his spiritual journey had just begun, and urged him to fight the battle of his conscience, and seek forgiveness from those he has wronged.
The people Obasanjo had wronged, for eight long years, were the people of Nigeria, and the good bishop knew it as did all of the pastors who followed Obasanjo around and prayed with him routinely.
Akinola told Obasanjo God had blessed him with everything.   “You have enough money, you have enough houses, you have enough land, enough (cars), and enough properties, even enough children and all should be enough God has given you far too many houses.  What to eat is not your problem.  Paying children’s school fees is no longer your problem…”
He did not tell Obasanjo that all those riches were at the expense of his deeply disappointed people.
Indeed, many of the Christian leaders who interpret Christianity as a tool for personal prosperity pretend to see no link between bad governance and the manna from heaven they preach to their exhausted congregations.  For them, their access to the corridors of power is merely part of their own prosperity.
They do not see their blindness to bad governance to be collusion, or their silence to be support.
This is really a double rape, because on the other side, the pastors collect relentlessly from the poor to fund an affluent lifestyle.  It is the collections that are now said to be lucrative enough for pastors to bank hundreds of millions of Naira in personal wealth, and purchase jets by which to rule the sky.
In the case of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), he did not even have to work at buying the jet himself: his congregation presented it to him as a “gift.”  It is impressive when a congregation can raise $40 or $50 million to buy a jet.
According to a recent newspaper story, in Nigeria private jet ownership has grown by 650 per cent in the past five years, with those wealthy enough to afford it, including our pastors, spending about $7.5 billion
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah has described this trend on the part of Christian leaders as an embarrassment because it diminishes the moral voice of the church in the fight against corruption.
It is not surprising that he immediately came under attack.  Sunday Oibe, a spokesman for CAN, said: “If there is any clergyman in the country whose constituency is government, it is Bishop Kukah, who served every government in power in the last decade.”
Kukah, he accused, served in the Obasanjo government, only to later attack the former president.  Kukah, he accused, fraternized with former Governors James Ibori and Peter Odili.
Kukah never served in the Obasanjo government.  “Fraternized” with corrupt governors?  Does that mean he knew them, accepted contracts from them, used them as his route to riches and glamour?
Which explains the very point: corruption fights back.  Corruption not only defends itself; in Nigeria, it advertises in Eagle Square.  Corruption blackmails; on the offensive, it paints everything in its own colours.
The obvious is that it is those pastors who buy jets remind one less of a Christian leader and more of a playboy or a corrupt former governor.  A pastor who buys a jet, even from “legitimate” resources, cannot avoid being perceived as being corrupt or compromised
The reason is that a private jet is not just a mode of transportation.  It symbolizes a lifestyle of opulence and challenges the Christian values of humility.  It suggests matching riches and possessions, affluent luxury homes, exotic cars, expansive hotel suites and immense bank accounts.
A private jet, for a Christian leader, suggests the corruption of the Christian spirit and contradicts the life of Christ and the ability to live a life of humility and compassion, or to serve the poor.
A private jet may be transportation to a businessman, and a Christian leader can argue eloquently that he needs it to simplify his mission.  In a country as desperate as Nigeria, the only destination to which a luxury private jet transports a pastor is away: from his ability to confront power, and from the mission.
Saharareporters

Married Idoma woman dares gods, claims she is pregnant for her lover

Despite the invasion of Christianity in Nigeria, some traditions are still held sacrosanct in Idomaland, the second most popular ethnic group in Benue State.
The community has not totally thrown away the belief on deities which their forefathers cleaved to, not all traditions, however, are jettisoned, especial the firm belief in the Alekwu gods.
The people of Owukpa hold this gods at high esteem. Alekwu (believed to be spirits of the ancestors) is greatly feared in Idoma kingdom. It forces witches, ritualists, murderers, adulterous wives and men who pay for abortions to either die mysteriously or confess their evil. The rules are endless but the aim is simple: ‘live righteously.’
In distant time even before now, any married woman who commits adultery in Idoma land would face the music of the gods.
However, the supremacy of the Alekwu gods was put into serious doubt recently when a 25-year-old woman, Maria Agbo, shocked a Makurdi Customary Court when she admitted that she was heavily pregnant for ‘her secret lover’, not her husband.
According to the woman, she was constrained to do so because her husband, Joseph Agbo, could not put her in the family way after three years of marriage.
Proudly, Maria praised her secret lover simply identified as Enokela, for doing what her husband could not do for years. She described him as “the love of her life.”
Hear her: “For three years I was married to Joseph, he could not make me pregnant, I tried all available options but nothing seemed to change the situation.
“Since I love children, I tried my best and he knew that I tried everything within my powers but he was unable to make me enjoy motherhood.
“When I met Enokela, he made me a mother and he is the father of my unborn child,” she said.
The mother-to-be claimed that she was forced into the marriage against her wish by her parents because of the long-standing relationship that exists between the two families.
According to her, she left her husband in January before becoming pregnant for her newly found lovebird.
Earlier, Maria had dragged her husband to a Grade 1 Court in Ai-Odu Ukwo Owukpa where she prayed the honourable court to divorce her marriage owing to her husband’s inability to put her in the family way, which the court granted.
Not satisfied with the judgment, the visibly angry husband appealed against the judgment, stressing that the lower court got it wrong by granting her prayer.
Agbo also claimed that he was responsibly for the pregnancy contrary to her wife’s claim that he’s not man enough.
He maintained that the lower court also made a mistake in the application of Idoma Customary Law when it dissolved the marriage in spite of the evidence of Maria’s pregnancy.
He added that if Maria actually committed adultery as she claimed, Alekwu would’ve struck her dead by now.
After listening to both parties, the court adjourned the case to November 29 for final judgment on the matter.
Dailypost findings revealed that Agbo had every right to claim the pregnancy because they were still legally married before the lady became pregnant. According to James Ojobo, a traditional ruler in Owukpa “Is she trying to tell us that our gods are partial? Agbo was right in his appeal, a woman you paid for her bride price is pregnant while you’ve not divorced her, what do you expect. I don’t see any case here. If actually she committed adultery as she had said she wouldn’t have been alive by now.
Another family member who doesn’t want his name mentioned said: “I told them not to go to court, if actually the lady ‘threw her legs open’ the gods wont allow her to go scot-free.
I even told my brother to take her to Ipole Owukpa to take an oath but he wouldn’t listen to me.
As far as we are concerned, the baby inside her womb is our baby. our money is still on her and we are ready to take it to any length with the family.”
When reminded that the lower court had already crashed the marriage, the insider said: “Court was not there when we paid her bride price and it has no say in this matter. They are talking from academic perspective, but we can’t discard our gods, if she is sure of her self let her come and take Ekwu Anya (a popular god administered by the women folks.
DailyPost

Nigerian Army Colonel allegedly rapes 16-year-old girl

A serving Lieutenant Colonel with the Nigerian Army, W.L. Nzidee, has been dragged to a Magistrate Court I over alleged sexual assault on a 16-year-old girl (name withheld) in Kaduna. The accused is in charge of the MTO at the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA).
In an application for issuance of a direct criminal complaint summons filed at the Magistrate Court in the Kaduna Magisterial District in Barnawa, Kaduna South with case number KMD/19DC/2012 by the complainant, she accused the Colonel of committing an offence that constituted “criminal intimidation, rape, acts of gross indecency, abductions and threat to life” contrary to section 397,282,285,272 and 327 of the penal code
According to the complainant, on October 22, 2012, the accused person called her with the pretext to send her on an errand and unfortunately for her the lieutenant colonel had an ulterior motive for inviting her into his house.
She said the accused then lured her into the house and forced himself on her with a threat to kill her if she makes any noise and all effort by her to resist proved abortive because the accused is stronger than her.
She stated further that the accused forcefully had canal knowledge with her without her consent and dis-virgin her leaving her physically and mentally traumatized.
The victim said, she stayed indoor for about 48 hours and could not disclose to her guardian, until when the pains and injuries in her virginal became severe and later rushed to the NDA Medical Centre where the doctor on duty, Dr Okochi, insisted on seeing the officer who committed the assault after which she was admitted for one week.
 DailyPost

How Many Nigerian Ladies Can Do This?(PHOTO)

While many of our ladies are killing themselves to get the most expensive white gown for their wedding, this White lady saw the beauty in our own African Print and used same for her special day.... How lovely!

via: EdoPoliticalForum(EPF) >Sophia Imade Osarobo

Nigeria Is The Most Fraudulent Country in Africa, KPMG Report Says

Respected global audit and financial advisory firm, KPMG, has rated Nigeria as the most fraudulent country in Africa, with the cost of fraud during the first half of 2012 estimated at N225 billion ($1.5 billion).
The firm’s Africa Fraud Barometer, instituted this year, measures fraud on the continent and asses the fraud risk that confronts companies in their operations.
In KPMG’s second report, issued last Wednesday, it identified Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa as accounting for 74% of the total number of cases on the African continent, with Nigeria recording the highest overall value of fraud in the first half of the2012.
Reported cases of fraud, however dropped from 520 in the first half of 2011 to 503 in the first half of 2012, and the value of fraud fell from $ 3.3 billion to $ 2 billion.
KPMG compiles the data for the Africa Fraud Barometer by analysing available news articles and reviewing fraud cases from designated databases.
The new report observed that Nigeria’s fraud profile has been compounded by fraud and corruption in the oil sector, with “bribes in the private and public sector, misappropriation, and contract inflation” as common forms of fraud.
By contrast, Nigeria’s President, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan, last Sunday in his chat with the media bragged that his administration is fighting and winning the war on corruption, and that he has done better than his predecessors in combating corruption.
In another report, “Global States of Mind: New Metrics for World Leaders,” published on November 14, Gallop Poll declared Nigeria one of the two most corrupt countries in the world, superior only to Kenya.
Contrary to Mr. Jonathan’s claims, the Gallup report showed that 94 percent of Nigerians believe there is widespread corruption in the government.
  Saharareporters

Cannibal & Human Parts Dealer Arrested… Sold Parts To Churches, Ritualists

Members of the palace guard to the community leader of Ajara Topa community in collaboration with a vigilante group operating in the area, have arrested a man who allegedly eats and sells human parts to ritualists while operating from a hole dug under the Gbaji bridge, along the Badagry-Seme border.
The suspect, Joshua Akindele,56, who hails from Etokia Local Government in Ogun State, was first spotted by one Anthony Amos who watched him crawl into a hole under the Gbaji bridge, before he alerted other members of the group and palace guards of the Baale of Ajara Topa community, who then monitored Joshua’s movements.
The suspect in his confession, said that he had been into cannibalism and ritual killing for the past 15 years, after being introduced to the business by a friend who convinced him to stop riding “Okada” which he claimed  profited him a little, but could not sustain him.
He further said that he had been earlier sent to prison for 5 years after raping a 17-year old girl.
In his statement Joshua said, “I have been in this business for the past 15 years after my friend advised me to stop riding okada and to join him in ritual killing and cannibalism.”
When pressed further to describe how he carried out his activities, he confessed “Whenever I see somebody walking alone without being conscious of who is watching, I walk slowing up to them and  hit them with a big ply wood on their heads after which they fall unconscious, I then drag them into the hole and use a knife to cut them into parts which I sell to some churches and some ready buyers who indulge in ritual killing for easy money, and some times when I feel hungry  late in the night, I eat some parts for food.”
He confessed further that he sells the parts as follows: Heads 7,500, breast 1,500, penis 1000, hands and legs for 3,500.
A police source who pleaded anonymity confirmed that the suspect was in the custody of the Badagry police division.
InformationNigeria.org