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Nigerian Inflation Slows
By Paul Okolo
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Nigerian Inflation Slows for 2nd Time in Six Months (Update1)
By Paul Okolo
April 2010 -- Nigeria’s inflation slowed in March for only the second time in six months as the country’s banks crimped lending.
The inflation rate fell to 11.8 percent from 12.3 percent the month before, the National Bureau of Statistics in the capital, Abuja, said today in a statement read to Bloomberg by a bureau official.
Spending has been curtailed after a debt crisis in the banking industry dried up lending last year. The central bank sacked the top managers of eight of the country’s 24 lenders for their handling of the crisis and bailed out the industry with an injection of 620 billion naira ($4.1 billion).
“With bad loans running into several billions of naira still in their books, many banks continue to hoard cash and turn down loan applications,” minister of state for finance, Remi Babalola, said yesterday.
In order to encourage the banks to resume lending, the Central Bank of Nigeria kept its key interest rate at 6 percent on March 2, while the borrowing rate was reduced to 1 percent from 2 percent. Governor Lamido Sanusi also promised to guarantee all foreign credit lines and interbank transactions until Dec. 31.
The central bank is setting up a company to buy bad debts from the banks to improve their balance sheets. The company will start to buy the debts as soon as the legislation setting it up is passed into law by parliament, Sanusi said.
Eurasia Group, a New York-based research company, last year estimated toxic assets held by Nigerian banks at as much as $10 billion. The bad debt is partly the result of at least 1 trillion naira of margin loans used to buy shares on the local bourse, according to Bank of America Corp. Nigeria’s All Share Index tumbled 34 percent last year after declining by 45 percent in 2008.
--Editors: Philip Sanders, Antony Sgu
Sudans Elections Fails International Standards
Says Two International Monitoring Organizations
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Two international organisations monitoring the elections in Sudan say the controversial polls failed to meet full international standards.
The EU and the Carter Center, led by former US President Jimmy Carter, said there were significant failings, citing reports of intimidation and harassment.
However, both concluded the polls were a significant step towards democracy.
Results are to be returned on Tuesday, with Omar al-Bashir expected to be reaffirmed as president.
The polls - presidential, parliamentary and regional - were the first multi-party elections since 1986 and part of a north-south deal to end two decades of war.
The complicated ballot was beset by problems and heavily criticised by the Sudanese opposition and local observers.
Harassment
Now, two of the biggest observer missions on the ground have concluded that the elections were faulty.
"It is obvious that the elections will fall short of international standards that are expected of advanced democracies... The people's expectations have not been met," former US president Jimmy Carter told a news conference.
ANALYSIS
James Copnall, BBC News, Khartoum
The EU and the Carter Center observers both indentified serious flaws in the process. Jimmy Carter said his observers had seen polling officials instructing people which candidate to vote for.
The EU's chief observer talked of "harassment" of voters, and the ruling parties in the north and the south using their advantage in resources to get people to vote.
But the conclusion reached by both - an election which does not meet international standards - is not damning enough to rock the boat unduly.
President Omar al-Bashir will be able to celebrate a crushing victory in the presidential race, in which his two major rivals dropped out. Mr Carter's belief that the international community will recognise the victors is perhaps the most significant thing.
Perhaps judgments would have been different if stability in the run-up to next January's referendum on possible southern independence was not so important.
The EU observer mission's judgement was similar, concluding there were both irregularities and significant deficiencies.
"Turnout is very high, 60%, but with significant deficiencies," said EU mission chief Veronique de Keyser at a news conference in Khartoum.
"These elections did not reach international standards, not yet."
The irregularities quoted included the late arrival of election material, problems with the voting list, and the harassment of voters.
Observers said the ruling parties in both the south and the north also used their huge advantage in resources to influence the vote.
The EU's team was withdrawn from Darfur, where a low-level civil war continues, because of fears about safety and whether the monitors could observe freely.
Neither of the observer groups called for a re-vote, but recommended instead that the lessons learned be applied to next year's key referendum on Southern Sudan's independence.
Mr Carter said he believed the international community would recognise the winners.
The BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum says President Omar al-Bashir is certain to win the presidential election.
Our correspondent says he wants a respectable victory to show the Sudanese people support him after he was indicted for alleged war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court.
Tensions rise in SAfrican white supremacist case
South Africa
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VENTERSDORP, South Africa — A racially charged standoff outside a courthouse where a teenager and another black farm worker were charged with killing a leading white supremacist ended peacefully Tuesday — a victory for democracy in South Africa.
The older suspect was walked out of the courthouse hours later to a rapturous welcome from blacks outside who screamed, ululated and whistled their support.
"Hero! Hero! Hero!" they chanted.
"We are celebrating the death of the man who has abused us so much," one woman in the crowd shouted.
The brutal bludgeoning of Eugene Terreblanche, once convicted of beating a black farm worker so badly the man was left brain damaged, has focused attention on simmering racial tensions less than 10 weeks before South Africa hosts the World Cup.
In a musical duel outside the courthouse, whites and blacks sang competing national anthems from South Africa's racist past and its new reality. Then the whites sang "The baboon climbs the mountain," — a flagrant insult to blacks.
A violent confrontation easily could have erupted after a middle aged white woman sprayed an energy drink on blacks singing "God Bless Africa."
Instead, police officers rushed to separate the two groups yelling at each other and the only apparent blow struck was thrown by a black police officer whose fist grazed the jaw of a white man.
Police set up coils of razor wire to separate the two groups — whites waving old flags signifying white rule in support of Terreblanche's family and blacks supporting the family of the 15-year-old suspect and his 28-year-old co-worker.
Afterward, the militant whites apologized for the woman's behavior.
Community leader Bomber Matinyane said the display of racist flags was angering people. He said whites should stop waving them and blacks should stop singing the inciting song with lyrics that include "kill the farmer."
Blacks outside the courthouse sang other songs dating from the struggle for majority rule that finally came in 1994 after years of state-sponsored violence by the white minority regime and urban guerrilla warfare waged by the African National Congress.
Brenda Abrams, a 30-year-old black businesswoman outside the courthouse complained that a "big fuss" was being made about Terreblanche's death.
"But nobody says anything when black farmworkers are killed by farmers," Abrams said.
Authorities say Terreblanche, 69, was bludgeoned to death Saturday in his bed. The 15-year-old's mother told AP Television News that the suspects killed the farmer because he hadn't paid them since December. When they asked for their money, she said, he threatened to kill them.
Police have not identified the accused by name.
Inside the magistrate's court, the case proceeded. Prosecutor George Baloyi said the suspects were formally charged with murder, housebreaking with intent to rob, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances, and criminal injury.
"We will aver that after assaulting the deceased they pulled down his pants to his knees and exposed his private parts," Baloyi told reporters.
Zola Majavu, the attorney defending the 15-year-old for no charge, said he knew nothing of any confession and that "my client remains innocent until the due process of law" concludes.
Majavu said the teenager is overwhelmed and fearful for the safety of his family.
"The family are traumatized, scared," Majavu said. "The mother is sitting in court right now because she is afraid to go home."
A new hearing was set for April 14. Baloyi said investigations until then would include trying to establish whether the suspects were capable of standing trial.
Fears of violence had risen after Terreblanche's Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement, better known as the AWB, threatened to avenge their leader's death and members swaggered around town with pistols on hip holsters.
But spokesman Pieter Steyn retreated from those threats Monday, saying they had been made "in the heat of the moment" and that the movement renounces all violence. There were no pistols in evidence Tuesday.
Analyst Steven Friedman, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, said the fears were overblown, especially since Terreblanche led such a small, fringe group of extremists.
"It's quite clear that there are a lot of tensions, problems, but this kind of notion that South Africa is a powder keg waiting to ignite is clearly untrue," Friedman said.
Divide Nigeria To North and South Says Moamer Kadhafi
Prominent Nigerian Cleric Disagrees
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Nigeria's top Islamic cleric warned foreigners against meddling in the nation affairs on Sunday, days after Libya's leader suggested the country be broken up into Muslim and Christian areas.
"External commentators on the Nigerian situation should ... be told in no uncertain terms that Nigeria, despite its difficulties, has come a long way and that it should not be taken for granted or viewed as a simplistic conglomeration of ethnic or religious groups," said the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Saad Abubakar.Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, until recently the chairman of the African Union, suggested last week that Nigeria follow the partition model of Pakistan as a way of ending repeated bouts of inter-religious violence.
Pakistan was formed in 1947 after the Muslim minority of predominantly Hindu India founded their own homeland. Without making direct reference to Kadhafi, the sultan told a meeting of the supreme Islamic body the Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI) in northern Nigeria's political capital Kaduna, that Nigeria was capable of fixing its own problems.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has over 200 different ethnic groups, but its 150 million people are almost equally divided between Muslims and Christians.
"The bonds that keep us together are much stronger than those that divide us," said Abubakar, according to a copy of his speech. Kadhafi's comments came as new sectarian killings claimed hundreds of lives in the central Plateau State. The state, with Jos as its capital, is the de facto buffer between the predominantly Muslim north and the largely Christian and animist south.
Kadhafi suggested that a Christian homeland in the south could have Lagos as its capital while a Muslim homeland in the north would have Abuja as its principal city, while the two communities should peacefully agree to share Nigeria's huge oil and mineral wealth. His comments drew the ire of the Nigerian government which recalled its ambassador from Tripoli.
Nigeria: State of Denial
Lack of Credible Leaders
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Nigeria as we know it today is facing the danger of an imminent collapse that will eventually come to agreement with the predictions of those who have studied her evolution over the years. The United States stated few years ago that the Nigerian state is very fragile and is in the danger of collapse and this was waved off by those ruling Nigeria. We have now been faced with a direct challenge to the forces that have held all peoples of the entire landscape hostage on their drive to spread the jihadist religion of Islam. Presently, there is no head of government in Nigeria and there is also militancy in the Eastern Niger Delta where natives, who have been marginalized are up in arms against the government. Oil installations are going up in flames and gas prices are on the increase here in North America. This is a wake up call to the governments and people of the western world.Many may not care what or how Nigerian leaders emerge and the fact that there are no common borders with North America, even makes stories such as Nigerian news less desirable. Events taken place in Africa will have direct effect on how things go here in Canada or the United States. Lack of credible leadership or presence of criminal leaders, will lead to a lot of pressure not just upon the local populations in Nigeria's fragile regions but can also lead to incidents such as the attempted bombing of United Airlines as it was approaching the United States.
Many may not know how Umaru Musa Yar'adua after his famous collapse on the campaign trail, and being airlifted to Germany for treatment had to pay a visit to Babangida Nigeria's former military ruler in Minna, Niger State once Obasanjo had succeeded in making him president to cover his tracks. To this day, not few people have thought to enquire why Umaru had to make that visit as a first act having been selected to rule under criminal circumstances. Ibrahim Babangida while in office as a military president, took Nigeria and registered her into an all muslim nation organization called Organization of Islamic countries or OIC. The process of Islamization started before independence on October 1st, 1960. Nigeria's Islamic oligarchy have never looked back in their desire to convert the entire country into islamic state. It was to this effect Nigeria's first Prime Minister late Abubarkar Tafawa Balewa stated that they will continue the drive to spread islam until they deep the Koran in the Niger Delta, an oil and other natural resources rich all Christian/Jewish Eastern part of the country.
Though the (s)election process was a do or die affair for Obasanjo since it was all designed to cover his tracks and set the entire country into the wilderness of confusion while he is left free from any form of trials for crimes committed while in office, today as we all can see it is Umaru that is now on admission in a Saudi Arabian hospital battling to save his life while the same cabal that foisted him upon the docile landscape, are once again engaged in horse trading to once again decide on the fate of the people and who they will foist on the fragile country to continue the 'good work' of ruinous-rudderless leadership. This is a time when all sorts of charlatans speak from both sides of their mouth just to appear to be on the side of the power brokers. A beneficiary of the stolen presidency, Goodluck Jonathan have been warming up to the northerners just to curry their support as he looks forward to filling the vacuum created by the pericarditis challenged Umaru Yar'adua. While this is all going on, David Mark a lousy notorious senator, a man planted in the upper chamber to serve the interest of IBB, have been busy parading himself as catholic priest and calling for endless prayers to save Umaru as if he really cares that much about him.
To deal with this problem, greater emphasis must be placed on the source and not where this guy spent the last three years. His training started from birth until he bought the ticket to fly to the United States. His abode for those twenty years happens to be northern part of Nigeria, where strict anti western ideology is taught on daily basis from kindergarten. It is not good for the United States to ignore islamic militancy in West Africa, while investing heavily providing for the same hostile population muslim adherents. If this terrorist had been arrested in Nigeria, he would have been quietly released considering his fathers connections in government. It must also be noted that his father is the head of the largest Islamic bank in Nigeria-another source of funding terror.
(Excerpts only full article is on oil Industry/Energy Page)
Emeka Eze
Syndicated Column only. Send all correspondence to Email:ezeces@gmail.com
South African Enjoys Role of Africa's Leadership
As Nigerian Leadership Problem Lingers
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Abuja - As the dust settles on the final accord reached at the Copenhagen meeting, plans for Mexico is already underway. One fact is now apparent, when the world needed a country to represent Africa, no one bothered to seek any view of the leadership deficient Nigeria. Instead South Africa enjoys the lone nation status to be considered in Africa. Unfortunately, with all the good works of Ghana, its GDP is just to small for any serious world leadership consideration. The Northern Africans have the same problem with smaller GDP and their Arab influence does not give them the strong enough plurality base to emerge. The East Africans have the same problem of lower GDP, that leaves Nigeria and South African comfortably to share the leadership role. However since the Obasanjo's PDP INEC flawed elections of 2007, his fraudulency emerged in Nigeria and the results has seriously eroded Nigerian leadership image abroad. President Umar Yar'Adua have not been able to show up in any international comference, nor has any Nigerian initiative arouse of any significance in the region since he took over the Obasanjo "Baba's Africa View" father Africa view of Nigerian's foreign policy. If you have any doubt about the diminished image, see what has not emerged from Copenhagen.
The head of a United Nations panel on climate change, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the emergence of India, China, Brazil and South Africa as new established leaders on the global change scene is the most important and significant change in the climate change for now. It is certain now that developed nations will not be able to craft an agreement without these nations taking a leadership role. The next global meeting on climate change is scheduled for next year in Mexico. Indian in the meantime has intensified its communications with the other important partner in the group of four China. The Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi by phone to discuss continued cooperation on climate change. All of these have happened and continue to unfold without a single consultation or regards for any role Nigeria has played or can possibly contribute. If the corrupt establishment in Abuja needs any single reason to be alarmed, there dont have to look to far.
Guinea Junta Leader's Aide Confess Shooting President Camarra
Aide is on the Run
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An undisclosed interview with Radio France was released today of Lt. Diakite who is the alleged aide of President Camarra who shot at the Guinea Junta leader. Mr. Diakite in the interviw confessed to shooting the erratic leader in the neck."I categorically state that a bullet, around one or two bullets, hit the right-hand side of the back of his neck," he said in the Radio France Internationale interview.
"I shot him because at some point there was utter betrayal towards me, a complete betrayal of democracy, he tried to lay all responsibility for the events of 28 September on me." The interview with Lt Diakite was recorded three days ago, and it was unclear whether he was still in Guinea or had fled the country. Sources says that he was still in Guinea at the time of the interview but the fugitive Diakite may have received assistance to flee Guinea to a neighbouring African country since the interview. Previous reports however have said, he was on the run inside Guinea.
Nigerian President's Wife Denies Resignation Feud
I did Not Ask My Son To Resign
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The controversy surrounding President Umaru Yar'Adua's health deepened on Monday with his mother, Hajia Dada, denying reports that she asked him to resign.She said in a statement by her daughter, Hajia Mairo Yar'Adua, that it was untrue that she was at loggerheads with her daughter-in-law, Turai.
Hajia Dada was reacting to media reports (not in THE PUNCH) that she was unhappy with the President's continued stay in office in spite of his ill-health and that she was not in the best of terms with Turai.
The statement by Mairo coincided with fresh revelation that Yar'Adua's health had not recorded significant improvement.
It also came just as a former President of the Senate, Chief Ken Nnamani, called for the President to prove his reported recovery by addressing Nigerians through a video conference from Saudi Arabia where he is receiving treatment. In the statement, Hajia Dada warned those playing politics with the President's health to desist ,and join her family and other well-wisher meaning Nigerians in praying for the President's quick recovery.
Nigerian Ruling Party Leaders Targets Former Speaker of House
For Calling For Resignation of the Ailing President Yar'Adua
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The drama sorrounding the health of president Umar Musa Yar'Adua and his ability to remain in office took a turn for the worst yesterday when a meeting of party chairmen from the 34 local government chapters of Katsina State agreed to punish the six "wayward" Katsina politicians who had dared to demand that the president resign on the grounds of ill-health. The meeting was presided over by the state's People's Democratic Party chairman.
"Each party chairman arrived the venue with truck loads of supporters and thugs. Among their missions was to get the party's nod to attack the homes and properties of the six Katsina State indigenes who signed the petition calling for the President's resignation" our sources said.
Restrained by the heavy presence of a police anti-riot detachment at the meeting, the angry delegates who had planned a rally after the meeting resolved instead to adopt the position of the local party chairman calling for the dismissal of Aminu Masari, former speaker of the House of Representatives who was also a signatory had lend his voice to the call that the president resigns.
Guinea President is Shot By His Aide
Flown To Senegal For Treatment
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Guinea's military leader has been fired on by one of his aides in the capital, Conakry, a government spokesman says. Capt Moussa Dadis Camara came to power in a bloodless military coup months ago and had been very popular at the onset promising to had over power to a civilian government. However Mr. Camara popularity has taken a nose dive, since his intention to hang on to state power had become evident in recent months.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Senegal has sent a medical plane to evacuate Capt Camara, Senegalese officials said. "He is injured. We don't know the degree and the nature of his injury." Earlier in August Mr. Camara announced that presidential elections would be held in January 2010. But in September, government troops opened fire on an opposition rally at a stadium in Conakry, called to protest Captain Camara's rumoured intention to stand as a candidate. West African alliance Ecowas, African Union and the EU has all called for Capt Camara to be tried for crimes against humanity, while the African Union has been further urging him to stand down.
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