Nigeria: Spin doctors to the rescue

Nigeria is facing pressing problems so the government has taken decisive action: it signed a $1.2 million contract with an American public-relations company to manage the country's image.

 

The news of the contract came on the heels of an emotive and sorrowful op-ed that President Goodluck Jonathan published last week in the Washington Post, in which he attempted to rehabilitate his reputation and counter the impression that he was unconcerned about the fate of the more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped from their school in Chibok in April.

 

"My silence has been necessary to avoid compromising the details of our investigation," the president wrote, though it was not clear how a refusal to meet with the grieving parents would endanger the recovery mission.

 

The letter, in retrospect, looked like the first salvo fired from the PR arsenal of Levick, the Washington-based lobbying firm contracted to help out the Abuja government. The company is going to try to shape the "media narrative" over the government's recovery effort. It is also tasked with mobilising international support of the fight against Boko Haram.

With the elections fast approaching in February 2015, critics accused Jonathan of running to the Washington spin-doctors to spruce up his image ahead of the still-yet-to-be-declared re-election campaign.

 

For its efforts, Levick will earn $75,000 a month plus (likely to be considerable) expenses for travel and media production, according to The Hill.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria or East Africa, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Abuja shopping centre hit

An explosion hit a busy shopping centre in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on 25 June, and casualties are reported. The explosion hit the Wuse district, shattering windows and causing people to flee the shops with blood on their clothes. It is not yet clear what was behind the attack.

Although most of its targets have been in the northeast, Boko Haram has hit Abuja several times before, including an attack on the UN national headquarters in 2011. In April, more than 70 people were killed in a bomb blast at a bus stop on the outskirts of the capital in an attack claimed by the extremist group. In May, a car bomb near a bus station in the suburbs killed at least 19 people and injured 60 others.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria or East Africa, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Britain to host summit on northern Nigeria crisis

 The UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague is to use next week’s global meeting on conflict and gender violence to convene a special summit on Nigeria's crisis called “The London Ministerial Security in northern Nigeria”. Hague, regarded as one of the more effective ministers in Prime Minister David Cameron's cabinet, is taking advantage of the presence in London of over 40 foreign ministers, many from Africa and Europe, for the gender violence meeting.

Briefing journalists this week, Hague said the London meeting would build on – not replicate – the agreements and co-operation established at the regional summit on West African security hosted last month in Paris by President François Hollande. That was attended by heads of state from Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin, as well as senior officials from the US, the EU and Hague himself.

Hague said that the London meeting for foreign ministers and their security advisers will go into more detail, as well as diplomatic and security strategy. While praising the civil society effort to publicise the #Bringbackourgirls campaign, he said there was much work to do in “policy and institutional terms” to shape “an effective response to the crisis”. Most importantly, the meeting would look at more “pre-emptive measures” to fight terrorism.

Foreign Ministers from Canada, the US, the EU and West Africa are all due to attend.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Ghana takes robust line against Nigeria on trade

As the new Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) chairman, Ghana’s President John Mahama is prioritising the implementation of the regional group's Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS). But he accused Nigeria of foot-dragging and said that Nigerian protectionism was damaging efforts the complete the deal.

Boosting regional trade would be a boon to exporters, and even importers could realise significant savings. Mahama pointed to Nigeria's salt imports: it buys one million tonnes a year of Brazilian salt while nearby Ghana struggles to upgrade its salt sector.

“Nigeria has nothing to fear from Ghana in terms of competition," said Mahama. "Nigeria has nothing to fear from Côte d'Ivoire in terms of competition. Nigeria has nothing to fear from Benin or Togo or Niger.”

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Judge orders SSS to return Lamido Sanusi’s passport to him

Judge Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the State Security Service (SSS) to return the passport of the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Lamido Sanusi, to him and pay N50 million (US$305,000) in damages for detaining him.

Sanusi was suspended by President Goodluck Jonathan on 21 February after Sanusi had raised some uncomfortable questions about the US$20 billion that he said the state-owned Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had failed to remit to the government.

Sanusi, who had been in Niger at a meeting of regional central bank governors at the time, was greeted by SSS agents on his return to Lagos, where he was detained and his passport confiscated.
Sanusi's problems are, however, far from over. He is challenging his suspension in court; not, he says to get his job back but instead to make the impropriety of his effective dismissal a matter of record. At the same time, he still faces questions from his opponents about his tenure at the CBN. Sanusi and his team - retired deputy governor Tunde Lemo and deputy (now acting) governor Sarah Alade - appeared before the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, to respond to questions about alleged irregular transactions in 2011-2012.

Meanwhile, the new Central Bank governor, Zenith Bank’s CEO and Group Managing Director Godwin Emefiele, was confirmed on 26 March after a speedy Senate hearing. He takes over from Sarah Alade in June.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Mass demonstration of support for Jonathan in Abuja

Mass demonstration of support for Jonathan in Abuja will provide backdrop for announcement of his candidacy in 2014/15 elections.

 

Months of political suspense over whether President Goodluck Jonathan how and when declare his intentions to run for a second term in 2015 are coming to an end. Although Jonathan is certain to announce he will run in 2014/15, the main question for the ruling People's Democratic Party is how much of an internal competition for the nomination will be allowed in the wake of the defection of seven PDP state governors this month.

 

Preparations are under way for a “five-million-man march” in Abuja on October 19, at which Jonathan is expected to celebrate his achievements since 2011 and announced, at last, that he is in the running again.

 

The National Solidarity March, as the event is called, will be coordinated by Chief Obi Aguocha, an Abia State lawmaker. Similar spectacles will follow in key commercial centres across the country

Jonathan may have taken onboard the advice of Anthony Anenih, the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, who seemed to be losing patience with the ongoing party ructions and two weeks ago told Jonathan to declare his candidacy.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

 

© 2013 Menas Associates

Nigeria: JTF claims anti-bunkering success

 

JTF claims anti-bunkering success, while the US joins a regional meeting on the growing threat off the coast.

 

A Joint Task Force spokesman, Onyema Nwachukwu, said that the JTF had arrested 608 suspected oil thieves in the first half of 2013. The JTF mission in the Niger Delta, code-named Operation Pulo Shield, has impounded 24 vessels and destroyed 748 illegal refineries over that period.

Nwachukwu said that the JTF patrols had notified oil companies of the breaches in its pipelines in Bayelsa in good time. He claimed that the companies had been slow to react, which led to the shutdown of 190,000 b/d.

 

The US and Nigeria held the Gulf of Guinea Regional Maritime Awareness Capability conference at Calabar in Cross River State from 29-31 July. Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has surged in the past year, with the International Maritime Bureau reporting in mid-July that the waters off the Nigerian coast have become far more perilous than the Gulf of Aden. Cross River State Governor Liyel Imoke said piracy in the Gulf of Guinea had cost the world economy between US$750 million and US$950 million in 2012.

 

The conference brought together 13 African countries and was attended by representatives from US African Command (Africom) and the US Navy. A panel of Nigerian and US naval officers proposed joint training and information sharing among the West African countries to better develop a cohesive response to seaborne lawlessness. The delegates agreed a communiqué calling for a common legal scheme for maritime security among the Gulf of Guinea states.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2013 Menas Associates

Nigeria: MEND announces start of Hurricane Exodus

 

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claims that it has commenced “Hurricane Exodus”, an operation to wage war “against injustice, corruption, despotism and oppression”.

 

In a 15 June press statement sent via email to several media agencies, by its spokesperson Jomo Gbomo MEND said that it began its “Hurricane Exodus” that morning, when its field operatives “stealthily attached portable military limpet explosives magnetically, to two articulated tankers laden with petrol”. The statement claims that the tankers were in a queue outside the depot of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) at Abaji on the outskirts of Abuja, waiting to discharge products when they were blown up. It claims that the attack was part of its “Operation Touch and Go” – a part of Hurricane Exodus. It says that this segment is targeted at the downstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. It warned Nigerians to steer clear of such oil tankers as they may be attacked at any time having become “legitimate targets” in their struggle.

 

According to MEND, it will continue to carry out such attacks until all its demands are met. These demands include: the release of Henry Okah, his brother Charles Okah and others held in connection with the 1 October 2010 Independence day bomb blasts in Abuja; the resignation of “the corrupt and inept Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke” as minister of petroleum resources; and an “unreserved apology” from the Federal Government of Nigeria for presenting a “forged email” which threatened the South African government, and was purported to have come from MEND. The letter was used as evidence to convict Henry Okah in his trial in Johannesburg.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

 

© 2013 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Aliyu Wamako suspended from PDP

 

Barely two weeks after the ruling People's Democratic Party's (PDP) National Working Council (NWC) suspended Rivers State's Governor Rotimi Amaechi from the party, the NWC has now announced the suspension of Sokoto State's Governor Aliyu Wamako. This was announced on 5 June by PDP national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh, following a meeting of the NWC on the same day.

 

Wamako's suspension is said to be the consequence of “repeated breaches and disregard” of PDP's constitution. The NWC accused Wamako of ignoring invitations and lawful directives of the NWC on several occasions, showing apathy to the affairs of the party and contempt to one of the party's organs.

 

The statement revealed that it follows his unexplained refusal to honour another invitation to appear before it on the same day.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

 

© 2013 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Buhari meets with Kano Governor to discuss merger move

Sources reveal that Gen Muhammadu Buhari, leader of opposition party CPC and would-be 2015 presidential candidate, recently met Governor Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso of Kano State. According to the source, this meeting is part of moves for Kwakwanso to move to the opposition parties' new alliance, shortly after it has been registered as a political party with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

 

It has also been revealed that the merged opposition party is planning to slightly modify its chosen name and acronym – The All Progressives Congress (APC) – because of the controversy that has surrounded the acronym, with the emergence of two political organisations – the African People's Congress (APC) and All Patriotic Citizens (APC) – purportedly claiming first registration rights to the acronym.

 

According to sources, the plan is to retain the first and last letters in the acronym (A and C) but change the second letter (P) to some other suitable word that reflects the merger.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

 

© 2013 Menas Associates

More than 50 dead in Boko Haram raid

 

According to a number of sources, 55 people have been killed in Bama, in the north eastern Nigerian state of Borno, in a co-ordinated attack by Boko Haram militants. It is understood that 200 heavily armed members of the Islamist group arrived in the town in the early hours of Tuesday morning and attacked a police station, military barracks and government buildings before freeing 105 inmates. Among the dead are police officers, prison wardens, soldiers, a small number of civilians and 13 members of Boko Haram.

The attack represents the rebels' single most deadly strike since the uprising began in 2009 and possibly the most significant since the Kano bombings in early 2012. It follows a government raid in Baga last month, also in the state of Borno, targeting rebels who had earlier attacked a military patrol. Over 200 people were allegedly killed and thousands of buildings destroyed in what was described by some observers as the government's use of “excessive force”. Similar operations by the authorities in late 2012 were thought to have diminished the threat posed by Boko Haram, who killed an estimated 1,000 people last year.

President Goodluck Jonathan has established a committee to lay out the terms of an amnesty for the group, but so far their leader, Abubakar Shekau, has declined to enter negotiations. Boko Haram wishes to establish an Islamic, Shari'a state in Nigeria, a country roughly divided equally between Christians and Muslims, and has previously carried out several prison breaks to free it members.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2013 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Threats from Akwa Ibom militants

 

A militant group in the Esit Eket Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State has written a letter to two oil companies in operation in their community for allegedly not paying royalties. Under the aegis of the Niger Delta Subterranean Force, the group said it would attack the Frontier and Septa Oil and Gas companies if its demands were not met.

The letter was dated 5 March and signed by General Oyobio Oyobio . It warned the managing directors of the two firms that unless the companies provided ? 600 million in royalties and a 100 million naira monthly package for 'settlement of the boys,' it would strike.

'In the next week, we will be ready to attack the pipelines. We are ready to visit the Central Processing Facilities (CPF). If the two companies do not settle [with] us, they should forget about the inauguration of the CPF … because we will attack it.' The group is also pushing for its members to be given the contract to protect the pipelines, stating that it will otherwise blow them up.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2013 Menas Associates

Attack on Abuja headquarters of police's anti-robbery squad

 

Less than 24 hours after the twin suicide bombing there was another deadly attack on a second security installation. In the early hours of Monday 26 November, gunmen attacked the headquarters of the Nigerian Police Force's Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in the Garki district of Abuja, where suspected terrorists are thought to be held. Initial reports claimed that the gunmen released about 30 detainees in the attack which left two policemen dead. The Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, reported that 25 detainees had been recaptured and that five were still at large. Two of the gunmen were killed in the ensuing shootout and that the police had now identified the gunmen.

Mba denied reports that terrorists were held in the SARS detention facility as only suspected armed robbers were detained there. Sources have revealed, however, that the deeply embarrassed Nigerian Police Force (NPF) is desperately trying to downplay the number of escapees because it is claimed that over 100 detainees escaped.

One of the escaped detainees is alleged to be the wife of Kabiru Sokoto, said to be the mastermind of the fatal Christmas Day 2011 bomb attack on a church at Madalla in Niger State. In January, he escaped from police custody at Abaji on the outskirts of Abuja before he was eventually re-arrested in February.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Angry protests in Bakassi

 

With the closure of Nigeria's window of opportunity to appeal the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) decision granting sovereignty of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, increasing tensions in the region have forced the UN team which is demarcating the maritime boundary to suspend their activities.

On 21 November, local people, angry about Abuja's failure to appeal the ICJ ruling, demonstrated in front of the building in Ikang where members of the demarcation team were meeting local officials. The crowd, composed mainly of youths holding placards condemning the UN's 'contempt' for self-determination of the Bakassi people, prevented the demarcation team from moving to the peninsula.

Their leader, Augustine Omini Iwara, said that it was surprising the demarcation was being undertaken despite the fact that local people had filed a case affirming their right to self-determination.

The crowd was already angered by the presence of three ships carrying Cameroonian gendarmes on to the beaches at Ikang. The ships were reportedly connected with the demarcation process but provoked a confrontation with around 300 local youths. The demarcation committee is now consulting with the Federal Government about its next step.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Army kills top Boko Haram commander

 

The Nigerian military has announced that it has killed a top Boko Haram commander in a gunfight in Maiduguri. According to spokesman Sagir Musa, a militant leader by the name of Ibn Saleh Ibrahim was killed alongside several other fighters in a military operation involving helicopters and armoured personnel carriers on 16 November. There were no military casualties.

Ibrahim was reportedly responsible for the assassination of Gen. Mamman Shuwa, a hero of the civil war who was gunned down at his house in Maiduguri on 2 November (Nigeria P&S – 09.11.12). The military operation against Ibrahim's Boko Haram fighters was reportedly continuing.

Meanwhile, the US government has expressed its concern over the alleged detentions, mistreatment and killings of Boko Haram suspects by the security forces. A senior State Department official expressed concern over the allegations, contained in a major Human Rights Watch report in October, in a meeting with Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru.

Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Michael Posner, said that terrorism was a serious and complex challenge but that the struggle against Boko Haram could not be won by force alone.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates

Nigeria: North–South Petroleum farm-out

 

North–South Petroleum, the owner of oil prospectinglicence (OPL) 326, is looking to farm out a 30 per cent stake in the block. Meanwhile, a behind-the-scenes drama over the management of the company has been revealed. The chair used to be Senator Abu Ibrahim and the company was managed by one Geoffrey C. Oherne as managing director. Oherne who is trained as a lawyer and is a close friend of former Rivers State governor Peter Odili , seems to have had a serious falling-out with the suspected 'closet' owners of the company, one of whom has been named as former head of state General Abdulsalami Abubakar .

The breach is said to have occurred about nine months ago. As part of the episode, Oherne was apparently arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and turned for help to his contacts in the presidency but was told there was nothing they could do. He then attempted to reach out to Minister for Petroleum Resources Diezani Allison-Madueke , who in turn contacted EFCC chair Ibrahim Lamorde on his behalf. Lamorde informed them, however, that he could to nothing to assist Oherne in his predicament as the order for his arrest had 'come from above.'

The company is now said to be run by Chris Okoli , and Abubakar may have sold his stake in OPL 326 for $50 million to Okoli and two others – Bello Isa Bayero and an unnamed Odugua – after kicking Oherne out. Industry sources have revealed that OPL 326 has very low prospects.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates

President is criticised for his Independence Day speech

Nigeria “celebrated” the 52 nd Independence Day anniversary on 1 October. For the second consecutive year, the celebrations were low-key across the country and even more so in Abuja. President Goodluck Jonathan has received widespread criticism for his 18-minute Independence Day broadcast which has been described as lacklustre, inaccurate and defeatist.

His declaration of the commencement of a year-long national prayer campaign has been slated because, as far as most Nigerians are concerned, it could be construed to mean that the presidency had run out of ideas and was literally “living on a prayer” in charting the affairs of the country and in resolving the myriad problems of insecurity, corruption and lack of infrastructure provision that continue to impact negatively on Nigeria's economic development.

Attempting to highlight his administration's achievements in the fight against corruption Jonathan erroneously stated that Transparency International (TI) had scored his administration high and Nigeria as “improving”. This was almost immediately refuted by TI which said: “Transparency International does not have a recent rating or report that places Nigeria as the second most improved country in the fight against corruption.”

Meanwhile, sources have revealed that the president is unhappy with the remarks made by Senate president, David Mark, during the special Independence Day session of the Senate held on Tuesday 2 October.

Remarking on the state of the nation at 52, Mark said: “We have made some considerable achievements. For that alone, we need to show gratitude to God, pray and work. Not just pray alone. Praying alone will not solve the problem and we need to combine both of them. I think more than anything else, we just need political will to take our policies to logical conclusions whether it is at the executive level or the legislative level.”

Some observers believe that Mark's reference to prayer being insufficient was a veiled response to the President's call for a year-long national prayer campaign. According to sources, Jonathan reached the same conclusion, and is therefore unhappy with Senator David Mark. Jonathan apparently felt that Mark's statement constituted a betrayal because he had always considered Mark to be one of his administration's firm allies.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Domestic aviation almost extinct

In recent years, the performance and growth of Nigeria's domestic aviation sector has been at best just below average, with most airlines struggling to maintain profits and operating under enormous mountains of debt. On the periphery, however, observers assumed the airlines were making passable profits and doing quite well.

 

For most Nigerians, the major concern has been the question of aircraft safety and whether the regulatory authorities were doing enough to ensure it. About 90 per cent of air accidents that occur in Nigeria are completely fatal. They have so far involved only domestic airline operators and a couple of aircraft belonging to security agencies, the police, and the military.

 

What was not known was that domestic airlines were hugely indebted to the financial sector. The bubble burst and the secret financial rot came out in the open in 2009, when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the National Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) conducted a joint audit of the banking sector and found mammoth margin loans and nonperforming loans on the books.

 

It was found that some of the prominent debtors were domestic airlines. This spurred the CBN to offer a bailout fund in the hope that the aviation sector would not collapse and plunge the economy into chaos.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

 

© 2012 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Opposition merger talks run into trouble

 

Merger talks between the main opposition parties in the country - Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN); ANPP; and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) – are still ongoing. Sources have revealed, however, that ANPP is divided over the current talks with CPC. The ANPP's chairman, Ogbonnaya Onu, is reportedly in favour of the merger. The new chairman of the party's Board of Trustees, former Borno State governor Ali Modu Sheriff, is said to be opposed to the merger with CPC.

Sheriff defeated the ANPP's 2011 presidential candidate, Ibrahim Shekarau, to clinch the chairmanship and this has apparently upset Shekarau. In a bid to calm the latter's ruffled feathers, Bashir Tofa, who is from Shekarau's home state of Kano, is said to have been offered the position of chair of ANPP's merger committee. Tofa has, however, declined because of Shekarau and Yobe State's governor, Ibrahim Geidam, was chosen instead. Meanwhile, it appears that former Sokoto State governor, Attahiru Bafarawa, who is an ANPP chieftain, may be tilting in favour of merging with CPC. He recently visited CPC leader, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, at his home in Kaduna State, ostensibly to discuss the disunity in the North.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2012 Menas Associates

Nigeria: Babangida and Obasanjo may establish new party

A political group which is crystallising around two former presidents - Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) (1985-1993) and Olusegun Obasanjo (1976-1979 &1999-2007) - is beginning to make efforts to establish a new political party in order to take on the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) to which both men still belong. The first indication that the two are working together was the joint press statement they issued a few weeks ago on the state of the nation and the security challenges facing Nigeria. Sources say that Obasanjo and Babangida resolved that they could not work with either another former military Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari (1983-1985) of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), or the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

 

Tinubu and Buhari's opposition parties are currently in talks for a possible merger ahead of the 2015 general elections and this group is also said to be working with some of the Northern Governors. Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, is meanwhile said to be involved with the People's Democratic Movement (PDM) and the plans to revive the movement. The PDM was a socio-political group that was formed by the late Major-Gen. Shehu Musa Yar'Adua – the older brother of late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua – who was vice president in Obasanjo's first term but was imprisoned by Sani Abacha' s military regime in 1995 and died in captivity in 1997.

 

The PDM was one of the socio-political groups that formed the basis for the PDP's establishment in 1998. Some politicians recently held a meeting in Abuja to kick off plans to revive the PDM. In attendance were PDP chieftains Tony Anenih; Titi Ajanaku; Ambassador Yahaya Kwande; Dubem Onyia and Lawal Kaita.

 

The latter is said to have been representing Atiku Abubakar at the PDM meetings. It has been said that Atiku has been reluctant to personally attend the PDM meetings in case he is seen as actively working against a party whose government he has benefited from

 

through the award of lucrative contracts. Atiku's company - Intels Logistics and Services Company - operates the concession for the Onne Port. It is in partnership with Orleans Invest in which his longstanding close business associate, Gabriele Volpi, is part-owner.

 

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

 

© 2012 Menas Associates