Taylor's vacation is over

Now this is a good news. The warlord can now account for all the distress he caused the subregion throughout the 90s.

40 million in Nigerian polio immunization drive

By Christine Jaulmes

Nigeria is the last polio-endemic country in Africa, with the world’s highest number of reported cases in 2005. Now the National Programme on Immunization (NPI), supported by UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other partners, aims to immunize every child in Nigeria against polio.

The country’s second round of National Immunization Days concluded last week, using a unique approach to vaccinate more than 40 million children under the age of five. Teams of workers went directly to homes, stood in market stalls and even boarded boats to rural islands in order to ensure that no child would be missed.

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nigeria_31797.html

Zimbabwean Farmers Find a New Life in Nigeria

Forced out of Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe's infamous land-reform program, a small group of white farmers is taking advantage of a second chance in Nigeria.

Bukola Saraki, the governor of Kwara State, wooed the white commercial farmers despite some local opposition. He hopes to harness the expertise of the farmers from Zimbabwe to jump-start Nigeria's commercial agricultural sector. Nigeria spends billions annually on food imports.

Farmer Dan Swart says teaching people "the finer points of farming and finance" could "make Nigeria the breadbasket of West Africa."

A first-year yield of 4,000 tons of corn may be "the biggest single yield in Nigeria for the last 40 years," says farmer Alan Jack. He coordinated the move to Kwara state and he's recruiting an additional 40 farmers to join the initial band of 13.

As he prepared to fly to Zimbabwe to recruit more white farmers, Alan Jack said he looked forward to coming back to Nigeria, his new home.

"We're very happy here," he says. "We're back doing what we do best, which is farm... Africa needs more success stories."

Un-informed Experts At It Again

The recent articles on Nigeria by Jeffrey Tayler, Worse Than Iraq? for the Atlantic Monthly and G. Pascal Zachary, Nigeria: The Next Quagmire? for Alertnet.org attenuated both writers', and to larger extent western experts' analyses of events in Nigeria in particular and Africa in general as lacking. Both authors wrote on Nigeria because they believed it is the next Iraq. Their un-informed knowledge of Nigeria led them to supposed the recent militancy in the Niger Delta region as evidence of bigger implosion to come. We might be reminded that that road was paved for them by the impertinent and subversive U.S intelligence report "warning" that Nigeria might break up in 15 years with no new evidence other than the Nigeria's ever recurring ethnic afflictions. And since all the recent oil price increases are blamed on the unrest in Nigeria it is natural for the experts to dust up their expertise cap and don it. Now suddenly Nigeria's oil has become so influential as to cause ripples around the world. This is suspect and this is where the ruling politicians must be very very careful on security. Under the military rule dangers like this were minimum not because the military juntas cared more about the national security than their gullible civillian counterparts but rather for fear of usurpation. And so during all the destructive military years it was impossible neither for U.S intelligence warning about Nigeria disintegrating in no time nor experts comparing it to Iraq. They all generally kept their "expertise" opinion to human right violations by the juntas and could go no further. But now democracy has changed that.

Now while both writers' recordings of the Nigeria crisis are basically correct, these however were nothing new as the country has grappled with them since 1914's amalgamation and even fought a destructive civil war because of them and so their conclusion: that Nigeria is on the verge of civil war and implosion and might be the next Iraq betrayed ignorant. That both writers suffixed their titles with question mark merely confirmed this fact.

But of course the Nigerian lukeworm politicians and their policies on national security hasn't helped matter. Atiku's recent call for U.S assistance on the Niger Delta crisis is one example. Why would Nigeria need Americans to maintain security within its own border? The Nigerian Army send troops for peace-keeping to troubled spots around the world but cannot maintain same at home? Also retired Gen. Victor Malu, the former COAS had warned Obasanjo against giving the Americans too much leeway at the Defence Headquaters. He was not heard but instead removed. All these are risky national security policies. Outside of subversive outside elements Nigeria's chances of implosion are as slim as America making Iraq peaceful again.

Nigeria, News

Notes On Niger Delta Crisis

Stealing, fighting, seeking power
From Africa Confidential

Some of the militant leaders linked to the attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta earn tens of thousands of dollars from contracts with the oil majors. The FNDIC leaders Kingsley Otuaro and Messio German run contracting companies working with the oil majors. In Okerenkoko, Messio’s Integrate Production System Surveillance (IPSS) signed a second annual contract with Shell in November to provide security for the company’s huge Jones Creek flow station, where Okerenkoko is one of five ‘host communities’. Messio says the first contract was worth 24 million naira (US$164,000). The second, running from 1 November to 31 October, was for an initial N18 mn. ($123,000), including ‘incident-free bonuses’ of N3.6 mn. ($24,700) a quarter.
IPSS is not officially registered and its contracts look like disguised protection payments. ‘I sincerely believe MEND will not blow up any pipeline [in Okerenkoko] because the security boys would not allow it’, says Messio. He adds that pipeline vandalisation used to be common until a memorandum from him and Otuaro prompted Shell to hire IPSS.
Messio says Shell has since hired local contracting firms all over Delta state. Similar arrangements in Bayelsa are a source of friction between rival Ijaw communities. Shell admits it faces ‘pressure for cash payments for non-legitimate reasons’, but ruled in 2003 that it would no longer pay communities except for legitimate business reasons. Chevron’s similar clean-up last year involved a Global Memorandum of Understanding, designed to end practices such as the hiring of ‘ghost workers’ to pacify local youths. It also said it was ending the designation of ‘host communities’ for its flow stations (oil rigs have ‘impacted communities’) but the message does not seem to have reached the creeks.
An outfit called The Host Communities of Nigeria wants a constitutional amendment to ensure that 13 per cent of government oil revenues go directly to them, rather than to the state governments which, they say, steal most of the money. Leaders in this move are FNDIC’s Messio and the Gbaramatu chiefs.
Shell has been targeted by MEND in the latest violence but not Chevron, the opposite of what happened in 2003. Then, Chevron facilities were attacked in both Ijaw and Itsekiri areas. Ijaws felt that Itsekiris were getting a disproportionate number of oil jobs (Ijaws call that ‘differentials’).
Otuaro denies any link with MEND and says that Shell is targetted because it is less responsive to ‘opinion leaders’ such as himself, especially in paying for trips to the creeks to calm down angry youths or give jobs to local people. complains that Shell refused work to one of his contracting companies, Bruz-Otus, when drilling new wells around Jones Creek last year. Shadro Services Limited, which is owned by Otuaro and his brother Shadrack Otuaro, has lucrative contracts with Shell at Jones Creek and the Egwa oilfield. This pattern of business and militancy is repeated across the region.

Nigeria, News, Niger Delta

Extradite Charles Taylor Now!

Now that the Liberian government has done what the Nigerian government was asking but never really wanted, an extradition request for Taylor, Obasanjo should finally give in and let justice prevail. The man who caused over ten years of carnage in his country and de-established the subregion shouldn't be walking free. Extradite Taylor Now!