Nigeria

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Heracleum Persicum
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Corruption in Nigeria

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

.



Mr Sanusi caused shockwaves in Nigeria when he alleged that $20bn (£12bn) in oil revenue had gone missing.



Look, folks, in corruption, like in TANGO, there always 2 side

one side pays the money

other side receives the money

In Nigeria case (and most western marionettes) the Generals receive the money .. that is standard

but

who pays the money ? ?

The Oil companies (Oil companies mostly same as their governments)

meaning ? ?

West paying the generals (and the bullies) to f*ck the people who are the owner of Oil & Gas resources

and

you don't play ball ? ?

if so

you terrorist .. either you will be bombed or civil war coming to you


.
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Doc
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Re: Corruption in Nigeria

Post by Doc »

Heracleum Persicum wrote:.



Mr Sanusi caused shockwaves in Nigeria when he alleged that $20bn (£12bn) in oil revenue had gone missing.



Look, folks, in corruption, like in TANGO, there always 2 side

one side pays the money

other side receives the money

In Nigeria case (and most western marionettes) the Generals receive the money .. that is standard

but

who pays the money ? ?

The Oil companies (Oil companies mostly same as their governments)

meaning ? ?

West paying the generals (and the bullies) to f*ck the people who are the owner of Oil & Gas resources

and

you don't play ball ? ?

if so

you terrorist .. either you will be bombed or civil war coming to you


.
The actual issue is that the government gets the money then it is stolen not that the oil is stolen as your headline clearly indicates. Corruption in Nigeria has always been great. I remember a story on sixty minutes from 20 or 30 years ago that even though Nigeria had a free press examples of corruption under $50 million didn't get covered because that was just small change. In comparison all these years later $20 billion missing is hardly surprising.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
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kmich
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Bring Back Our Girls

Post by kmich »

rmZMa8gBvZc
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

This is the reason we have Special Forces, drones and intelligence agencies. We can squash these pests quietly and without a lot of rabble-rousing.

It reminds me of that Kony crap. A lot of whoop-de-do instead of action.
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kmich
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by kmich »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:This is the reason we have Special Forces, drones and intelligence agencies. We can squash these pests quietly and without a lot of rabble-rousing.

It reminds me of that Kony crap. A lot of whoop-de-do instead of action.
Military and intelligence operations in a situation like this are hardly anything close to as simple as you would like it to be. "Whoop-de-do" indeed.
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Endovelico
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Endovelico »

By comparing, for instance, Nigeria and Angola, or Congo and Angola, one sees that a good deal of Africa's problems have their origin in the type of colonization it suffered. Purely exploitative colonialism - like the British and Belgian - did nothing to create the national identity without which no country can survive. Soft, "inefficient" colonialism, like the Portuguese type, tended to blur regional differences and thus create the basis for national identity. In the coming decades one will see Angola as a rare example of a prosperous, united country, closer to the South American countries than to the rest of Africa. And Nigeria and Congo will disintegrate.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

kmich wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:This is the reason we have Special Forces, drones and intelligence agencies. We can squash these pests quietly and without a lot of rabble-rousing.

It reminds me of that Kony crap. A lot of whoop-de-do instead of action.
Military and intelligence operations in a situation like this are hardly anything close to as simple as you would like it to be. "Whoop-de-do" indeed.
Nigeria has been a US client state for a long time. US infrastructure is in place already and can support a police action against a lone criminal organization. Boko Haram has been protected by Clinton's US state dept., so it's not like they are an unknown terror organization hiding somewhere in the jungle. They have certainly been infiltrated, or they would not have been greenlighted by Clinton.

58,000 children were abducted by non-family members in the US (1999). http://www.missingkids.com/KeyFacts
That's a real challenge. 300 girls abducted by a single gang is terrible, but it is an addressable police problem. Spending time and money astroturfing a political will for action for 300 kids in Nigeria makes no sense when the US problem is ultimately more complex, local, and 20,000% worse.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Endovelico
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Endovelico »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:Nigeria has been a US client state for a long time.
It makes you think about the usefulness of being a US client state...
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kmich
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by kmich »

Endovelico wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Nigeria has been a US client state for a long time.
It makes you think about the usefulness of being a US client state...
Indeed. Stability and rule of law are structures that have to develop within societies. They cannot be effectively imposed from the outside. Look at the centuries of wars, famines, genocides, and disasters before Europe finally developed. We had our own, disastrous civil war in that process.

We Americans have short memories and think we can do anything though. The Sheriff rides in town, shoots 'em up, saves those damsels in distress, and somehow truth and justice will prevail. If you think you can use force to make things go your way, you just don't have to think. You don't have to consider the complexity, motives, resources, and forces of the society you are engaging, and you arrogantly can just think in your own, imposed terms. Power has made us stupid, that is why we stumble about one disastrous military/"police" intervention after another often making bad situations worse and never learning.
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Parodite
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Parodite »

kmich wrote:
Endovelico wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Nigeria has been a US client state for a long time.
It makes you think about the usefulness of being a US client state...
Indeed. Stability and rule of law are structures that have to develop within societies. They cannot be effectively imposed from the outside. Look at the centuries of wars, famines, genocides, and disasters before Europe finally developed.
Yet we are still very thankful the Yanks and Canucks intervened in Europe during WW2.
Deep down I'm very superficial
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Endovelico
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Endovelico »

Parodite wrote:
kmich wrote:
Endovelico wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Nigeria has been a US client state for a long time.
It makes you think about the usefulness of being a US client state...
Indeed. Stability and rule of law are structures that have to develop within societies. They cannot be effectively imposed from the outside. Look at the centuries of wars, famines, genocides, and disasters before Europe finally developed.
Yet we are still very thankful the Yanks and Canucks intervened in Europe during WW2.
Excuse me, but WWII ended 69 years ago... How long must our thankfulness force us to endure American imperial delusions?...
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kmich
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by kmich »

Parodite wrote:
kmich wrote:
Endovelico wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:Nigeria has been a US client state for a long time.
It makes you think about the usefulness of being a US client state...
Indeed. Stability and rule of law are structures that have to develop within societies. They cannot be effectively imposed from the outside. Look at the centuries of wars, famines, genocides, and disasters before Europe finally developed.
Yet we are still very thankful the Yanks and Canucks intervened in Europe during WW2.
Europe had centuries of tumultuous political, legal, and state developments prior to Germany flying off the rails in WWII. The Europe of that time was not anything like our contemporary Africa or Middle East.
Endovelico wrote:Excuse me, but WWII ended 69 years ago... How long must our thankfulness force us to endure American imperial delusions?...
As long as America operates on the myth of righteous violence against the "evils" of the world; a myth that was derived from the relative clarity and success of that war.
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Parodite
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Parodite »

Just saying that intervention is not always a bad thing. Another example of good intervention is a police force that acts when a psychotic person threatens to kill family members or blow up his street. "Good" here just means: up to the task. The intention of an intervention can be morally justified.. but still bad if it was not up to the task.
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kmich
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by kmich »

Parodite wrote:Just saying that intervention is not always a bad thing. Another example of good intervention is a police force that acts when a psychotic person threatens to kill family members or blow up his street. "Good" here just means: up to the task. The intention of an intervention can be morally justified.. but still bad if it was not up to the task.
Of course intervention is not always a "bad" thing, but such moral clarity is hard to find in reality and is very murky historically. The tasks of wars and "interventions" are typically framed by motives that are more often than not warped by primitive, collective needs for power, projections of evil onto the "other," as well as a general, unconscious blindness. One can easily frame moral clarity in these matters in the abstract or hypothetical; realizing these in actual historical conditions is far more challenging.
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Parodite
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Parodite »

kmich wrote:[Of course intervention is not always a "bad" thing, but such moral clarity is hard to find in reality and is very murky historically. The tasks of wars and "interventions" are typically framed by motives that are more often than not warped by primitive, collective needs for power, projections of evil onto the "other," as well as a general, unconscious blindness. One can easily frame moral clarity in these matters in the abstract or hypothetical; realizing these in actual historical conditions is far more challenging.
But clarity is increasing, we don't buy that easily anymore reasons that hide the excuses, other interests and intentions. It just occurred to me, that sometimes evil stares you right in the face.. showing its nature without disguises. As in this case of the African Girls. To then discuss the effects of American Intervention and emphasize that countries.. cultures.. need to fix themselves.. kind of beats me.
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kmich
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by kmich »

Parodite wrote:
kmich wrote:[Of course intervention is not always a "bad" thing, but such moral clarity is hard to find in reality and is very murky historically. The tasks of wars and "interventions" are typically framed by motives that are more often than not warped by primitive, collective needs for power, projections of evil onto the "other," as well as a general, unconscious blindness. One can easily frame moral clarity in these matters in the abstract or hypothetical; realizing these in actual historical conditions is far more challenging.
But clarity is increasing, we don't buy that easily anymore reasons that hide the excuses, other interests and intentions. It just occurred to me, that sometimes evil stares you right in the face.. showing its nature without disguises. As in this case of the African Girls. To then discuss the effects of American Intervention and emphasize that countries.. cultures.. need to fix themselves.. kind of beats me.
Alright, but I never said that the outside world should not be involved in Africa. I would have never spent all the time I have in Africa if I believed that. These cultures, their traditions, leadership systems, ethnic and religious issues, and relationship styles can be confusing and complex, and no one will accomplish anything there no matter how many drones and special forces you have without the cooperation of the people in country. The Nigerian government would have blown the whole kidnapping off without the outside moral pressure to create an embarrassment. It was only then that we began to gain their cooperation and their petitions for assistance. We can help, but we must proceed with our eyes open to the real situation and not just to the clear moral colors we are fond of applying.

In the developed world, we tend to have moral clarity on our own terms. Evil becomes clear, not because of our developing insight into the real situation, but because of our refinement of our own needs for a default, complacent moral reasoning. This all can also be deeply problematic. As Nietzsche wrote, "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you..."
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Parodite
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Parodite »

kmich wrote: We can help, but we must proceed with our eyes open to the real situation and not just to the clear moral colors we are fond of applying.
Very true. No point in stampeding around like a Cyclops stuffed with good intentions and perfect morals but leaving behind a total mess and corpses all around..
In the developed world, we tend to have moral clarity on our own terms. Evil becomes clear, not because of our developing insigt into the real situation, but because of our refinement of our own needs for a default, complacent moral reasoning. This all can also be deeply problematic. As Nietzsche wrote, "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you..."
Evil is clear, I think, when your natural mirror brains and rest of your social wiring are intact and then see something evil happening to another human being. Hardly reasoned or complacent. Kids can be really upset when they see another person (or animal) in pain.
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kmich
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by kmich »

Parodite wrote:
kmich wrote: In the developed world, we tend to have moral clarity on our own terms. Evil becomes clear, not because of our developing insigt into the real situation, but because of our refinement of our own needs for a default, complacent moral reasoning. This all can also be deeply problematic. As Nietzsche wrote, "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you..."
Evil is clear, I think, when your natural mirror brains and rest of your social wiring are intact and then see something evil happening to another human being. Hardly reasoned or complacent. Kids can be really upset when they see another person (or animal) in pain.
It certainly would be a very beautiful world if our ethical lives were as compassionate as a child responding to the immediate distress of another creature, Parodite. Ethical clarity can also be a luxury of a safe distance from the messiness of life.

I really have had to work hard at not becoming jaded and cynical over the years. I just know that I have often had to bargain with the devil and look the other way to make security arrangements and get what I needed over there. I messed this all up more than once and never felt right about it. If only our ethical lives were as simple as the heart of a child, but, unfortunately, they often meander through mazes of darkness, ambiguity, ignorance, and complexity.
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: Bring Back Our Girls

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Image
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Doc
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Islamists Torture Nigeria

Post by Doc »

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/ ... FP20141218
Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnap 100 over women, children in Nigeria

By Lanre Ola

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria Thu Dec 18, 2014 10:05am EST

(Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram gunmen kidnapped more than 100 women and children and killed 35 other people on Sunday during a raid on the remote northeast Nigerian village of Gumsuri, a security source and resident said on Thursday.

Although no one has claimed it yet, the attack bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which abducted more than 200 women in April from a secondary school in Chibok, only 24 km (15 miles) from this latest attack.

Its campaign for an Islamic state by Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful", has become the gravest threat to Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer.

Thousands of people have been killed and many hundreds abducted, raising questions about the ability of security forces to protect civilians, especially around the north Cameroon border where the militants are well established.

Maina Chibok, who did not witness the attack but is from Gumsuri and visited family there shortly afterwards, said the insurgents came in pick-up trucks and sprayed the town with bullets from AK-47s and machine guns.

"They gathered the people, shot dead over 30 people and took away more than 100 women and children in two open-top trucks," Chibok said. Burials of many of the victims had already happened, he added.

News from remote parts of Nigeria that are cut off from mobile communications sometimes takes days to emerge.

A security source confirmed that more than 100 had been abducted and said 35 people had been killed, including the district head.

"They also burned down a government medical center, houses and shops," Chibok said.

The abductions have gained in frequency this year. A man who says he is Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau last month rejected comments by the government it was in talks to free the Chibok girls, saying he had in fact "married them off" to Boko Haram commanders, in a video posted on the Internet.

The military, which does not usually comment on security developments in the northeast, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Sunday's incident.

A youth vigilante from the area called Aliyu Mamman told Reuters by telephone that there was no security presence to stop the militants, who stayed in the town all night before leaving.

Nigeria sentenced 54 soldiers to death by firing squad for mutiny while fighting against insurgents in the northeast on Wednesday.

Cameroon's army killed 116 Boko Haram militants on Wednesday when they attacked a base in the Far North region of the country, the Defence Ministry said on Thursday.
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
Uche Americanus
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Re: Islamists Torture Nigeria

Post by Uche Americanus »

Doc,

The "torture" from the terrorist has been terrible as you and others know from the various news accounts of the unending violence and deaths in northeast Nigeria. More tortorous has been the ineffective response from the government and the Nigerian military to the activities of Boko Haram. Most people in and outside of Nigeria did not expect the security forces to fall apart in the face of BH attacks. It is hard to know where to begin from. But this was all predictable. I remember Nonc Hilaire writing after the fall of Libya that Nigeria would be next. Well, Mali was but Nigeria soon followed.

I will try to, depending on interests here, try to provide summations of what I think is happending as events unfold in my country of origin.

Cheers.

Uche
Simple Minded

Re: Islamists Torture Nigeria

Post by Simple Minded »

Uche Americanus wrote:Doc,

The "torture" from the terrorist has been terrible as you and others know from the various news accounts of the unending violence and deaths in northeast Nigeria. More tortorous has been the ineffective response from the government and the Nigerian military to the activities of Boko Haram. Most people in and outside of Nigeria did not expect the security forces to fall apart in the face of BH attacks. It is hard to know where to begin from. But this was all predictable. I remember Nonc Hilaire writing after the fall of Libya that Nigeria would be next. Well, Mali was but Nigeria soon followed.

I will try to, depending on interests here, try to provide summations of what I think is happending as events unfold in my country of origin.

Cheers.

Uche
Uche,

I for one would greatly appreciate your updates.

thanks!
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: Islamists Torture Nigeria

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Simple Minded wrote:
Uche Americanus wrote:Doc,

The "torture" from the terrorist has been terrible as you and others know from the various news accounts of the unending violence and deaths in northeast Nigeria. More tortorous has been the ineffective response from the government and the Nigerian military to the activities of Boko Haram. Most people in and outside of Nigeria did not expect the security forces to fall apart in the face of BH attacks. It is hard to know where to begin from. But this was all predictable. I remember Nonc Hilaire writing after the fall of Libya that Nigeria would be next. Well, Mali was but Nigeria soon followed.

I will try to, depending on interests here, try to provide summations of what I think is happending as events unfold in my country of origin.

Cheers.

Uche
Uche,

I for one would greatly appreciate your updates.

thanks!

Please and thank you to the above
Uche Americanus
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Re: Corruption in Nigeria

Post by Uche Americanus »

There is a great deal of corruption in Nigeria, no doubt about it but most of the corruption is fueled by the political elites who government and governance as a perfect opportunity for enrichment. This is made worst by the absence of vigorous prosecution of those who engage in it. And efforts to bring this under control by prosecuting those who engage in it are undermined by the selective process that only persons opposed to the government are prosecuted.

But Sanusi’s allegation of $20 billion missing from government coffers were politically motivated and not factual. His calculations were based on nonremmitted revenue from the National oil company to the treasury based the oil lifted from Nigeria without accounting for the 60/40 shared revenue between the National oil company and its partners.

As noted, this was a political gamesmanship by one of the scions of the old, northern political establishment to remove the then minority president Goodluck Jonathan from office and bring in the present, ineffectual president to office. It succeeded though the accusation was ill motivated and driven by selfish, sectional interest.

Sanusi is the current emir of Kano, a largely Muslim kingdom and whom inspite of his pretentions to modernity has a seraglio of four wives and possibly concubines. One of his wives, he married when she was still a teenager.
.
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Typhoon
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Nigeria

Post by Typhoon »

May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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