Bush-Obasanjo Meeting
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and President George W. Bush will meet in Washington at the White House on Thursday in continuing talks over U.S.-Nigerian ties, security issues and questions related to Nigeria's exports of oil to the United States. West Africa is expected to provide a quarter of U.S. oil imports in coming decades.
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Oil and the security of the Gulf of Guinea will be on the minds of Presdient George W/ Bush and Nigeria's Presdent Olusegun Obasanjo when they meet on Thursday, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.
Here is the Chinese report:
Bush to meet Nigerian President on May 5
www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-30 09:00:23
BEIJING, April 30 -- US President George W. Bush will meet Nigerian President and African Union chairman Olusegun Obasanjo at the White House on May 5.
Making the announcment Friday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the two will discuss bilateral relations, Nigeria's role in the African Union's peacekeeping efforts in Sudan and regional stability for West Africa.
Obasanjo has been pressing Washington and other western powers to pay more attention to the security situation in Africa's Gulf of Guinea region, a rapidly expanding source of oil.
(Source: CRIENGLISH.com)
Here is the White House Press Secretary's offical announcement of the meeting:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
April 29, 2005
STATEMENT BY THE PRESS SECRETARY
President Bush will welcome Nigerian President, and current Chairman of the African Union, Olusegun Obasanjo to the White House on May 5. President Bush looks forward to discussing U.S.-Nigerian bilateral relations, Nigeria's role in the African Union's peacekeeping efforts in Sudan, and regional stability for West Africa
ERHC Energy, Inc. (OTC BB symbol: ERHE) shareholders continue to await the long-delayed awards of oil concessions in Block 2,3,4,5 and 6 of the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone, which were delayed for more than six months after the last awards process ended in April 2004. At that time, the Joint Ministerial Council promising to "meet in three weeks time;" they never did so until October, 2004, and have never explained why.
The hugely corrupt Nigerian bureaucracy was the subject of an incredible article in Sunday's Washington Post by Abuja correspondent Craig Timberg, who describes a top-to-bottom culture of corruption and President Obasanjo's valiant effort to end it. Corruption, needless to say, could be a cause of the delays thus far, which have otherwise gone unexplained. The Timberg article is at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/30/AR2005043000448.html.
Among the corrupt, he notes, are Nigerian newspaper reporters. Now, Sunday's Nigerian newspapers carry no mention of the JMC meeting or the awards that are supposed to bring hundreds of millions in signature bonuses to both countries. The earliest Monday papers also carry no mention of the awards.
Why not? What's going on? Are we now in store for another long delay?
ERHC On The Move has no crystal ball. We cannot tell from the comments or behavior of the JMC and awards spokesman Sam Dimka whether the announcement of awards will be made soon or not. For that reason, we urge investors to join a growing protest focused on the awards process and the Bush-Obasanjo meeting by taking some of the steps that are listed below.
Our aim is simple: If awards for the second round of the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone are not forthcoming by Monday, we want reporters, America's elected officials and even the President to ask President Obasanjo about the Joint Ministerial Council's failure to deliver awards that have been promised since Dec. 31, 2004.
The JMC met last week to to consider the issue, but even that meeting did not conform to the April 25-26 meeting dates provided by an official press release, or lead as promised to the timely release of award information. The JMC meeting was delayed by the late arrival of the Sao Tome delegation, and the wait for awards has already extended at least three days beyond those dates without explanation to the public, to investors or the press. Five days after April 26, we have no word of awards.
Longtime investors will remember that in 2003, the only official to speak the truth about the awards was not a member of the JMC or JDA, but a head of state, Sao Tome and Principe President Fradique de Menezes. Many members of the small clique on the Raging Bull ERHE message board that is forever predicting riches for ERHC investors at that time derided President de Menezes' remarks and assured us awards were around the corner. Now they are ready to sell us short.
They are doing so again in a startling and scary repeat of the April 2003 debacle, when our share price fell dramatically as those investors took profits and left others with deep losses. Don't let this happen again, and don't part with your valuable ERHE shares. Instead, fight back!
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as recently as last December was quite forceful in urging the Joint Development Authority to act promptly. We support him in doing so again by mounting this protest aimed not at him but at the JMC.
Meanwhile, some investors in ERHC Energy, including me, Joe Shea - the author of the ERHC On The Move blog - are calling for letters, phone calls, faxes, emails and mailgrams of protest, and any other peaceful demonstrations of our discontent with the failure of the JMC and the Joint Development Authority to conduct the awards process in an open, timely and responsive manner.
Here is some language of my own for your communications that you can quote as mine or use as your own, if you wish:
"Investors deserve a clear statement of the JMC's intentions, and steadfast adherence to those stated intentions, which must include a date certain for Round 2 block awards. So far, the awards process has been characterized by the same qualities as the infamous Nigerian 419 Advance Fee fraud - mystery, obfuscation, confusion, evasion and delay. Meanwhile, thousands of investors have had to put their lives on hold as the two governments continue to delay an announcement of awards and fail to communicate anything of substance explaining the delays. Please bring this process to an end and announce awards immediately."
Those wishing to add the awards process to the presidential discussions should join the protest and email President Bush directly at president@whitehouse.gov, leave voice messages at the Executive Office of the President at (202)456-1111, or call the White House at (202)456-1414 to ask for the National Security Council and speak to Jendayi E. Frazer, Special Assistant to the President for African Affairs, or her deputy, Cindy Courville. You can also call the Embassy of Nigeria to lodge your protest at (202)986-8400, and contact U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell by email at Consularabuja@state.gov, or fax him at 011-(234)-9-523-0353 in Abuja. Multiple contacts will help. Former Ambassador to Nigeria Howard Jeter is now at GoodWorks, an international charitable agency, at (202)736-2158.
In addition, investors should call the Washington Bureau of the Dow Jones News Service at (202)862-9200, the Houston Chronicle (reporter David Ivanovich at (202)263-6500), the Los Angeles Times (reporter Ken Silverstein at (202) 293-4652) and the New York Times (bureau chief Philip Taubman at (202) 862-0324) and the Associated Press (reporter Ron Fournier at (202)776-9400) and urge their White House beat reporters to question the President of Nigeria at Thursday's press availability concerning the conduct of the awards process.
Finally, it will also be useful to contact your U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator's office in Washington register your concern with their individual offices through the Congressional switchboard at (202)224-3121. Your messages should be civil, intelligent, concerned and appropriately brief. Leave contact information and ask reporters and officials to reach out for you to the White House and to respond in a timely manner.
If you do join the protest, leave a Comment at the end of this post and please tell us which officials and reporters were responsive. You can elaborate on contacts in emails to us at amreporter@aol.com. It is unnecessary to leave your real name in the Comments section or in your email, but please do so when contacting folks in Washington - it makes a difference. The single most effective communication is a personal handwritten letter to President George W. Bush, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20500. On the outside, write "Re: Obasanjo 5/5." Send those by Monday to get them there in time!
Another opportunity to exert pressure to finalize the awards has come in the form of a visit by several Nigerian lawmakerrs seeking debt relief from the United States. They will meet with Congressmen on the Subcommittee on Africa who will have the opportunity to ask them about the delay in awards. Here is a list of the Republican members and their phone, fax, email and Web contact information:
Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) [Chairman] 202-225-3765 202-225-7768 http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Tom Tancredo (R-CO) 202-225-7882 202-226-4623 http://tancredo.house.gov/contacttom.asp
Jeff Flake (R-AZ) 202-225-2635 202-226-4386 jeff.flake@mail.house.gov
Mark Green (R-WI) 202-225-5665 202-225-5729 mark.green@mail.house.gov
John Boozman (R-AR) 202-225-4301 202-225-5713 http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) 202-225-4806 202-225-5686 None Currently Available
Edward R. Royce (R-CA) 202-225-4111 202-226-0335 http://www.house.gov/writerep
To bone up on the recent history of Nigeria, go to the State Department Website at: http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/n/31467.htm
ERHC Energy board member Howard Jeter is still lasted there as U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria. The site provides a well-written account of Nigeria's recent political history and traces the rise to power of President Obasanjo, one of the few democratic leaders freely elected in Nigeria and easily the nation's most honest and effective leader yet.
Disclosure: The owner and sole author of this blog, Joe Shea, has been an ERHC shareholder since May 19, 2003, and currently owns 123,040 shares purchased at an average cost of $0.4394 and valued at more than $100,000. Any improvement in the share price of ERHC Energy will materially benefit his holdings and those of all ERHE investors.
14 comments:
I started things off with a personal handwritten letter to the President, asking him to ask President Obasanjo to expedite the awards because the delays since Dec. 31 have caused great frustratuion and pain for thousands of investors.
To Manti: You no longer need to sign up to comment. Just click on the box that says anonymous under "Choose an identity." It appears to me that somehow I changed the default setting for messages and because of that the right to comment has been based on signing up. I will reset that default now.
I think you should have ended your blog as you said you would before you wrote this ridiculous protest idea.
You are really looking foolish.
"Awards protests mount...." What protests other than the one you are attempting to "mount", Joe? More like an attempt at self-fullfiling journalism which is likely to piss off the very people we need to look favorably on EHRE.
Someone please TOS Monkeytrots. Go to the ENDE board on Raging Bull. Read post 125984.
And have him TOS'd for profanity and vulgarity. That is a RB TOS violation rule that he broke.
You TOS him by reading the message and then scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Click on "Report TOS Violation". Then explain that he used profanity and vulgarity and send the report.
It would be comical to see that loud mouthed buffoon tos'd right before awards.
Joe- With a title like that, it's no wonder you never made it as a real journalist. All you could muster was a web news service where reporters talk about cheese sticks and bad weather. If it wasn't for the internet, you'd be one lonely guy.
I called the White House comment line and also sent an email to the US Ambassador. I'll let you know if I get a response.
we know the first lady's personal secretary and called her don't know if it will do any good
By the way that last message was from me Stockspartan
Stockspartan Lives!
Hello from Rancho.
I hope you are still posting on RB one way or another... maybe at the proper time (after awards) you can reveal your identity. I'm sure if you gave the slightest clue now, you'd get canned.
Rancho, I cant post on RB. Probably due to the same type of obnoxious comments I made above lol. So no, Im not currently posting on RB.
Anyway I will try to get on their again soon. Hopefully by the tie I a able to post we will have won awards.
Best of luck to you.
Stockspartan
it's a lot better to complain than go broke waiting imo
Your email adduie for the ambassador was wrong its Consularabuja@state.gov
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