I cannot escape the impression that mrrhodes. who was mrken on Raging Bull, seems to be wholesaling phony articles.
Tell us what you think of thie following article by one Sammie Ibeyemi, posted in the Financial Standard yesterday:
US wants Nigeria out of Sao Tome
By Samuel Ibiyemi
There are strong indications that the United States of America (USA) may have initiated moves designed to scuttle investment drives currently being made by some Nigerian companies in the oil and gas industry of Sao Tome and Principie.
Such moves, it was gathered were in line with the efforts of the US government to secure hydrocarbon assets for US–owned companies in the oil-rich nation and also to improve energy supply from the Gulf of Guinea for its domestic use as a result of increasing hostility in the Middle East.
A report signed by the Attorney General of Sao Tome and Principie requested the US authority to investigate contracts awarded to Houston-based ERHC Energy. The report which indicted the federal government of Nigeria- said there were repeated allegations that Nigerian controlled ERHC made improper payments to officials and their families during the award of oil blocks in a joint development area shared with Nigeria.
The US, which accounts for 25 percent of world energy consumption had repeatedly emphasised that energy supply from the Gulf of Guinea was very important and strategic.
Industry analysts believe that the action of the US might strain her relationship with Nigeria.
Experts believe that the increasing presence of US companies at the expense of regional firms is a ploy to frustrate plans to transfer technology in order to make West Africa the hub of deepwater oil and gas technology.
This might also create disunity among the members of the African Union.
At the moment, ExxonMobil, a US company has 40 per cent equity interest in block one in which Chevron, another American company is the operator.
An industry source said Noble Energy; a leading American exploration and production company in collaboration with the US government has commenced the process to displace Nigerian companies in Sao Tome. He said this position of the US government was reinforced by the inability of Noble Energy to win an oil block during the 2005 licensing round as promised by President Olusegun Obasanjo during a meeting with officials of the company.
This was designed to ensure that opposition to the improvement of energy supply through American companies from the Gulf of Guinea was subdued.
"Noble Energy’s plan to win an oil block in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) during the first and second licensing rounds involving six blocks also failed", he said.
The source said media campaign to discredit the JDZ licensing round was planned to create opportunity to ensure that only US-owned companies are in control.
Senator Lee Maeba, chairman, Senate committee on petroleum resources, however said his committee would discuss the issue of an overriding interest of the US in the Gulf of Guinea this week. He noted that if the American government wants to exploit part of Sao Tome’s oil and gas resources, they should do so but cannot do anything about the treaty on JDZ. "We are quite aware that there are several countries that envy Nigeria’s crude oil resources and that is the reason for a treaty to guarantee the ownership of these resources on the deepwater JDZ’, he said.
The forged Mike Oduniyi ThisDay Online piece (which even said "By ERHC" in the headline to attract the anger of Sao Tome) and anonymous double-spaced Guardian article were not genuine, and I believe his new one, posted to I-Hub but not here, is at least as phony in origin. I should add that despite its serious-sounding name, the Financial Standard offers anything but standard business journalism. This article is full of innuendoes directed at Noble Energy and laden with half-truth, significant omissions and plenty of political freight. We suspect it will be widely ignored.
The article says, in essence, that the United States is trying to sever the relationship between Nigeria and Sao Tome; they don't say so, but it is all about Block 4 of the Nigeria-Sao Tome and Principe Joint Development Zone, which is coveted by ExxonMobil and Anadarko but was won by ERHC Energy and its partners.
The people these phony articles come from - a high-powered "risk management" firm in London, we believe - have a real problem. They desperately need to post inflammatory statements designed to make things worse, but the press is too smart for them, and so are most Nigerians. They've seen it all, and these guys are showing them nothing new.
For their secret multinational clients, they are trying to strain the ties between Nigeria and Sao Tome and between ERHC and Sao Tome to create a climate in which ExxonMobil and Anadarko can re-enter Block 4. Only naive American investors will will be fooled by them; again, Nigerians and Sao Tomeans will not.
On another topic, I also enjoyed the drivel about a third term for Obasanjo attributed to State Dept. people, if only because it was so transparently manipulative.
As one attuned to diplomatic niceties, I know the idea of a U.S. diplomat telling the people of a sovereign nation that their president should not seek a third term is not unusual; what is unusual is a diplomat doing so when no such issue exists except in the imaginations of tabloid headline writers in Nigeria.
President Obasanjo has never made any statement, or permitted anyone else to say on his behalf, that he is running for a third term. So why does a U.S. diplomat tell him not to?
Here is the article in question, from a Nigerian Muslim publication:
Zhul-Qidah 23, 1426AH Sunday, 25 December 2005
There must be change in Nigeria - US by Elkanah Chawai / 2005-12-23
Top United States officials for Africa have opposed any tenure extension for presidents insisting that there must be change in Nigeria so that someone new can come in.
Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman Cohen, in a statement made available to Daily Trust in Abuja yesterday and the incumbent, Jendayi Frazer, in a recent press conference in Washington DC, expressed US reservations on extention of tenure for presidents which they said threatened democracy in Africa.
Cohen, who has been an observer of political transformations in Africa for more than four decades, said presidential limits were critical because they guarantee change in policy and the people who surround the leader, adding that a political turnover makes it more difficult for corruption to become entrenched because office-holders leave when a new leader is elected.
He noted that, President Obasanjo had improved the democratic system, but that he had not done enough to end corruption, and if he stays in for another term, the people around him who have been benefiting from the continuation of vested interests in corruption would just continue.
“There must be a change in Nigeria now, so someone new can come in and move the anti-corruption programme forward,” Cohen said.
An official position on President Obasanjo’s term had earlier been made by the assistant secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, who said though President Obasanjo had not officially declared his intentions to succeed himself, the US would oppose any plan to alter term limits.
“He hasn’t said that he’s running for a third term. But our view is very clear that term limits should be respected.
“It’s extremely important in Africa to respect term limits because it allows for the grooming of new leadership, and it supports the rule of law. In contrast, societies… countries that have had… 20 to 30-year presidents… haven’t developed,” she said.
“Having a regular turnover of power actually ingrains and institutionalises a democratic process. And so it’s extremely important for us, the United States … to push African heads of state to respect their term limits. And we certainly would have that message for President Obasanjo should he indicate an interest in running for a third term,” she added.
Frazer, while highlighting the dangers of holding on to power by African leaders, said “what happens is when people feel that they can’t get into government because they’re going to have a life president, what do they go on to do? They pick up arms. They go to the bush or it opens up the space for a military coup d’ etat.”
On attempts by some African presidents to manipulate the constitution to suit their interests.
Cohen pointed out that moves to alter constitutions to allow incumbents to extend their terms in office were counter-productive, adding that, it is very undemocratic to change the constitution to benefit the person in power.
If people want to get rid of the two-term limit, she said they should do it for the next president.
“Note that long ago, our president’s salary was increased by Congress, but the law went into effect for the next man in office, not the sitting president”, he recalled.
“Even our own country, the United States, set a limit of two terms, or eight years, for the presidency after Franklin D. Roosevelt won his fourth presidential election in 1944,” he said.
Cohen added that despite Roosevelt being a great war-time leader, many people who had known no other president in their adult lives thought 16 years were too much for one political leader to serve in a democracy.
Recently, a Nigerian daily newspaper revealed that there are plans to use world figures that are very close to President Obasanjo to intimate them about the views of the international community which asserts that Obasanjo must relinquish power at the end of his second term.
This is a case where ExxonMobil and Anadarko are making themselves heard through their many contacts in the White House and Department of State. The comment that the Nigerian president has not done enough to end corruption is a vile lie. He has done more than any Nigerian ever has, and if ever a person deserved a third term, just as FDR did, it is Olusegun Obasanjo.
This manipulation by the State Dept. is out of line - if in fact this story is not also a forgery (i.e., a story created by manipulators and planted by a hacker on a newspaper's Website) - it has made me feel some urgency about the need for President Obasanjo to to take the helm again, which he does not want to do.
But let's get real: What they really don't want is for him to approve the Block 4 PSC so that the chips will fall where they may - because they are falling away from the President's fat-cat friends in Texas.
I have rarely seen such naked power-grabbing in my life. Obviously, these two companies will stop at nothing to get Block 4. I believe that includes assassination, bombings, the fomenting of political unrest and many other things. They are already under investigation by our own U.S. Senate Commerce Committee for open and well-documented bribery in Equatorial Guinea.
I see the kind of people they send to this site from London, the high-powered "risk management" people of the kind who organize mercenary armies, conduct guerilla p.r. campaigns, and mount coups like the one to remove President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's son, Capt. Mark Thatcher, got caught up in two years ago, and the kind members of the former Buffalo Battalion mounted in Sao Tome in 2003.
With the tacit approval of the U.S. government, these powerful multinational oil giants are taking risks not only with their companies' stakes in Africa, but with this nation's energy security, all in the name of profit and all in the guise of national energy security. Beware, my friends, beware.
The waters around us are cold, dark and deep, and the currents are treacherous. But billions lie waiting for us just across this dangerous stream.
Before this night turns to day, please accept my fondest regards to each of you who has befriended and understood me over the past year of ERHC On The Move. We have an extraordinary future together. I wish each of you a safe, happy, prosperous and fulfilling New Year. ERHC Energy will triumph in the end.
Tip if hip.
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