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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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All for Nothing

By Jill Filipovic, Foreign Policy, Oct. 5, 2017

DAHRA, Senegal--In his stall in the middle of a bustling covered market, a low ceiling blocking out the unforgiving sun, Mohammad Moustafa Ndoye plucks damp fish after damp fish out of a plastic bucket and plunks them onto a concrete slab. With an old knife, he sloughs off their silver scales, some of them sticking, glittering, to his hands and forearms. He turns his heavy-lidded eyes to the left and to the right, but, so far, there are no buyers, which means no money to bring home for his wife and their two children, nothing to replace the savings he wiped out last April--2 million CFA, or about $3,600--all of it for nothing.

Mohammad Moustafa Ndoye is not supposed to be here.

If you had asked him last year where he would be now--before the long bus trip and the smugglers and the desert and the Mediterranean, before prison and his first ride in an airplane, before the humiliation of coming back here to Dahra, a Senegalese city about 150 miles inland from Dakar, the capital--he would have said: in Italy. Making plenty of money, at least relative to his income in Senegal. Finding opportunity, even without an official work permit or legal residency, just like the tens of thousands of other men from Senegal who migrate to Europe every year. They send back the money that pays for the concrete houses that stand out in villages of thatched huts. They have a future.

But not Ndoye. Here in the fish market, where his hopes have been replaced by humiliation, the future looks like more of the same: scaling, selling, and, too often, not selling. On a good day, Ndoye now makes 4,000 CFA, or about $7. He would make more if he could buy a refrigerated truck to transport fresh fish directly from the coast, but that would cost roughly $9,000, an amount that would take him a decade or more to save in Senegal. Just a few years in Europe, though, and he would earn easily that much.

Which is why, in April, Ndoye used the money he saved up to buy a bus ticket to Mali and another to Burkina Faso and finally one to Agadez, a notorious smuggling hub in Niger located at the gateway to the Sahara. There he paid a smuggler about $270 for a seat in a pickup truck packed with 24 other men, one in a convoy of a dozen similar trucks overflowing with travelers bound for Libya. They were packed so tightly that when the trucks occasionally jolted over rocks or dunes, men would sometimes fall off into the desert; the convoy wouldn’t stop. “You don’t sleep,” Ndoye recalled. “When you sleep, you fall and you die.”

Once he reached Libya’s Mediterranean coast, smugglers herded Ndoye onto a flimsy rubber dingy with more than 100 other migrants. They didn’t make it far before the engine failed. Libyan authorities eventually hauled them ashore and threw them all in prison, promising to release them if they paid a hefty ransom. Ndoye’s family sent money for his release, but the guards at the prison didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. For 13 days, he and the other rescued migrants stayed locked in a 40-square-foot room, given so little food that “we got thinner and thinner,” he said.

Eventually, one of the prison guards appeared to take pity on him. He invited Ndoye over to his house, fed him, and shook him down for more money, which his sister wired from Senegal. When he was finally set free, he went straight to the Senegalese Embassy in Tripoli, where he paid another $400 for a plane ticket to Niger. Then he took the bus trip in reverse--first to Mali, then back to Dakar, and then back here, back to selling fish.

Last year, more than 10,000 Senegalese migrants made it to Italian shores via the Mediterranean Sea. They were among 181,000 mostly sub-Saharan African migrants who took what experts call the “Central Mediterranean route” to Europe from North Africa. An estimated 400,000 migrants are currently stranded in Libya, many of them in detention facilities supported by the International Organization for Migration. The men in these detention centers are routinely beaten, extorted for money, and sometimes sold into forced labor; women are often sold for sex.

Migrants who fail to reach Europe often return home reluctantly, embarrassed to see their plans thwarted and money lost or their role as a family breadwinner diminished. Even worse is admitting they were jailed, as if they were criminals--an experience that carries a heavy stigma in some villages. Many returnees are traumatized by the deaths they witnessed and the abuses they saw around them, but few receive psychological care. According to Roberts, IOM encourages them to talk to their families and neighbors about the hardships of the journey, both for catharsis and to discourage others from taking the perilous trip. Firsthand stories, she said, challenge a widespread “vision of Europe or the trip, which doesn’t correspond with reality.”

Malik Diop was one of those with an unrealistic view of the journey. He had heard it was dangerous, but he didn’t know how bad it was until it was too late. The slight 24-year-old spent the same hot days crammed in the same overfilled trucks as Ndoye, first taking the route from Dakar to Agadez and then paying a smuggler to ferry him to Sabha in Libya. There, his journey became a series of imprisonments. At one point, he was sold to a slave trader and released only when his family in Senegal paid a ransom. Later, he was held for three months in a facility with so many other migrants that there wasn’t room to lie down. At each stop, prisoners were beaten, sometimes so severely that they died of their injuries.

Eventually, Diop made it onto an IOM flight back to Senegal, arriving in Dakar with 170 other returned migrants in early June. But Diop has struggled to readjust to life back home. He gave up his job as a merchant when he left, so he is mostly unemployed and aimless. Sleeping is difficult. “I think about it all the time,” Diop said about his time in Libyan prisons. “It was so hard. It changed me.”

Some returned migrants, like Diop, remain in loose contact with IOM and NGOs that try to help them reintegrate into their communities and find jobs in a country with soaring rates of unemployment. Many migrants, though, come back to a life put on pause, returning home broke, traumatized, out of a job, and with disappointed family members wondering what they will do to support them.

The harrowing journey across the desert and into the sea put Ndoye, toiling in the Dahra fish market, off the Libya route. But it hasn’t stopped him from planning another try at making it to Italy, he hopes legally. “I’m selling fish until I find something better,” he said. When he finds a different, safer way to get to Italy, “I will go.”

#Senegal #migrants #Senegalese migrants

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itsfinancethings · 4 years ago

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Published in partnership with The Fuller Project, a global nonprofit newsroom reporting on issues that impact women.

The three young women agreed they would escape by nightfall. They didn’t have any money or documents, but Jessica, 19, and her friends knew it was time to go. The brothel was not as crowded as usual: since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the client base had fallen. Together, they waited for night to settle and for the madam to retire to her room. Then, they sprinted for the highway that runs through Papara, a town in the far north of the Ivory Coast, close to the border with Mali.

Jessica and her friend, Favor, had been trafficked into prostitution about a month earlier. (Both women, as well as the other survivors of trafficking in this story, asked TIME to use only their first names out of safety concerns.) Back in February, a female friend to both girls’ families in Nigeria had promised them jobs in a clothing factory in the Ivory Coast. Udochi, 20, had been trafficked in a similar manner earlier in the year. Upon arrival in Papara, all three women found themselves in a brothel, where the madam forced them to have sex with multiple men for a daily salary of $1.29.

The women fled the brothel in March, but almost four months later they are still in the Ivory Coast: three out of hundreds of trafficked Nigerian women who anti-trafficking advocacy groups believe are stuck abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic, as border closures hamper repatriation efforts across the region. When the Nigerian government imposed a state of emergency lockdown in March, they paused international flights in an attempt to curb the infection’s spread and unwittingly left trafficking survivors stranded in dangerous locations far from home. Now these women are anxiously awaiting evacuation from across Africa and the Gulf, as authorities contend with towering logistical hurdles involved in organising safe flights and the virus continues to rage around the world.

Jessica, Favor and Udochi are safe in a women’s shelter in Daloa, a city in the west of the Ivory Coast, but they don’t know when they’ll be able to get back home. “I’m happy I escaped that place,” Jessica said, speaking by phone on a Saturday evening in June. “But we want to go back to Nigeria.”

That the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on trafficking survivors is agreed by experts worldwide. A forthcoming OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and U.N. Women survey reveals that almost 70% of trafficking survivors from 35 countries say COVID-19 has negatively affected their financial well being, while more than two thirds say that their mental health is suffering as government-imposed lockdowns trigger memories of the last time their freedoms were taken away.

More than half of the survey participants worried that the outbreak would increase rates of human trafficking in the future, while 43% believed women and girls would be the most at risk in coming months.

Trafficking from Nigeria to other African countries is not a new phenomenon, though the nature of the crime means it’s impossible to accurately track. The International Organization for Migration believes that hundreds if not thousands of Nigerians—the majority of whom are women—are trafficked out of the country every year, often across the continent. Of the 20,500 Nigerian survivors of exploitation helped by the IOM since 2017, some 90% needed to be brought home from Libya. Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) identified 20,000 trafficked Nigerian women in Mali in 2019 alone. The Nigerian embassy in Ivory Coast repatriates 20 women monthly, Mohammed Abdulkadir Maccido, the Charge d’Affaires told Nigeria’s Punch newspaper last year.

According to the IOM, most of the trafficking survivors who they work with in Nigeria are women of around 21 years old. They’re often lured with promises of jobs in other African countries, or in Europe or Asia: countries often seen as a welcome escape from rising unemployment in Nigeria. Once the women reach their destination, traffickers hand them off to “madams”: female ring leaders who are often victims of trafficking themselves. The madams force the women into prostitution and domestic work in order to pay back the “debts” they’ve incurred for food, transport and accommodation since leaving their homes—typically thousands of dollars that can take years of forced labor to repay.

During COVID-19, the number of women who are trafficked from Nigeria continues to grow—even as local governments curtail legal movement. When awareness of the coronavirus began to spread in March, authorities in Nigeria and the Ivory Coast swung into action early, fearing an outbreak could decimate their health care systems. By the end of the month, both countries had closed their land and air borders. But despite the restrictions, international law enforcement agents and anti-trafficking organizations say trafficking networks remain active in the region, as traffickers bribe their way across borders in order to move freely.

The Nigerian government began lifting domestic travel restrictions earlier this month, but there is no confirmation yet of when external borders may open again. Nigeria, one of the worst hit countries on the continent, had reported over 34,000 cases and more than 700 deaths by July 16.

Meanwhile, lockdowns are limiting repatriation efforts and leaving trafficking survivors stranded. According to the OSCE ODIHR and U.N. Women survey, at least a third of anti-trafficking organizations worldwide are struggling to repatriate survivors during the crisis. In 2018 and 2019, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) worked with the Nigerian government to repatriate upwards of 7,000 survivors of exploitation each year—men and women who had experienced forced labor and prostitution. Since the start of this year, they’ve only succeeded in repatriating 620 individuals. “It’s a drastic drop,” says Franz Celestin, IOM chief of mission for Nigeria. “The longer we wait, the more they’ll be exploited and the longer the pain and suffering will last.” Motilola Adekunle, co-founder of Project Ferry, a Nigerian NGO working with trafficked survivors and helping Jessica and Favor, agrees that the coronavirus is hampering efforts to support exploited women. “This pandemic has literally put a halt to our work because people cannot move around and that’s an issue,” Adekunle says. Work that previously took days, she adds, now takes months, as systems put in place by nonprofits and governments to repatriate and support trafficking survivors have been turned upside down.

“The Nigerian government has organized so many flights that now they don’t have any space,” says Celestin, of IOM. “It’s very difficult.” He said IOM is currently working to find the funding to shelter 180 survivors of exploitation who are awaiting repatriation from Niger. Until IOM can work out where to house them, they must remain in Niamey and Agadez, far from their families and unsure of when they’ll be able to get home. Celestin hopes to have them back in Nigeria by the end of July.

Since March, repatriation flights have been allowed into Nigeria’s Abuja and Lagos airports, but a 14-day quarantine is imposed upon arrival and problems have arisen regarding where survivors should stay in the days following their return.

Even in ordinary times, the process of recovery following repatriation can be complicated. Nonprofit staff will wait at airports across Nigeria to bring trafficking survivors to previously-identified “safe spaces”—a women’s shelter, or a hotel. Counselling and psycho-social support follows in the form of daily or weekly sessions, while local nonprofit organizations often team up to ensure the women can find employment nearby, and that they won’t fall victim to “re-trafficking” back over the border.

But during the pandemic, the risk of spreading COVID-19 means staying in shelters is no longer an option. In an attempt to help the women reintegrate, organizations have begun rolling out counselling sessions and skills training online, but not everyone has access to the Internet.

“We’ve tried to help some women with getting online during the pandemic,” says R. Evon Benson-Idahosa, founder of Pathfinders Justice Initiative, a local anti-trafficking initiative that’s helping trafficking survivors set up their own businesses. “But many of them just do not have the capacity to switch.”

Outside of the African continent, hundreds of Nigerian women also say they’re stranded after experiencing trafficking and exploitation. An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 Nigerian women are trapped in forced domestic servitude in the Middle East. Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has received over 650 reports of trafficked Nigerian women in Lebanon and Oman in 2020 alone.

Toluwalase, 30, has been trying to get back to her home in Nigeria since June. When the single mother-of-three boarded a plane from Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, nearly two years ago, she was aware she would be a domestic helper in Oman with a $200 monthly salary. What she didn’t know was that her employers would force her to work from dawn to midnight with little sleep, that they would confiscate her passport and delay her salary, and that her boss would sexually assault her.

“I was not told it’s this terrible,” Toluwalase told TIME over WhatsApp. She would not have agreed to work in Oman if she had known about the abuse of migrant workers like her, she says.

Part of the problem is the kafala system—which transfers control of immigration and employment status of migrant workers to individual employers—in countries including Lebanon and Oman. That means reporting abuses to local authorities is rarely an option: legally, a migrant worker cannot leave the country without his or her employer’s permission, even if they’re experiencing abuse. Many migrant workers from Nigeria do not speak Arabic, which also limits their ability to seek help.

Pre-COVID-19, women who were exploited by their employers overseas could contact local human rights advocacy groups, who would then notify Nigerian officials to arrange their journey home. But lockdowns have put a pause to activists’ work, and the migrant workers have found themselves stuck. Julie Okah-Donli, NAPTIP’s director, said that the agency is working with Nigerian embassies across the Gulf and Middle East to evacuate exploited migrant workers and sex trafficking survivors. But because of movement restrictions, the agency can no longer reach stranded women in Europe and Asia. Without intervention, violence and abuse go unchecked. “I can imagine the numbers that have died, unreported during this pandemic,” she says.

There is no official timeline for bringing trafficked persons back home to Nigeria, confirms a spokesperson for the Nigerian ministry of foreign affairs. There are signs to suggest progress is being made, albeit only in certain regions. In May, the IOM and the Nigerian Government were able to repatriate 99 Nigerians who were being exploited in Lebanon—49 of whom were survivors of labor and sex trafficking. Bringing back so many Nigerians from the region in one go is unprecedented: usually the IOM would receive word of two or three trafficking cases in Lebanon every month. “We’re seeing a much more organized approach from the government in dealing with this,” said Celestin. “Usually with victims of trafficking, it’s all under the radar. Maybe it’s because of the spotlight that’s on this, but we are seeing a concerted effort.” The repatriations from Lebanon were possible because the Lebanese government supported Nigeria logistically and financially, said Geoffrey Onyeama, Nigeria’s minister of foreign affairs.

Similar efforts have yet to be seen elsewhere. For Jessica and her friends in the Ivory Coast, the longer repatriation takes, the longer they’re at risk of re-trafficking and violence. Although in a “safe house,” the threat remains that their traffickers will track them down and force them back into prostitution. All the women can do, they say, is hope that the Nigerian government will step in soon.

Those far away in the Gulf share the same wish. Although Toluwalase says that government officials have not responded to her requests for help, she remains optimistic about leaving Oman. The risk of contracting COVID-19 is low on her list of concerns: She is still sexually harassed by her employer and two years of abuse have taken a physical toll—swollen feet, backaches, insomnia. Getting home is the priority.

“If the evacuation flight is ready for us, if our government would evacuate us back home, I will be excited,” she says.

Shola Lawal is a Nigeria-based contributing journalist with The Fuller Project, a global nonprofit journalism newsroom reporting on issues that impact women. Corinne Redfern is a correspondent with The Fuller Project.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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thisdaynews · 5 years ago

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‘Tequila-drinking Navy SEAL’ in the running to oversee elite troops

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/tequila-drinking-navy-seal-in-the-running-to-oversee-elite-troops/

‘Tequila-drinking Navy SEAL’ in the running to oversee elite troops

If nominated, former Navy SEAL Lou Bremer would not be the first former SEAL to hold the senior post. | Navy officers are pictured. | AP

The Pentagon is considering recommending a brash former Navy SEAL who has bragged about his tequila drinking for the top civilian post overseeing special operations forces — eliciting concerns about whether he has the mindset to rein in a pattern of misconduct among the elite troops

Lou Bremer is the leading contender to be assistant secretary of Defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, according to two current and former defense officials. Besides being an eight-year SEAL veteran, Bremer is a private equity investor with ties to the Trump administration through his boss, billionaire Stephen Feinberg.

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But word of his candidacy has alarmed some former special operations troops, Pentagon officials and experts in irregular warfare who worry that Bremer’s persona as a self-styled rebel would send the wrong message amid the spate of allegations involving homicides, sexual assaults and illegal drug and alcohol use among the SEALs and other commando forces. More broadly, they expressed doubts that a former SEAL with deep allegiance to the exclusive band of warriors would aggressively confront their systemic problems.

“If you want to clean house, it’s always best to go outside the organization, in terms of both optics and practicality,” said Frank Sobchak,a retired Green Beret colonel, referring to the SEALs. “It would give me pause to pick someone who came from within the organization to try to reform something as deeply ingrained as its culture. You risk the perception that it’s going be a whitewash.”

“I wouldn’t put a SEAL in that job right now,” added a former Navy special operations officer who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.“If you’re on the inside and you see this happen, you’re going to roll your eyes and say ‘This is business as usual — everything that’s happening here is lip service and it’s just because some guys got caught.’”

Bremer and his employer, Cerberus Capital Management, did not respond to requests for comment. Defense Department spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said he had no personnel moves to announce.

Bremer, who also served as a homeland security aideinPresident George W. Bush’sWhite House,described himself on his private Instagram profileas a “Harley riding, tequila-drinking Navy SEAL and White House Fellow who buys companies on occasion.”He replaced the tequila reference with the phrase “USA-loving” last week after POLITICO began asking questions about his potential nomination.

The Pentagon has struggled to find a nominee for the assistant secretary role, which oversees elite units such as the SEALs, Marine Raiders, Army Rangers, Green Berets and Delta Force. The last person to hold the job permanently, Marine combat veteran Owen West, cited personal reasons when he stepped down in June.

One candidate for the post has already turned it down, according to another former official, who also requested anonymity.

“Anybody who comes into that position has got a difficult task ahead of them,” said Dick Couch, a retired SEAL captain who led frogmen in Vietnam and has advised top SEAL leaders on the problem. “There are deep-seated cultural issues that have to be addressed” in the SEAL community, he added.

Special operations troops have played a leading role in the war on terrorism, including advising foreign troops in combat and hunting terrorist leaders in nighttime raids and drone strikes. As the pace of combat operations for regular fighting units has slowed, the tempo has remained high among special operations troops, which have accounted for the bulk of U.S. combat deaths in recent years in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Niger and Somalia.

But the community — and the Navy’s storied SEAL teams in particular — have had a troubled year.

The military pulled a SEAL platoon out of Iraq during the summer, a decision that The New York Times reported followed allegations that a senior member sexually assaulted a fellow service member, and the Navy announced Friday it has fired the top three leaders of the platoon’s parent unit, SEAL Team 7, as a result. Other SEALs have either been sentenced or faced charges in recent cases involving the deaths of detainees or fellow U.S. troops.

The SEALs’ ills appear to stem from “a troubling culture,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said in July as he grilled Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, the nominee to be the Navy’s top officer, on a raft of misconduct issues among the commandos.

“These issues seem to not be isolated to one team and are being reported from units stationed in California and Virginia, which certainly raises a level of concern,” said Peters, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services subcommittee that oversees special operations. He is also a former lieutenant commander in the Navy Reserve.

Peters and other lawmakers have not weighed in on Bremer. But an aide to Peters said the senator believes the top civilian post “needs to provide robust civilian oversight and leadership to the Special Operations Forces community.”

That oversight is sorely needed, critics of the SEALs and other elite forces say.

Just this spring, a member of SEAL Team 6 — the unit that killed Osama bin Laden and is now in charge of counterterrorism missions in Africa — was sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty for his role in the death of a U.S. soldier in Mali two years ago. Another SEAL Team 6 member still faces murder charges in that case.

The recent trial of another SEAL, Edward Gallagher, resulted in an acquittal on charges that he murdered a detainee in Iraq but also cast a negative spotlight on the culture of the hard-charging operators, showing that the Navy commandos illegally drank while deployed to a combat zone and chafed at the role they were assigned supporting Iraqi troops, preferring to find ways to fight themselves. Gallagher was sentenced to four months’ confinement for posing for photos with the detainee’s corpse.

The recent incidents follow the expulsion of two SEAL leaders from Somalia last year over alleged sexual misconduct and revelations of cocaine use in another SEAL team.

The top commander of the SEALs and other elite Navy troops, Rear Adm. Collin Green, warned in a letter to subordinates in July that “we have a good order and discipline problem that must be addressed immediately.”

“Our force has drifted from our core Navy values … due to a lack of action at all levels of leadership,” Green warned in a separate memo to his forces last month, in which he called for SEAL leaders to crack down on poor discipline and misconduct. Green directed SEAL commanders to take measures including making SEALs shave their beards and slowing a planned expansion of the SEAL teams.

The problems go beyond the SEALs. Other cases have implicated Army Green Berets and Marine Raiders.

For example, of two Marines charged in the Mali murder case, one pleaded guilty to lesser charges and has been sentenced to four years’ confinement. Meanwhile, two former Green Berets were each sentenced to nine years in prison this spring for smuggling cocaine out of Colombia. And another former Green Beret is awaiting trial on murder charges in the 2010 killing of a Taliban bomb-maker he had detained.

The spate of alleged crimes and misconduct has prompted a series of internal reviews by the military’s Special Operations Command, headed by Army Gen. Richard Clarke. Clarke’s latest review follows a separate reviewordered by Clarke’s predecessor and West.

The assistant secretary position — a job now filled on an acting basis by retired Col. Mark Mitchell, a former Green Beret — is in charge of overseeing Special Operations Command. And in recent years Congress has moved to boost the position’s authority. The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act directed the assistant secretary’s office to take on more responsibility for administration and oversight of special operations forces, leading to growth in the office’s staff and funding.

“How do you go about changing the culture? I’m not sure they have a good handle on how to turn that supertanker around,” said Couch, the retired SEAL captain, of his former community.“It may require drastic measures to extinguish the minority of bad actors who are creating these problems.”

Bremer left the Navy in 2000, before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, but he would bring an existing relationship with the Trump administration to the position.

After his time in uniform, which included non-combat deployments to the Middle East and the Balkans,Bremer served on the staff of Bush’s Homeland Security Council as a White House fellow. He later did stints at Bain Capital, Veritas Capital Management and Windage Capital before joining Cerberus, where he is a managing director. Bremer also helped establish a foundation to raise money for the families of fallen SEALs.

Bremer is now in Trump’s orbit: The Atlantic reported that he attended the president’s inauguration and visited the White House with Cerberus founder and chief executive Feinberg — moments he documented on his Instagram account.

At the time of Bremer’s 2017 White House visit, Feinberg and Erik Prince, another former SEAL and the founder of the security contracting company Blackwater, were offering the Trump administration competing plans to privatize the war in Afghanistan with armed contractors. Those plans went nowhere, and it’s not clear what role Bremer played in them. But since 2018, Feinberg has headed the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

Bremer is “definitely on Team Trump,” said a former defense official who knows him.

Jonathan Schroden,director of the special operations program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a government-funded think tank, said the ex-SEAL’s background could lend credibility to efforts to address the recent bad behavior in the special operations community.

“It will give him more street cred with the community than West had, so if he endorses whatever the review’s findings are, it would add some weight to them,” Schroden said.

He also pointed out that the review being undertaken by the Special Operations Command is already being handled by a SEAL, Vice Adm. Timothy Szymanski. “So you’ve already got a senior SEAL sitting on top of the review process,” Schroden said.

If nominated, Bremer would not be the first former SEAL to hold the senior post. Retired Cmdr. Michael Lumpkin filled the position during the second term of the Obama administration.

But senators would almost certainly hit Bremer with tough questions about his views on SEAL misconduct, predicted Kimberly Jackson, a former Pentagon official who specializes in special operations and military culture at the government-funded RAND Corp.

“There’s significant public interest in why these ethical breaches are occurring,” she said, adding that someone with a different background might be a better choice to affect change. “I think there’s a perception that SEALs are relatively uninterested in heeding advice from outside their community.”

One of the former defense officials also predicted Bremer would have a tough time getting confirmed.

“Just running the odds, what’s the probability you’re going to get a self-described ‘old-school SEAL,’ with his social media trail, through confirmation?” the former official asked. “There’s going to be congressional resistance in this environment. Any former SEAL nominee would be treated that way right now, and it’s a bit unfair, but it’s the reality.”

Sobchak, the former Green Beret colonel, also said putting a former SEAL in charge of all elite troops would be problematic, especially since he believes the rule-breaking culture goes far beyond the recent misconduct.

“It’s not just what’s been going on recently,” Sobchak said. “It’s also part of the SEAL identity.”

#elite #Foreign #Politics #troops

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okkrist-blog · 7 years ago

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VER STORIESFAAC DISBURSES N5.89TRN IN 2017

Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursed N5.89 trillion to the three tiers of government, Federal, States

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and Local government in 2017 investigation by LEADERSHIP has revealed. In 2017, the federal government followed by 36 states including Abuja collected the highest sharing while the local governments shared the lowest. Revenue generating agencies such as Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) step-up their revenue collections to match up with government disbursement following the drop in global oil prices and government move to divest from the Oil & Gas sector. According to LEADERSHIP investigation, July sharing was the highest followed by September while lowest month was in May. The report by FBNQuest Research said, “Inflow into federation account widened in the more recent period because the recovery in oil output pushed up oil revenues considerably in July, August and September. Diplomacy in the Niger Delta has paid off for the federal government. “A similar conclusion should be drawn from the monthly payouts by the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), of which the latest covers the distribution of revenues collected in November. “The increase since mid-year is largely attributable to the improvement in average crude output, to 1.87 million barrel per day in second quarter of 2017 and 2.03 million barrel per day in third quarter of 2017.” According to FAAC committee, figures for August rose because of “a significant increase in export volume by 0.85 million barrels, which resulted in increased revenue from export sales revenue by about $41 million.” In November as shared in December, FAAC committee stated that” average price of crude oil from $48.66 to $52.07 per barrel and a decrease in export sales of $69.49 million due to decrease in oil production by 1.75 million barrels” There was a discrepancy issue in October allocation which was finally distributed in early December. Interestedly, transferred to the Excess Petroleum Product Tax ended since May after accumulating a total sum of about N123.23 billion in five months of 2017. The breakdown of shared amount revealed that federal government in 2017 collected N2.56 trillion out of the N5.89 trillion. States received a total of N1.68 trillion and Local governments received N1.26 trillion. Further findings revealed that a total of eight oil producing states, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo, Rivers shared a total sum of N358.12 billion as 13per cent derivation fund in 2017. Information from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that FAAC disbursed a total sum of N6.2 trillion to three tiers of government in 2017, funded mostly from the Statutory Account and revenue generated from Valued Added Tax (VAT) while refund to the federal government from Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) contributed 0.9 per cent (N55.32 billion). Findings by LEADERSHIP revealed that the statutory account accrued N4.65 trillion in 2017 while VAT also accrued N967.65 billion in 2017. Also, exchanged gained contributed N362.66 billion and excess Petroleum Product Tax (PPT) Account added N207.74 billion to the amount disbursed in 2017. The quarter on quarter (QoQ) breakdown revealed that, in first quarter, a total of N1.4 trillion was disbursed (N430.16 billion in January; N514.15 billion in February and N466.93 billion in March.) In second quarter, a total sum of N1.377 trillion was disbursed to the three tiers of government. It consists of N496.39 billion in April, N418.82billion in May and N462.36 billion in June. In third quarter, it rose by 27.9 per cent to N1.76 trillion (N652.23 billion in July; N467.85 billion in August and N637.7 billion in September) and in the fourth quarter, it moved to N1.7 trillion (N558.08 billion in October, N532.76 billion and N609.96 billion in December) Experts in a separate chat with this newspaper bemoaned some states government monthly dependency on FAAC allocation, stating that allocations to local government are not utilized but pocketed for political reasons. The Financial Economist in the University of Uyo, Awka Ibom State, Professor Leo Ukpong, said the monthly allocation was structured that federal, state and local governments share from government revenue and it is not a bad idea. He said the monthly allocation implementation to states and local governments has been creating problems According to him, “Initially, when they started the allocation, they used to transmit the local government allocation to Chairman in that area. The local government chairmen used those funds effectively to develop grass root projects. Now, the allocation goes to the state government state. The governor in states used local government allocation to control activities politically and economically at the local government level which is creating problem. Some state governors are actually managing the local government allocation themselves. “Dependent on Monthly allocation is killing the nation’s economy. It is an economy policy but not necessary distribution of allocation. If those funds are channel into helping the private sector, maintaining infrastructure, boost agriculture sector that will create more jobs and improve our GDP. “To me the allocation to local should be sent directly to their chairmen and not to state governors. The monthly contribution has not improve the nation’s economy and we will continue to utilize it to destroy politics and economy,” he said. Economist and member of faculty, Lagos Business School, Dr. Adi Bongo, said the states monthly salary survival is dependent on the monthly allocation. He said, “I really don’t know the current expenditure of these states compared to their monthly allocation from federal government. If the monthly allocation is not enough to cover the monthly salary, sure they will not be able to pay salary and develop infrastructure. “However, to some states, the law of leadership does not apply. We have seen from one state to another, with exemption of few that collect allocation from federal government and take it as their own entitlement. They cannot grow their Internally Revenue Generation (IGR). Unfortunately, most states in Nigeria have been cursed with very bad governance. There is no transparency and accountability. The curse on the leadership is a burden on the people. In addition, Economist and Managing director consultant BIC consultancy Service Limited, Mr. Boniface Chizea was optimistic about the improved oil prices and improved monthly allocation to states that is expected to improve welfare of staff and develop economy wise. In his words “Before the crash in global oil prices, the money accrued to the federal account was adequate. Some states in the federation operated from the huge amount coming from the federation account. As the oil market crash, that impacted on the accrued to federation account. There were issues with the government allocations to states, leading to backlog of salaries. “We had relief from the federal government and some accessed funds from the World Bank. It will take some time to make states independent and sustained on their IGR. “It is only Lagos, Rivers and Kano that have generated significant IGR to fund their expenditure. Oil price has improved and if the price is sustained, states allocation will improve this year,” he added.

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mazimekus · 7 years ago

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The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) yesterday declared the Senator representing Bauchi central senatorial district, Senator Isa Hamman Misau, a deserter.

According to the force, Misau who is the chairman, Senate committee on Navy is a fugitive because he is still a Police officer who abandoned his job since 2010.

The Force PRO, CSP Jimoh Moshood, told journalists in Abuja that they are currently investigating the lawmaker, including those involved in the alleged forgery of his retirement letter from the service, including an official of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Mrs. Garos Logams, who allegedly signed the document.

But in a swift reaction, Senator Misau dismissed the allegation, insisting that he properly retired voluntarily from the Force in 2010 and even paid the Police one month salary as the law requires.

Misau also explained that the letter of his retirement given to him in 2014 by the PSC followed his own letter, declaring his intention to retire written to them since 2010.

But the Force PRO, while explaining that the Senator was still an officer of the Force, said, “Misau, a former Deputy Superintendent of Police, refused to proceed on Junior Command Course 49/2008 at Staff College, Jos, between January 5, 2009 and June 19, 2009 and also failed to report in Niger State in 2010 and was subsequently queried, in line with the Public Service Rules Sections 030301(b)(g)(m)&(o) and 030402(a)(b)(c)(e)&(w).

“The retirement letter presented to journalists by DSP Mohammed Hamman is suspiciously forged and dubiously obtained. The letter, which was dated March 5, 2014, a period of more than four years after AP No 57300 DSP Mohammed Isa Hamman (Senator Isah Hamman Misau) deserted the Force is now being investigated by the Force. His name is still on their staff roll”.

On why it took the Police seven years to declare Misau a deserter, CSP Moshood said there was no time limit for a deserter to be investigated and punished, noting that Misau’s case file was still before the Force Disciplinary Committee.

The Senator had last Friday accused the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, of pocketing N10bn monthly as payments for special security services rendered by the Police to corporate organisations and Very Important Personalities.

He condemned what he described as series of fraudulent practices in the running of the Nigeria Police Force.

Addressing a press conference at the National Assembly, Misau said that a high level of corruption had been noticed in the handling of monies allegedly being collected by the Police as payment for special security services rendered by the Police to corporate bodies, oil firms and highly placed citizens in the country.

Misau was reacting to an allegation made against him by the Police on Thursday that he was on a vendetta mission against the Force, having been unceremoniously dismissed for unscrupulous activities.

He alleged further that postings of officers in the Force as State Police Commissioners (CPs) or Mobile Commanders are largely influenced by bribes.

Missau displayed the letter with which his retirement from the force was effected by the Police Service Commission.

But hitting back at the lawmaker that same day, the Police implored the Senate to send Misau back to his duty post as Deputy Superintended of Police.

The Force PRO, Mashood, maintained that Misau is still a police officer and not a Senator because his name is still in the Police as an officer of the Force.

He urged the Senate’s Ethics and Privileges committee to ask Senator Misau to dress up in his Police uniform and appear before the Police disciplinary committee to answer charges against him.

CSP Moshood also asked the general public and the Red Chamber to dismiss statements credited to Senator Misau as everything he has said about the IGP and the police were false.

He said, “Senator Misau is a habitual and unrepentant liar. His real name in the Police is DSP Mohammed Isa Hamman, with Police number AP No. 57300. He is still a Police officer and not a Senator because as his name still in the Police nominal roll.

‘’Senate will do the nation good by asking him to return to the Nigeria Police Force to face disciplinary committee and answer all the charges bordering on serious misconduct, unprofessional wrongdoings as earlier contained in our press statement released today.

‘’We want the public to know that he is not fit and proper to be a senator of the federal republic of Nigeria; because that purported retirement letter he displayed today was forged. That his forged letter is dated 2014, whereas he contested the 2011 general election. He is wanted by the force for forgery and desertion which are all criminal offences in the Nigeria law books.

‘’All DSP Hamman was saying were cheap blackmail, distraction and deliberate acts to derail investigation. So, the force will want the Senate Ethics and Privileges committee, which we have confidence and trust in, to see reason to ask him to dress up in his Police uniform to come and appear before Police disciplinary committee to answer charges against him”.

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felixfunny1977-blog · 7 years ago

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Spencer Ogden - Nigeria Job for Legal/HR Coordinator 2017

Spencer Ogden – Nigeria Job for Legal/HR Coordinator 2017

June 2017 Job Vacancy for Legal/HR Coordinator at Spencer Ogden – Nigeria

Jobs opening at Spencer Ogden

New job position for Legal/HR Coordinator – Nigeria June 2017

Spencer Ogden – Our global client, is currently seeking to employ suitably qualified candidate to fill the position below: Job Title: Legal/HR Coordinator Location: Niger Requirements

The candidates must have a mix of legal and…

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sawasawa1977-blog · 7 years ago

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AEDC Plc Job for Team Lead, Metering (AMR) in Nigeria 2017

June 2017 Job for Team Lead, Metering (AMR) at the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC Plc)

Current open jobs at AEDC Plc in Nigeria 2017

Fresh recruitment for Team Lead, Metering (AMR) in Nigeria 2017

The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC Plc) one of the 11 privatized Electricity Distribution companies in Nigeria that operates in the following states; Kogi, Niger,…

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thetens-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University Lapai (IBBUL) Vacancies 2017

Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University Lapai (IBBUL) Vacancies 2017 Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University Lapai (IBBUL) is a modern, outward-looking institution, committed to engaging with the major issues of our times. A leading multidisciplinary university, IBBUL today is a true academic powerhouse.The Governing Council of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, hereby announces that the…

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itsnelkabelka · 8 years ago

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Speech: Nigeria - British relations – The next 100 years

Your Excellency the Governor of Lagos state, members of the Nigeria-British chamber of commerce, friends and colleagues, I am delighted to be here to celebrate the Nigeria British Chamber of Commerce’s fortieth anniversary. And this year we are also privileged to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Lagos state. Many congratulations to both these great institutions.

I have been asked to talk about Nigeria – British relations over the next one hundred years. Given the rate of change in the world in just the last few years, and in the UK and world politics in the last twelve months alone, that is a daunting, some say fool-hardy, task. Few predictions that look that far ahead come to pass. But I have been set my task and I will attempt to meet it. So to start with, let’s look at history, briefly, and what has been, before we look at what the UK-Nigeria relationship may become.

I was in Kogi state two weeks ago visiting Lokoja. It was my first visit there. In addition to spending time with His Excellency the Governor and meeting members of the Chamber of cCmmerce, I spent time in the places that matter to Britain’s history in Nigeria. I stood where Lord Lugard stood watching the confluence of the two rivers, and where Nigeria’s name famously was suggested by his wife. It is just over one hundred years since Lord Lugard oversaw the amalgamation of northern and southern Nigeria into one protectorate.

When in Lokoja I saw how British history in Nigeria is complex and includes dark periods. I saw examples of chains placed on slaves trafficked down the river Niger. I know for many of the peoples of Nigeria, evading slavery was their first experience of meeting Europeans including the British. And it’s worth recalling that it was the British who introduced the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. There are references in Lokoja still to British champions like Wilberforce who campaigned not just for the abolition of laws permitting the slave trade, but to ensure the practice itself was eradicated. I am proud of those former British politicians who made the world engage to stop slavery. So I know when we look at history, that the experience of the British in Nigeria is one that raises strong emotions and concerns about how our engagement here began. I understand that. I respect those concerns. The past is not something we should forget and it is something we and I should always try to learn from.

But in Lokoja and elsewhere I have visited in Nigeria I also saw signs of what our future may be like too. I am very positive about that future. I believe that it will be a future based on many of the things the UK and Nigeria have shared, particularly since independence. I am talking about our shared values including a belief in the importance of education as a way for people of all backgrounds to better themselves. Post independence, and in particular since 1999, we also share a belief in freedom of speech and the importance of democracy. I will talk later about trade and investment and the ways in which we in the UK and we in Nigeria in the coming years can work together to promote global growth. To this audience, I know those messages matter a great deal. Importantly, the UK will leave the European Union in the next two years. I am confident that our relationship will continue as one sovereign country to another. That is another change I see as a real opportunity to deepen the bond we share. But I will start with our shared values as countries, and how the UK and Nigeria can work together to promote democracy.

Elections in Nigeria in 2015 changed the world’s perception of democracy, and not just in Nigeria. The example of President Goodluck Jonathan in standing down to allow an opposition leader to take office has set the tone for elections in West Africa. It has shown how far democracy has come in Nigeria since 1999. The leadership and engagement of President Buhari in The Gambia recently, when a sitting President did not follow the example of leaving office having lost an election, showed how there is no appetite now in West Africa to allow leaders to evade the democratic process. I think that’s something we will not just hold on to in the next one hundred years but is something Nigeria and the UK can champion globally. We in the UK will experience another general election shortly – on 8th June. That follows our momentous referendum last year and our decision to leave the European Union.

Some are concerned about the disruptive effective these democratic moments can have. I am not. I have faith in the strength of our institutions in the UK and in Nigeria to allow for successful, peaceful elections. For Nigeria, elections in 2019 will be the next big moment in its democratic journey. The UK will stand with Nigeria and with its institutions, like the Electoral Commission INEC, to ensure those elections are handled at least as well as the elections in 2015. Those of you who will engage in politics either as candidates or as funders of parties know that all Nigerians have a responsibility to ensure that each election in Nigeria is better, more peaceful, and more credible than the last one. Nigerian voters expect nothing less. And all Nigerians have a responsibility to vote too, to engage in the political process. The UK and the rest of the international community will be watching and helping in every way we can to ensure all respect and follow the rules ahead of and through the 2019 elections. Just as we did in 2015. So I firmly believe that our shared belief in democracy forms part of our future together as nations, encouraging others in Africa and beyond Africa to take the same path towards democracy.

That shared belief and confidence in democracy is just one example of our wider shared values. The UK and Nigeria believe all children have a right to better themselves through education. The UK Government has said that across Africa through our spending on international development in the next 5 years we will support 5.8 million children to gain a decent education. I am discouraged, but not despondent, about the large number of children in Nigeria who do not go to school. I am particularly concerned at the number of girls who are excluded from the education sector. In northern Nigeria, more than 50 per cent of girls have no experience of formal education and 80 per cent of women and young girls can neither read nor write. That is not acceptable. It is something together we the UK and Nigeria must address. Doing so is vital not just to those children’s personal futures but Nigeria’s economic success. As I heard John Kerry say a few years back, any team that keeps half of its best players on the bench will not achieve its full potential. That’s why last year the UK helped over twenty three thousand girls in northern Nigeria stay in school by providing cash transfers to support them. And why we helped almost fourteen thousand more in 2016 to improve their literacy.

Every year two million young people join the Nigerian workforce. They look for jobs in companies many of you own. So it is in our mutual interest to ensure whether they come from the north of Nigeria or any other part of the country that the work force that emerges has the skills you as employers need. It is just as important that the private sector in Nigeria combines its efforts to create jobs to meet that massive demand for work that Nigeria faces. Nigeria’s economic growth needs to be inclusive, with companies creating the jobs that Nigerians need and can fill.

Some people make comparisons between the relationship the UK has with its former colonies and the relationship other countries – like France – have with their former colonies. Others point to new partners in Africa like China and say the UK should do what they do and act as they do. But the UK has its own relationship with Nigeria and I prefer it. I have heard people call the UK Nigeria’s parent. I’d like to challenge that description. The UK today, and in the future, is Nigeria’s partner, not its father or mother. That’s something tangible and real. As a development partner in Nigeria, the UK remains steadfast in our support for the people of Nigeria.

We continue to spend just under half a billion UK pounds each year on development assistance in Nigeria. The UK has been among the leaders of the international response to the humanitarian crisis in the north-east of Nigeria. We scaled up our humanitarian funding from £1m in 2014 to 2015 to £74m in 2016 and £100m 2017. In 2016 in Nigeria, we delivered food assistance to more than 1 million people and treated 34,000 children at risk of death from severe under-nourishment. We provided essential household items to more than 225,000 people who have fled from their homes and provided more than 135,000 people access clean water and sanitation. The north-east of Nigeria can seem a long way from here in Lagos. I know many of you are acting to help those most in need there. We cannot and must not forget those living as citizens of Nigeria who don’t get enough to eat every day. They need our help and the Nigerian government’s help.

The UK has a commitment, enshrined in UK law, to spend 0.7% of our Gross National Income on development assistance. The UK will remain steadfast in our resolve to partner with Nigeria to support social and economic development. But I see a future where Nigeria, by virtue of the policies and investment that current leaders make, will require less aid to develop. Where our development partnership could grow to be more an exchange of ideas, a transfer of technologies, a genuinely balanced trade relationship. And the UK will use its position as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, G7, and of course, the Commonwealth to help and support peace and security with Nigeria in Africa and throughout the world.

Now I want to turn to trade and our trading relationship with Nigeria. Some people say the UK has withdrawn from trade and investment in Nigeria and Africa. That’s not true and I challenge that suggestion wherever I hear it. The UK is still the largest European overseas investor in sub-saharan Africa, and the second largest globally. The UK’s bilateral trade relationship with Nigeria is still worth £3.8bn per annum. Shell, a British-Dutch company, has invested billions of pounds into Nigeria and has around sixty onshore or shallow water oilfields and seven hundred wells. Nigeria remains the largest oil producing country in Africa, in spite of the depressed price of oil at this time. But I want British businesses to think beyond the oil and gas sector.

The UK could regain its position as the top non-oil trading partner with Nigeria. That’s my personal ambition for the coming years, and one I think is realistic. I meet British companies all the time who are interested in the other sectors Nigeria has to offer: power (including solar), infrastructure, agriculture, education, the digital economy, fintech. I also encourage smaller and medium sized British companies to come to Nigeria to trade. We can be innovative, and encourage franchising of British companies in Nigeria as Hamleys have famously taken forward. We will be launching a new report on Franchising on May here in Lagos, and I hope many of you will be able to make time to attend the launch.

Some say BREXIT will diminish the UK’s trading power. We are clear that will not happen. The UK has been, and always will be a trading nation, keen on entrepreneurship and innovation, sustaining old ties, and forging new ones. We are very proud that the UK is still the fifth largest economy in the world, and ranked in the top six globally for ease of doing business. More than ever, we want to safeguard our reputation for providing an environment in which companies can prosper and pioneer for the future. The characteristics which have made the UK a world leader in financial and other services have not altered with the decision to leave the European Union. Nor has our openness to business from around the globe. It is striking that on 1 August last year the first rupee denominated Masala bond to be issued outside India was arranged in London. 3 months ago it was London where the Nigerian Finance Minister chose to launch the latest Eurobond issue. And I see huge potential in Nigeria as a market for British businesses, and huge potential in the UK for entrepreneurial Nigerians willing to trade and invest.

I have heard people say it is too hard to get a visa to go to the UK from Nigeria. The facts suggest otherwise. In 2016, around 140,000 people applied for visas to the UK. Of those that applied for student visas, 90% were successful. For those that applied for other visas, around 70% were successful. We have introduced a same day visa service – at a cost – for visas in Nigeria. And a service that can mean you get a visa within 5 days, at a lower cost than the same day process. Our turnaround time for all other visas is 15 days. We want Nigerians to travel to the UK. They come to do business, to study, to see family and to invest in our economy. They, you, are welcome.

There are as many as 250,000 Nigerian nationals or dual Nigerian – British nationals living in the UK at the moment. Some claim the total Nigerian diaspora in the UK is well over a million. There are perhaps 20,000 British nationals here in Nigeria. The key thing for any visitor to the UK, whether they are from Nigeria or anywhere else, is that they respect the law and the length of time their visa says they can stay in the UK. A minority of Nigerian visitors don’t do that. It is only with that minority that we have an issue. But those who want to trade and invest in the UK are very welcome to do so.

So in concluding I will make a few predictions about the UK and Nigeria in the next one hundred years, and our successors can look back and reflect on whether I am right or wrong.

My first is that Nigeria’s role in the world will change significantly. In 2050, Nigeria will be the third biggest country in the world – bigger than the USA. Between them, China, India and the USA have been the three biggest countries in the world for generations. Nigerian leaders in the private and public space must start talking about this now. How to address the challenges that hold Nigeria back and how to unleash the potential that the growth of Nigeria’s population offers are the questions the Nigerian business and political elite must address.

My second is that Lagos and London will be major global economic centres: if anything I think Lagos – Africa’s fifth largest economy in 2016 - will become more important in the coming years as the African example of how to break down barriers to doing business and bring in foreign investment. I believe British businesses will be a big part of Lagos and that economic growth in the next century. I also believe Lagos will, over the next 100 years, continue to shine through its entrepreneurship, energy and creativity, and that it will come to be regarded as one of the world’s truly modern, 21st century mega cities. But the challenge will be to ensure that all of its citizens, including those who live in settlements or slums, benefit from the development of the city, and are included in plans for urban development. Lagos will only become a modern and resilient city, if the rule of law is respected and its poorest citizens have faith in the rules being followed.

Thirdly, I believe the UK and Nigeria will together continue championing democracy. I believe the path towards democracy and away from military rule, is irreversible now for Nigeria, and Nigerians are committed to taking it. The UK again will help with Nigeria’s path, in whatever way we can. But the elections in 2019 are the next big milestone along that path which we should all prepare for properly and where respect for the rules by political leaders and their parties will be key.

Finally, I believe the ties that bind the UK and Nigeria, that are cultural, linguistic, historical and business links will grow stronger not weaker in the next century. The UK and Nigeria are already strong partners, and I believe that partnership will be stronger still when my successor as High Commissioner stands here before you in 2117 to discuss the state of the UK – Nigeria relationship and celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Nigeria – British chamber of commerce. Because ultimately relationships between countries come down to relationships between human beings. The privilege of being British High Commissioner here is not only that I represent Her Majesty The Queen, but that I represent the people of the UK. And when I hear about the affection of so many Nigerians for the UK, when I feel the passion of Nigerians when they speak of the English football team they support, or the appreciation for the wonderful UK education system which so many of you have benefitted from, that’s when I truly appreciate that it’s the human bond which brings us together. That is a bond which I believe will never be broken. Indeed, it’s a bond which I believe can only get stronger during the difficult years ahead. We all have a part to play in strengthening those bonds. Thank you for all you have done, and all you will do, to help me in that noble endeavour.

Thank you for your kind attention. I would be delighted to answer any questions you may have.

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