Bill Gates says Nigeria has potentials for growt

CNN) - Bill Gates traveled to Nigeria to publicly give its leaders some tough talk. It was a highly unusual move but the tech billionaire believes the country is facing a critical moment.

"While it may be easier to be polite, it's more important to face facts so that you can make progress," the philanthropist told a room of Nigeria's government elite that included the president.

In an exclusive television interview with CNN, Gates said he wanted to speak out to implore Nigerian politicians to focus on human capital and its large youth population.

"The current quality and quantity of investment in this young generation in health and education just isn't good enough. So I was very direct."

The tech billionaire and founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation feels that he has earned the right to speak.

Gates says he has traveled to Nigeria for more than a decade and the foundation is spending $1.6 billion on programs here -- most of it his own money.

Their primary focus is health and their work has been incredibly successful in mitigating the threat of polio, particularly in the crisis-hit northeast of the country.

Gates feels, along with many others, that it is time for Nigeria's government to do better. The continent's largest economy is moving out of a recession caused by a tanking oil price and moving towards a closely watched presidential election in 2019.

In many ways, the country is transforming, with gleaming hotel towers on Lagos Island competing for real estate and the wealthy fighting in the notorious traffic in ubiquitous black SUVs.

But dig a little bit deeper and the statistics are alarming. As Gates points out, Nigeria is still one of the most dangerous places to give birth and the country's very young face chronic malnutrition.

University of Washington modeling, commissioned by Gates, estimates that if investment isn't increased in health and education, then the per-capita GDP, rising steadily for decades, will flatline.

Gates says he wanted to spark action and debate and he certainly has.

Predictably, some see the tough talk as a rebuke of Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria's president, who has been struggling to get the economy on its feet and stamp out the persistent threat of Islamist group Boko Haram in the northeast.

On the street, many just want support from their government -- whoever is in charge -- because right now there often isn't much.

"These people are just trying to survive, they aren't being helped," said banker Moses Uchendu, while grabbing lunch at the popular Obalende market in Lagos.

It's a bustling market where vendors sell delicacies such as efo riro, a spicy Yoruba stew. Power outages are frequent and the only contact with officials is when they visit for bribes, say residents and traders.

Nigeria is routinely rated as one of the most corrupt nations on the globe. Although the country recently moved up 14 places on the World Bank's ease of doing business ranking, most of its businesses remain in the informal sector where there is little help and loans are hard to come by.

Few businesses pay their taxes and all these factors have hindered Nigeria from meeting its true potential, says Gates.

Uchendu hopes Nigerians are listening.

"I told my friends... that Bill Gates is saying the truth. It is better we are told the truth about Nigeria's economy. It is better we say the truth."

But Gate's message isn't a new one. Activists say they have been making frequent calls to invest in people, and end rampant corruption, all which have been ignored.

"These are not new topics. These are the issues that we have been discussing with the government. We have been engaging with them for so many years now," says Timothy Adewale, a human rights lawyer with one of Nigeria's largest NGOs.

"Nobody will listen. You know, actually, if they are sincere about the best interest of the people, they should listen. It has always been said that the greatest test of your commitment is your actions."

But Gates believes, together with Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest man and a close partner of the Gates Foundation, that if the Nigerian government does a few things differently, then the country is poised for liftoff.

"I really think that of all the countries I have seen, it really hangs in the balance. If they can get health and education right, they can be an engine of growth, not just for themselves but for all of Africa," said Gates.

Shell Suspects Ex-Executive Committed Crime in Nigeria

Royal Dutch Shell Plc referred a former vice president for sub-Saharan Africa Peter Robinson to the Dutch authorities, suspecting he may have committed crimes related to an asset sale in Nigeria.

The allegations of criminal misconduct by one of its employees come at a difficult time for Shell. 

Europe’s largest energy company and several former executives, including Robinson, are already facing a criminal trial in Milan over an alleged bribery scheme related to the separate purchase of a Nigerian oil block called OPL 245.

Shell denies any wrongdoing in that case. However, while investigating those charges Shell began to suspect that accounts in Switzerland and a company in the Seychelles in Robinson’s name were used to take kickbacks from the sale of another block called OML 42, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

“Based on what we know now from an internal investigation, we suspect a crime may have been committed by our former employee,” Shell said in an emailed statement. “We were stunned and disappointed when we learned about this.”

Robinson worked in Nigeria for Shell from 2008 to 2011 as vice president for commercial in the sub-Saharan Africa region, part of a more-than-30-year tenure with the company. 

His lawyer in the Milan case, Chiara Padovani, wasn’t immediately able to respond to a request for comment. 

She said last week that her client denies accusations of corruption made by Italian prosecutors.

Nigerian Deals

Oil block OML 42, located in the Niger Delta, was sold by Shell in 2011. It produces about 100,000 barrels a day according to Neconde Energy Ltd., now the operator of the block. The deal came into focus after prosecutors in Milan alleged that in the same year Shell and Italian oil company Eni SpA paid more than $1 billion for OPL 245, knowing that much of the money would go to pay bribes to Nigerian officials.

The criminal trial in Milan also involves Shell’s former upstream director Malcolm Brinded and Eni’s current Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi. Both men deny any wrongdoing.

The criminal referral against Robinson was filed last week, said the person with direct knowledge of the matter. It appears he acted alone and took strong measures to avoid detection within Shell by failing to report companies and accounts registered in his name that fell outside the company’s protocols on eliminating conflicts of interest, the person said. Some of the emails Shell is scrutinizing are encrypted, the person said.

Swiss Account

Prosecutors in Milan, as part of their investigations into whether part of Shell and Eni’s payment to the Nigerian government for OPL 245 was funneled to other individuals, have been looking at links between Robinson and a Seychelles-based company called Energy Venture Partners Ltd., court documents show.

A bank account linked to Robinson was frozen by the Attorney-General in Switzerland after requests for legal assistance from the Dutch and Italian authorities, people familiar with the matter said last week. Several hundred million Swiss francs were in the account, the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper reported, citing people it didn’t name.

Shell’s own investigation has so far concluded those accounts weren’t linked to the OPL 245 transaction, but instead may have been used for kickbacks from the sale of OML 42, the person said.

“On OPL 245, we continue to believe, from our review of the prosecutor of Milan’s file and all of the information and facts currently available to us, there is no case to convict Shell or its former employees,” Shell said by email.

source: Blomberg

DEFENCE: Nigeria to manufacture Polish Assault Rifle

Nigerian soldiers armed with Beryl M762 rifles. Source: Fabryka Broni

The Polish Armaments Group (PGZ) holding company and Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) signed a letter of intent on 26 March covering the production of Beryl M762 assault rifles in Nigeria, the rifle’s manufacturer Fabryka Broni announced.

Signed by PGZ president Jakub Skiba and DICON director general Major General Bamidele Ogunkale, the memorandum determines three phases of technology transfer: initial assembling, partial manufacturing, and finally full production of the assault rifles at the Ordnance Factory Complex in Kaduna.

It was not announced how many rifles will be produced in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s 2017 federal budget proposal allocated NGN364 million (USD1 million) and NGN390 million respectively to establish production lines for the Beryl M762 and AK-47 assault rifles, the latter possibly being a reference to the OBJ-006, a Kalashnikov derivative unveiled by DICON in 2006.

The Beryl M762 is an export variant of the Polish military’s 5.56 mm Beryl wz. 96C service rifle that is chambered in 7.62×39 mm. It has accessory rails, uses standard AK-47 magazines, and has a fire selector with single shot, three-round burst, and full-automatic modes.

Nigeria Is World’s Largest Petrol Importer – NNPC

Nigeria is the only member country in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that imports petrol and is currently the largest importer of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in the world, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, said in Abuja yesterday.

Baru, who spoke through NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer (COO), Upstream, Alhaji Bello Rabiu, at the 2018 Oloibiri Lecture Series (OLEF) while responding to questions from delegates, said the country had reached such import level because the refineries had not worked to their maximum capacity.

The OLEF, organised annually by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Nigeria Council, in commemoration of the first oil well drilled in Nigeria at Oloibiri in Bayelsa State in 1956, brings together key industry players to chart the right path for the oil sector.

“As we speak today, Nigeria is the only OPEC country that imports petrol and we are the largest importer of PMS in the world,” Baru said.

“We actually import one million tonnes of PMS every month into a country that produces oil and gas and has refinery. It is a shameful thing, it doesn’t make sense and that is what we are trying to address,” he added.

 He said the refineries have not been operating at maximum capacity, but that the NNPC was working to address these challenges with the imminent announcement of investors who would bring in funding for the repair of the plants.

“Upgrades of our refineries from the current name plate capacity of 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) to at least 1million bpd is the focus. Discussions with relevant investors and financiers are ongoing. The expectation is that the refineries will be fully back on stream by December 2019,” he said.

The Chairman of SPE Nigeria Council, Mr. Chikezie Nwosu said the SPE-OLEF now in its 18th year, had become a forum that brought together key industry players to discuss on topical issues in the energy industry with a view to influencing the right policy direction to enable the growth of the industry and the economy.

Earlier, in an oil industry address, the GMD announced that Nigeria had seen the most aggressive drop in gas flaring from a peak of 2.5 billion standard cubic feet per day few years ago to about 700 million standard cubic feet per day.

@footprint africa