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Published 21st February 2014

Vol 55 No 4

Nigeria

Oil theft row escalates

Sanusi Lamido Aminu Sanusi
Sanusi Lamido Aminu Sanusi

President Jonathan risks panic among investors after he suspends Central Bank Governor Sanusi in a personal political battle

Plain speaking, combative and ubiquitous, Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Sanusi Lamido Aminu Sanusi was never going to work well with the taciturn and cautious President Goodluck Jonathan. After months of cold war between the two men over reports of billions of missing oil revenue, President Jonathan suspended Sanusi from the CBN on 20 February. That will escalate the political battle and rattle investors a year before general elections. Jonathan acted against Sanusi after the outspoken Governor had warned the Senate on 13 February of the dangers of deepening corruption in the oil and gas industry and submitted a report detailing the failure of the state oil company to transfer some US$20 billion to the federation (national) accounts.

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Data battles in Abuja

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

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Nigeria's most sensational political row for a decade began with a dispute over arithmetic. The figure in question was US$49.8 billion: that was the oil sales revenue between...

Trophy-hunters after Kikwete

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The President comes in for a storm of criticism over elephant and rhino poaching but the true picture is more complicated

Embattled President Jakaya Kikwete has tried to fight back after coming under intense fire from the British Mail on Sunday newspaper and politicians at home and abroad over...

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THE INSIDE VIEW

It’s official – 2014 is the Year of the Africa Summit. Africa now has more summits than the Himalayas. This is perhaps a consequence of the ‘Africa Rising’ phenomenon. The mandarins and business boosters of Africa and beyond have decided that that which is rising must surely lead to a summit.

The European Union meets Africa in April, under the slogan ‘Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace’. Other summits lead up to it. Brussels hosts the EU-Africa Youth Summit and th...

It’s official – 2014 is the Year of the Africa Summit. Africa now has more summits than the Himalayas. This is perhaps a consequence of the ‘Africa Rising’ phenomenon. The mandarins and business boosters of Africa and beyond have decided that that which is rising must surely lead to a summit.

The European Union meets Africa in April, under the slogan ‘Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace’. Other summits lead up to it. Brussels hosts the EU-Africa Youth Summit and the African-European Parliamentary Summit, the last in a veritable mountain range of conferences in the days before the big event.

Those who have formed a taste for summitry can then repair to the West Africa Mining Summit a few days later in London. The third India-Africa Forum Summit follows in July. Next comes the first ever United States-Africa Leaders’ Summit on 5 and 6 August in Washington, which will be hosted by President Barack Obama, the first US President of African descent.

France is a veteran in the summit stakes, inviting private jet loads of African leaders to meetings in locations such as Cannes, Nice and La Baule. But France raised its game with last December’s security summit in Paris, at which it announced a troop deployment to Central African Republic and held an avowedly commercial rendez-vous alongside the diplomatic discussions. The rest of the world is waking up to Africa and its potential, one of whose undeniable benefits is a big boom in the conference trade.

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Wasting assets

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Pointers

'Torpedo the dam'

Egypt is protesting to the United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal Court about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. It will also boycott a meeting in Khartoum...

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