Things should be considerably safer and more peaceful in the environs of Port Harcourt after the MEND raid on Sunday. Reuters reports a police spokesman as saying that the militants had released 20 criminals from the central police station and 105 from the criminal investigation department. MEND claims that 50 of its fighters took part in the attack, whilst the police estimated that 300 militants were involved - maybe to make the poor performance of the police and the military in this event look better . A man and a 10 year old girl were killed by stray bullets.
And while visiting why not take the opportunity to brush up your driving skills at one of Port Harcourt's fine driving schools, where only the best will do?
Last edited by TomBola : 30th January 2007 at 22:14.
If some of you have never been to Nigeria and you're wondering why there are so many problems out here at the moment, the following report frtom Reuters, highlighting why the haves are so rich, is sickening reading:
Quote:
ABUJA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Local governments in Nigeria's richest oil state routinely steal or misuse public funds instead of using them to improve collapsed schools and health services, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Wednesday.
The U.S.-based group said the government had failed to curb corruption at state and local levels, resulting in a "shocking and disastrous failure" to provide basic services and aggravating social unrest in Africa's oil heartland.
The report used case studies from Rivers, Nigeria's top oil producing state, to show how millions of windfall petrodollars have gone to waste in Africa's most populous nation, which ranks 159 out of 177 countries in the U.N. Human Development Index.
"One local government chairman habitually deposited his government's money into his own private bank account. Another has siphoned off money by allocating it towards a 'football academy' that he has not built," the report said.
"Public schools have been left to fall apart and health care facilities lack even the most basic of amenities," it said, listing schools with collapsed walls, no desks, no books and no chalk, and health centres with no toilets, water, drugs or beds.
Rivers is in the heart of the Niger Delta, which accounts for all oil production from Nigeria, the world's eighth-biggest exporter of crude. Decades of neglect of its poor communities have resulted in a rising tide of violent crime and militancy.
Armed groups are holding 38 foreigners hostage in the delta, thousands of other expatriates have fled the region in the past 12 months, and a fifth of oil output is shut down because of militant attacks.
WASTED WINDFALL
Human Rights Watch said the Nigerian government had squandered a unique opportunity from high oil revenues to address the deprivation at the root of the violence.
Since its return to civilian rule in 1999, Nigeria's 36 states and 774 local governments have seen sharp increases in the funds allocated to them under the three-tiered system of government and sharing of revenues.
As an oil-producing state, Rivers receives an extra share of oil revenues which have surged thanks to high oil prices. In 2006, the state budget projected total government spending of $1.3 billion, double the amount Rivers had to spend in 2004.
"Much of this windfall has been lost to the extravagance, waste and corruption that characterise state government spending," Human Rights Watch said.
It pointed to the 2006 state budget, which gave the governor's office a $65,000 daily travel allowance and $77 million annually for unspecified "special projects".
The state's 23 local government councils, which are responsible for delivering primary health care and education, have seen their monthly revenues rise fourfold since 1999 but there is almost nothing to show for it, the report said.
Local government chairmen use inflated building contracts to generate kickbacks for themselves and contractors and opaque budgets to allocate hefty slices of revenue to themselves. They routinely bill government for services that are not provided.
In Opobo/Nkoro local government area, the chairman's 2005 travel budget was $53,800, more than twice as large as the capital budget for the health sector. An allocation for "miscellaneous expenses" was bigger than the education budget.
Human Rights Watch said even the small amounts that were left for health and education on paper were in fact stolen as there was no evidence of any spending on those sectors.
"A few decades ago Nigeria was considered to have one of the best education systems in Africa and now the schools in the richest state in the country are literally falling apart," Albin-Lackey of Human Rights Watch said of the schools he saw in Rivers State during his research mission there.
Overall, despite Nigeria's wealth, the nation has one of the worst child survival rates in the world. About one out of five Nigerian children die before the age of five, most succumbing to diseases that are easily preventable or treatable at low cost, according to the United Nations children's agency. The country's maternal mortality rate is also among the highest in the world, the UN says.
Data for the delta, including Rivers State, reflects the national picture. The delta has the worst post-neonatal mortality rate in Nigeria, according to the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey of 1999. It said nationally 30 percent of women said they cannot afford healthcare, compared with 47 percent in the delta.
Maybe this is where some of the money paid to Rivers State went:
But this is how his 'subjects' live:
In view of the above, anyone wonder why they're angry? The Governor's 139 is presently just flying around empty (at what cost, to who?) for the crews to build up their 50 hours pilot time on it.
Since photos are becoming 'de rigeur' here now, perhaps the governor may be reduced to travelling in this if the EFCC charges against him ever come to anything
That's if the fuel queues here allow him to get any petrol for it
A Nigerian and a Malaysian are at school together in London. After graduation they keep in touch, promising to visit each other at home when they get the chance. After ten years the Malaysian tells the Nigerian to come visit him at home. He has a government job and life is good.
When he gets there the Nigerian sees a beautiful house with a Mercedes in the drive. That evening the Malaysian asks the Nigerian to look out across the way at the new motorway and the new bridge. 'You see that?' he asks. 'Ten percent,' waving his hand at everything he has.
'Ah-ah! You must come to see me in my country!' replies the Nigerian. 'I have a government job too!'
The Malaysian goes for it. He finds the Nigerian living in a small palace with a Rolls-Royce in the driveway, very impressive indeed. That evening the Nigerian asks the Malaysian to look out across the way at the new motorway and the new bridge. The Malaysian says that all he can see out there is a dirt track and a rickety wooden bridge. 'You see now? One hundred percent,' says the Nigerian.
You got out at a good time. Port Harcourt is daily descending into anarchy with the police getting ever more useless. I'm sure you've read about the raid on the police stations here by MEND on Sunday, in which they freed one of their leaders. MEND said they sent about 50 men, the police said it was about 300, probably as an excuse for rather carelessly allowing 125 prisoners to be 'liberated' from 2 police stations. It's pretty much summed up by one part of a report in a local newspaper where one of the market women was frightened by the noise of gun fire beside Moscow Rd but was really frightened by the sight of the police running up the road pulling off their Berets and uniform jacets and throwing them away . It's about all the Nigerian police are good for.
Meanwhile a group claiming to be MEND, exhibited the Fillipino hostages taken from the Baco Liner in Chanomi Creek, to the press yesterday. "If the government doesn't listen to us, in 72 hours things will start happening," said Tamuno Goodwill, a masked militant who described himself as a field commander of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). He said he was referring to attacks on oil facilities and the security forces guarding them. "We are going to drag the president into a civil war," said Goodwill, who did not reveal where the militants were keeping their Filipino captives.
Goodwill said his group were MEND fighters, although that is disputed by Jomo Gbomo, the person who has spoken for the faceless militant group since it first surfaced in Dec. 2005.
Gbomo has said MEND was not involved in the attack on the cargo ship. It is impossible to obtain independent confirmation of these details as the MEND has never offered details of its structure and leadership.
Gbomo says the group is fighting for the impoverished people of the delta to gain control of the region's oil wealth. He has also demanded the release of Asari, although he says Asari is not particularly important to the struggle.
Most of us out here now are just trying to maintain a low profile (not difficult as most expats in the Niger Delta have some kind of curfew imposed by their companies. Even with extra allowances being offered it's especially difficult to get pilots and engineers to come to Port Harcourt now. If things continue like this it will soon become just like Warri, with little or no social life as pubs, clubs and restaurants close down because of falling custom.
Good luck in Saudi, though it sounds a pity you're having to leave Algeria - sounds nice. You can always get an Emirates flight and route home on leave via Lagos so you can call in at the BRC and swap tall tales with old friends - you would be wellicome!
I reckon the oil companies cannot afford to properly protect their workers and contractors......knowing how tough times are economically and all. You folks in Nigeria might reconsider your concerns about what you perceive to be inadequate efforts to safeguard your well being and all. I think it is really over the top for you to think the oil companies can afford such vast investments of capital in these times of depressed earnings and profit.
lots of situations we get into, we think the people at the top must be really, really stupid. What does that say about us, given that we are underlings? Still, you look at some of the decisions they make and you think, 'Sh*t for brains, or what?'
Stupidity is contagious, too! You hang with dummies long enough, your own brain tends to go into 'stand-by' mode. Otherwise it keeps getting you into trouble. Eh, SASless, you with your febrile mind? (Thinks to self: he's going to have to look up that one for sure!)
I cannot say that I am any smarter than you guys still in Nigeria; I would still be there but for the mysterious workings of fate. The further away I get from it, especially after just six days in ALgeria instead of NIgeria, when no one tried anything on at all, not even when my 'pah-tick-oo-lahs' were not totally 'in ordah,' the more I wonder why I stayed so long.
In Hassi Messaoud there were no beggars, no robbers, no piles of rotting garbage... nothing like that in my (very limited, of course) initial exposure to one small corner of a very big country. It is just that in Nigeria there is sure to be something shocking, revolting or shockingly revolting just around the corner. Well, I owed my first job there to a rotting human corpse that turned my Canadian predecessor around and sent him back home before Management even knew he was gone.
There was a wrecked car in the old Ikeja Roundabout with a dead guy in it. They told the New Guy that when he arrived in the dark. Next day he took a walk in daylight and saw that there really was a dead guy there in that wrecked 504, when he had thought this was just a morbid joke they played on each New Guy. He had flown in on a round-trip ticket so he went back to the villa, got his stuff together, made his way to the airport and caught Lufthansa back the way he had come. Meanwhile the Norwegian troll who ran things was amusing himself thinking of the New Guy left to rot in the villa for a week until he could finally be admitted into The Presence. Surprise!
You guys be careful now. Remember that it isn't 'the bullet with your name on it' that you need to worry about but the one addressed, 'To Whom It May Concern!'
Thinking of axes, murder, working for idiots and the whole 8 yards (the ninth was confiscated by customs ) I hear there are still a lot of upset people in Mauritania having to work for a certain Viscomte who somehow came to mind when I saw your post
Hear his latest victim is the Chief Engineer himself sorry I mean Engineer in charge of course as they only have two machines.
Whats does 35 years with a company mean anyway ? answer Jack S--t when you have management like Bristow's
Sadly nowadays the radio just isn't a viable option. What with miniaturisation even a direct hit with maximum force (or Extreme Prejuduce as you Americans like to call it) wouldn't cause any damage or injury worth posting on PPRuNe. His back to back is on the way out too. I imagine that makes a near 100% turnover there, and nobody ever asks why
There was a small riot between Okada drivers and MOPOL yesterday afternoon around GRA junction (near Arreta). Just to keep us on our toes !! Plenty of tear gas and shooting. Someone should write a book about this stuff !!
You send me the raw data and I shall turn it into literature, okay? Just a cheap paperback book, nothing too dear. Where we make the money is later selling the A4 sheet that gives the aliases on the left and the real names on the right!
Sex, violence, mass stupidity: it's all there just waiting to be written up. The biggest problem is, who would believe it?
Too, do you know any good lawyers? I think we might need a little bit of help on the 'libel and slander' front. Or is telling the truth a good defence?
So much of what goes on in Nigeria, and in aviation in general, the truth reads stranger than fiction.
I wish I had saved it but we once got a nastygram from our new Leaderess telling us, in future, not to have the aircraft de-iced at an outstation but to bring it back to base for that, where it was so much cheaper. I guess she forgot about the costs of hiring a low-loader.
Hello world, even here in the lee of marshmallow mountain, we are not totally living in maple city metropolis. The camp will be finsihed within the time and budget constraints we have set. Do you really imagine we will listen to nonsense about who wants communal living areas or jogging tracks or tennis courts? You'll stay on Areta and we'll say yes to everything you demand, but do just as we've always done - exactly as we want, with a nice smile, and then tell you what you're getting. Why would we leave our nice, safe, well-guarded camp and visit the squalid dump in which you're presently incarcerated just to waste more company money on drinks for someone who's been a thorn in our side for far too long. Good riddance.
Safety Improved in the Niger Delta
. A man and a 10 year old girl were killed by stray bullets.
The Haves And The Have-nots
You Left at a Good Time Chuks
. It's about all the Nigerian police are good for.
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