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Help Recover Missing N300M Meant For Itsekiri Development, Warri Chief Appeals To Buhari, Okowa

Published

4 years ago

September 24, 2021

Legal practitioner and Warri Chief, Robinson Ariyo, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Malam Abubakar Malami to prevail on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to unravel the mystery behind the missing N300 million from the account of the Itsekiri Regional Development Committee (IRDC).

The Egogo of Warri kingdom who made the appeal on Thursday during a press conference at the Olu of Warri Palace, said he resorted to sending a ‘Save Our Souls’ (SOS) to President Buhari, Governor Okowa and Mallam Malami following the alleged failure of the EFCC, the judiciary, the Force Headquarters, Abuja and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to bring the alleged culprits to book and retrieve the money.

The IRDC is the product of the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) initiated by Chevron Nigeria Ltd (CNL) to handle its corporate social responsibilities in 23 oil producing and impacted communities affected by its operations in Itsekiri land.

Recall that some social critics, sometime in 2019, had dragged the IRDC to court over N1.2 billion in the account meant for developmental projects making the money inaccessible.

Chief Ariyo said following a complaint from Engr. Tuasor Omatseye, Aginejuone Agbonekuya, Destiny Noritsegho and six others over a missing N300m from the N1.2 billion in Keystone Bank Plc account belonging to IRDC, he had several times approached the courts in Warri, the EFCC in Benin, the CBN and the police with suits and petitions, but was frustrated on frivolous excuses.

“The project account has three principal signatories: representatives of Chevron Nigeria Ltd (CNL), Delta State government, and the leadership of the IRDC.

“CNL is signatory category A; meaning without it, no money can be withdrawn from the account,” he narrated.

He alleged that “at a Warri high court, there was a successful conspiracy to strike out the name of one of our clients – Aginejuone Agbonekuya.

“He then appealed that his name should not be struck out. The case was then transferred from Warri to Effurun.

“A team from the IRDC leadership, from the bank and some of the lawyers involved in the case came together without anyone’s knowledge and planned that N300m should be withdrawn from the account and shared in the name of ‘professional legal fees’ for lawyers.

“To do this, they needed to remove the names of those parties to the case who are claimants and who’ll not co-operate with them.

“So they filed a suit. It was in the morning of October 19, 2020, that they filed a court process to remove the names of two parties : Aginejuone and CNL whom they know would not co-operate with them.

“In the same morning when they filed this, they filed another one termed ‘Terms of Settlement.’ It means as soon as they removed those parties’ names, they filed a Term of Settlement and they adopted as a judgement of court that same day.

“In the Terms of Settlement, they wrote that they’ll take professional fees as ‘frontline charge’ from the account.

“Meanwhile, these cases were still pending in the appeal and Supreme Court. Ordinarily, before a party is removed from a case, the person should have a notice of it. This didn’t happen.

“They filed the Term of Settlement to close the case in the lower court, meanwhile the cases in the appellate courts are still subsisting,” he noted.

According to him, the alleged fraud started when the N300m out of the N2.1 billion in the account was withdrawn as 10 per cent legal fee.

“They claimed that the lawyers charged 10 per cent and I was a lawyer in the case. We never charged such. 10 per cent of what?

“The money we met or the one we went to generate? Let’s even assume that it’s 10 per cent, but we know that N300 million is not 10 per cent of N2.1b. If they said it’s 10 per cent, it means they’ve stolen N90 million,” he alleged.

Chief Ariyo further explained that
“the leadership of the IRDC immediately applied for the order of the judgement of court which the judge, that morning, signed and they went ahead to sign Form 48 of the bank telling the bank that if it didn’t release the money, they’d commit the bank to prison.

“So, they were able to withdraw the money,” he averred.

He, however, exonerated CNL, the category A signatory to the account, saying it did not sign the document.

Displaying some relevant legal documents to back up his claims, the lawyer said the oil giant had deposed to an affidavit to the effect that it did not sign the papers before the withdrawal was made.

“Chevron has no notice of it, neither did it consent to the withdrawal of N300m from the IRDC account with the bank.

“They said they were not also privy to the ‘out of court’ settlement of the case. That the notice of whithdrawal was done in bad faith to surreptitiously remove the suit from thr court.

“They also removed CNL from the suit knowing they won’t agree with them,” he further alleged.

Narrating where the EFCC erred, the solicitor said the anti-graft agency was petitioned on November 24, 2020 over the infractions.

“We petitioned the EFCC and annexed all the documents to Benin. At the end, the EFCC said we had reported the matter to too many agencies and that there’s a civil matter in the court so they can’t investigate further,” he asserted, saying there’s a court judgement that support that both civil and criminal matters can go together.

While alleging compromise by the EFCC officials, Chief Ariyo said his team wrote the CBN to penalise the erring bank for unprofessional conduct of allowing a withdrawal from a corporate account without the compulsory assent of Signatory A.

“CBN replied saying that since there was a civil matter in court, they can’t look into the case.

“We wrote the police at Zone 5, Benin. They found merit in it. They invited the IRDC leaders, who reluctantly came with govt officials.

“They were let go without any form of documentation. After more pressure, the police issued a second invitation and later a bench warrant.

“As they were about to arrest them, a call came from Abuja saying Force Headquarters had taken over the matter. And that we, the petitioners, were suspect of engaging in a conduct capable of breaching public peace,” he narrated.

He called on President Buhari, Governor Okowa and the Attorney General of the Federation, Malami, Chief Ariyo, he disclosed that he had been offered sumptuous gratification to jettison the case against his conscience and well-being of squalid Itsekiri communities, adding that his team escaped the travesty of justice when he eventually petitioned Buhari and Malami.

“I then petitioned Buhari and Malami which slowed them down. I’ve gone to the executive, it has failed. I’ve gone to the judiciary, it has failed. Where else will I go to for justice except the Fourth Estate of the Realm,” the Egogo of Warri Kingdom queried.

Ariyo, while underscoring the danger in abandoning the case, warned: “this is too dangerous. We live in a society of public private-partnership. I’m under pressure to remove the case from the court.

“But I can’t keep quiet. Having failed in the regular court, I want the court of public opinion. I’m being branded as someone stalling the balance of N1.8 billion in the bank.

“I’m bothered when people do evil and get away with it, it encourages more people to do evil.

“There are primary schools with leaking roofs, no chairs, no books in Itsekiri land and yet the embezzlers are living comfortably. Oil and gas won’t be here forever.”

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Meta Suspends Activists For Showing Election Killings

Published

11 hours ago

December 5, 2025

Editor

Meta suspended the Instagram accounts of two Tanzanian activists on Thursday after they posted images of the violent crackdown by security forces on election protests, which authorities have tried to suppress.

Tanzania descended into violence on October 29, the day of elections deemed fraudulent by international observers.

More than 1,000 people were shot dead by security forces over several days of unrest, according to the opposition and rights groups, though the government has yet to give a final toll.

Mange Kimambi, who has more than 2.5 million Instagram followers, had been posting hundreds of photos of the dead and wounded since early November, sent to her by Tanzanians via WhatsApp, she told AFP last month from the United States.

Not all the images have been verified, but AFP fact checkers and other media and investigative sites have found many are real.

On Thursday, Kimambi, in a letter to US President Donald Trump published on X, complained that her Instagram accounts and WhatsApp number had been “deactivated after I raised awareness about a series of severe abuses and horrific events occurring in Tanzania”, including “kidnappings, killings and imprisonment of opposition leaders on fabricated treason charges”.

Another prominent Tanzanian activist, Maria Sarungi Tsehai, who lives in exile, also had her Instagram account suspended, though only within Tanzania.

“Check out @Meta @instagram and their role in enabling the cover up of #TanzaniaMassacre by restricting and deleting our Instagram and Whatsapp accounts,” Tsehai posted on X.

“This is a direct attack on human rights defenders! We work to save lives by whistleblowing about abductions, corruption and killings,” she added.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesperson for Meta justified the action against Kimambi in the name of its “policy against recidivism”, implying she had created new accounts after others were suspended.

The action against Tsehai was a response to “a legal order from Tanzanian regulators”, the spokesperson said.

“If we are unable to provide our services there, millions of people will be deprived of connecting with family and friends,” Meta added.

In early November, Tanzania’s attorney general, Hamza Johari, called for Kimambi to be arrested and threatened to try to have her extradited from the United States, where she lives.

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Why Europe Is Blocking More Nigerian Goods At Its Borders

Published

1 day ago

December 3, 2025

Editor

Nigeria’s exports continue to face repeated rejection in European Union markets, a challenge caused by consistent quality failures, weak regulatory enforcement, and heavy dependence on raw commodities.

New trade figures further show that while export values expressed in naira have risen sharply, dollar earnings have continued to decline, undermining Nigeria’s competitiveness abroad.

Meanwhile, South Africa remains one of the African countries with the highest rate of export acceptance in Nigeria and the EU, highlighting the gaps between both economies’ standards and certification systems.

According to data from International Trade Centre (ITC) , Nigeria’s export earnings fell for a second consecutive year in 2024, dropping by 8.5% to $57.9 billion.

The figure had already declined from $63.3 billion in 2022 to $60.65 billion in 2023. In naira terms, however, total exports rose from ₦26.8 trillion in 2022 to ₦36 trillion in 2023 and surged to ₦77.4 trillion in 2024.

These increases reflect the naira’s steep depreciation, not an improvement in the volume or acceptance of Nigerian goods overseas.

Intelpoint data show that the naira weakened from ₦645.2 to the dollar at the end of 2023 to ₦1,478.9 in 2024, marking the sharpest yearly decline in a decade.

EU border agencies have repeatedly rejected Nigerian agricultural and manufactured goods for failing to meet essential sanitary and phytosanitary requirements.

Frequent violations include excessive pesticide residue, poor traceability, contamination detected during inspection, and inconsistencies in certification documentation issued in Nigeria.

These failures stem largely from fragmented supply chains, weak monitoring capacity and a lack of internationally accredited laboratories.

South Africa, Morocco and Kenya maintain far stronger conformity systems, and South Africa in particular consistently delivers some of the highest acceptance rates across EU ports.

The ITC figures show that oil remains the backbone of Nigeria’s exports, contributing nearly 90 per cent of total earnings between 2022 and 2024. Over that period, the country earned $163.2 billion from crude oil out of total export revenues of $181.8 billion.

Despite this dominance, oil earnings have continued to fall, declining from $57.4 billion in 2022 to $55.6 billion in 2023 and then to $50.3 billion in 2024.

Because crude prices are determined externally and the product is exported with limited value addition, Nigeria gains little competitive advantage from currency depreciation.

Non-oil exports recorded mixed fortunes. Cocoa earnings rose from $679 million in 2022 to $759 million in 2023 and climbed sharply to $2.6 billion in 2024.

Fertiliser exports fell from $1.9 billion in 2022 to $935.4 million in 2024. Ores and residues, however, increased from $158.6 million in 2023 to $824.4 million in 2024.

Despite positive growth in some sectors, quality problems have continued to undermine acceptance in Europe, particularly for foods such as beans, palm oil and processed crops.

Nigeria recorded stronger performance in African markets in 2024 due to the relative strength of the West African CFA franc.

Companies such as Unilever Nigeria, Cadbury Nigeria and Guinness Nigeria reported export sales of ₦22.8 billion in 2024, up from ₦9.92 billion in the preceding year. EU markets, however, maintain stricter inspection standards, and Nigeria’s structural weaknesses continue to limit penetration.

The country’s export structure remains heavily constrained by outdated processing technology, weak inspection capacity, irregular regulatory monitoring, and an overreliance on raw commodities.

Also, pipeline vandalism and crude theft also prevent Nigeria from meeting its production benchmark of 1.7 million barrels per day, despite a rise to 1.5 million barrels per day in 2024.

In December 2023, the Federal Government introduced the Trade Policy of Nigeria (2023–2027), aimed at aligning export regulations with World Trade Organisation rules and boosting global competitiveness.

The policy forms part of a wider reform agenda tied to the Medium-Term National Development Plan (2021–2025) and Agenda 2050.

Despite these initiatives, limited investment in quality assurance, industrial processing and standards enforcement continues to weaken Nigeria’s acceptance in high-value markets such as the EU.

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US Imposes Visa Restrictions On Nigerians Linked To Religious Freedom Violations

Published

2 days ago

December 3, 2025

Editor

The United States government on Wednesday announced visa restrictions targeting individuals involved in violations of religious freedom in Nigeria. The measures may also extend to immediate family members of the affected persons.

In a statement titled “Combating Egregious Anti-Christian Violence in Nigeria and Globally”, the Department of State said the restrictions were being implemented in response to mass killings and attacks on Christians by radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani militias, and other violent actors in Nigeria and elsewhere.

The statement explained that under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the State Department would now have the authority to deny visas to those who have “directed, authorised, significantly supported, participated in, or carried out violations of religious freedom,” with the policy potentially extending to their immediate family members.

It further cited former President Donald Trump’s remarks, noting that the United States “cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria, and numerous other countries.” The policy will apply to Nigeria and other governments or individuals implicated in violations of religious freedom.

The announcement follows growing international concern over attacks on religious communities in Nigeria, including targeted killings, abductions, and destruction of property attributed to armed groups.