| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
tel: +225 21 73 54 fax: +22521 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa africaonline.co.ci
IRIN-WA Update 313 of Events in West Africa (Friday 9 October 1998)
NIGERIA: Shell unable to guarantee crude oil supplies from Nigeria
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell said today (Fridau) it could no longer guarantee supplies of crude from Nigeria after armed youth seized 15 flow stations and two helicopters, a company official told IRIN.
Shell declared a force majeure at its Bony and Forcodos terminals in the southern Delta State following attacks against its facilities and staff four days ago. The measure excuses the firm from fulfilling contracts with its clients. The multimillion-dollar terminal at Forcados in Delta and some 22 vehicles were seized yesterday, Nigerian newspapers reported.
Shell International told IRIN that closure of the terminals had locked in some 378,000 barrels per day (bpd) form 15 of its 100 flow stations. These are facilities in which oil pumped form wells is stored after being separated from gas and water. Shell's normal total output is 850,000 bpd in Niger Delta. This is almost half Nigeria's total exports of two million bpd.
Youths, many of them from the Ijaw ethnic group, want a new local government for their area, saying that the government is siding with nearby rival Itsekiri communities. They also want more of the national oil wealth spent in Ijaw areas.
"Youth groups say their action is aimed at the government and what they call their exclusion form their country's political process," the BBC said.
A Senior Shell official in London told IRIN the firm would seek a peaceful way out of the current impasse with the Niger Delta community and had not asked the Federal government for protection.
"It is our policy to hold dialogue with the people involved," another Shell official told IRIN.
The new military government under Abdulsalami Ababakar was reluctant to use force to resolve the problem as it prepares for the transition to civilian rule, the official told IRIN.
Soyinka to return to Nigeria "very soon" - Suleiman
Exiled Nigerian Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka will return to Nigeria "very soon", a close associate told AFP yesterday (Thursday).
Dan Suleiman, who returned from exile in Britain on Wednesday with four others, said Soyinka was expected in the country "any moment from now". He gave no further details.
Soyinka fled the regime of General Sani Abacha in November 1994. In September in New York, Soyinka promised the current military ruler, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, that he would return but gave no date. Previously, Soyinka had demanded the lifting of Decree 2, a law that gave security agents emergency powers of arrest and detention. That law is still in force.
LIBERIA: Thirty-two people charged with treason
The Liberian government has formally charged 32 people with treason and conspiring to overthrow the government of President Charles Taylor, media reports said today. The 32, many of whom were charged in absentia, include the ethnic Krahn leader and wartime rival of Taylor, Roosevelt Johnson.
Johnson took refuge in the US embassy after government forces raided the Krahn stronghold in central Monrovia 18 September and was subsequently flown out of the country. Those indicted are accused of "recruiting and training dissidents" and meeting to discuss plans to overthrow the government.
Independent Star Radio quoted Justice Minister Eddington Varmah as saying that more people could be charged as investigations continue, and that the government would provide the defendants with lawyers if needs be.
The US embassy has remained closed for business since the incident. A spokesman said it wanted the Liberian government to apoligise for an incident in which soldiers pursuing Johnson had fired into the embassy precinct.
Exile group accuses government
Meanwhile, in a statement received by IRIN today, the national chairman of the All Liberian Conference of North America, James Kaye, thanked the US government for facilitating Johnson's departure. He alleged government security forces had subjected ethnic Krahns in Monrovia to a "witch hunt and secret killings".
Kaye called on Taylor to establish an independent commission to investigate the crisis, provide accommodation for people who lost their homes and "desist from using the military to execute matters requiring police action."
SIERRA LEONE: New killings, atrocities reported
At least 28 people were killed and the limbs of seven others were hacked off in an attack by rebels allied to the ousted military junta yesterday in the northern town of Kukuna near the Guinean border, AFP reported yesterday.
In a dispatch quoting witnesses who escaped the fighting, it also said an unspecified number of soldiers of the Nigerian-led ECOMOG intervention force had also lost their lives. The rebels were wearing black t-shirts and armed with heavy guns, it added. Security forces in the capital Freetown, meanwhile, were quoted as saying that in an ECOMOG offensive in the eastern Kailahun district had recaptured the towns of Sambalu, Mofindo, Niahun and Giama.
MALI: Former president to stand trial
The former president if Mali, Moussa Traore, ousted in a 1991 coup, will stand trial on Monday on corruption charges, AFP said quoting justice ministry officials. It said Traore, who ruled the country for 23 years, will appear in a court in the capital, Bamako, with his wife Mariam and four former associates.
Traore was charged with murder for his role in a bloody crackdown on riots in early 1991, preceding the coup, which left more than 200 people dead. A year later he was sentenced to death. Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, said this week, said that Traore's trial would be fair.
CAMEROON: Jailed editor threateened
A newspaper editor imprisoned since December for publishing a story that President Paul Biya had suffered a heart ailment has been threatened with execution by another inmate, media reports said today.
Pius Njawe, editor of 'Le Messager", who was sentenced to a year in prison, writes a regular column critical of prison conditions, the legal system and democracy in Cameroon.
AFP quoted the current issue of 'Le Messager' as saying: "For the past two weeks, a highway thief in jail from a failed hold-up has been swearing he will eliminate Pius Njawe by any means." It said the inmate had tried to attack the editor once on the night of 30 August, and again on Monday this week. Other inmates intervened to save his life, the tri-weekly paper said. The case against Njawe has drawn widespread protests from international rights groups.
GHANA: Severe water shortage around Accra
Ghana's National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) said yesterday it was battling to ease a severe water shortage in the areas around Accra, the nation's capital.
Grass and shrublands have been mainly affected after natural water sources and hand-dug well dried up, AFP reported quoting NADMO. Now, people and cattle have just "meagre supplies available". NADMO has already spent 400 million cedis (US $250,000) to transport water to areas where piped water is unavailable.
Heavy rains have caused serious flooding this year in Sahelian regions of West Africa but rainfall has been scarce in the coastal areas.
WEST AFRICA: Water resources management
Abubakar told fellow African leaders yesterday they had to take the management of scarce water resources "more seriously" by being signatories to treaties.
Abubakar told a meeting in Abuja of ministers of the nine-member Niger Basin Authority that they faced an "enormous" task simply in providing clean water for expanding populations, the News Agency of Nigeria said. Many of the countries in the authority - Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Niger, Nigeria and Mali - face acute water shortages.
Abidjan, 9 October 1998 16:15 gmt
[ENDS]
[The material contained in this communication comes to you via IRIN West Africa, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. UN IRIN-WA Tel: +225 21 73 66 Fax: +225 21 63 35 e-mail: irin-wa@africaonline.co.ci for more information or subscription. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this report, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. IRIN reports are archived on the Web at: http://www.reliefweb.int or can be retrieved automatically by sending e-mail to <archive@ocha.unon.org> - mailing list: irin-wa-updates]
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 16:14:47 +0000 (GMT) From: UN IRIN - West Africa <irin-wa@wa.dha.unon.org> Subject: IRIN-West Africa Update 313 for 1998.10.09 Message-Id: <Pine.LNX.3.95.981009161339.10530B-100000@wa.dha.unon.org>
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
| Previous Menu | Home Page | What's New | Search | Country Specific |