news The president of Gambia’s West African
nation Yahya Jammeh says he will not run for another five-year mandate when his current third term ends early next year.
President Jammeh said the decision stems
from his conviction that democracy should pre- vail in the country. But he warned that violence associated with elections in many countries in Africa will not be tolerated.
The Dakar-based West Africa Democracy
radio quoting its correspondents in the Gambia capital on Tuesday morning, said President Jammeh said that his government is fully pre- pared to give the reins to the democratisation process in the country.
Reports say the president made the an-
nouncement when he addressed his Cabinet in an emergency meeting in the capital on Monday night.
When the president
matches his words by action, he will be the fouth military turned ci- vilian president in West Africa that will relinquish power on his volition after Benin’s General Ma- thieu Kérékou, Ghana’s Jerry John Rawlings and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo.
President Yahya Jam-
meh’s announcement will take the world by surprise since he has been mooting programs that he intends to imple- ment by 2015.
THE MICHIGAN CHRONICLE Global Village President of Gambia will not seek another term in office
Oil companies panic in Nigeria
It was a mixture of good and bad news for
Nigeria as oil prices reached a two-year high point before the celebration was tempered by the report of yet another kidnap saga in the Niger Delta.
The industry was also gripped with fear
as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) issued a threat of fresh at- tacks on oil installations in the country.
At Okoro field off Akwa Ibom State, gunmen
attacked an offshore oil rig operated by explora- tion firm, Afren, kidnapping five crew members, including foreigners and injuring two others.
The attack in the shal-
low-water field, which is Afren’s biggest producing oilfield with an average output of 17,300 barrels per day, was one of the biggest of its kind since the amnesty programme took off last year.
“Two crew members
are stable after receiv- ing wounds to the leg, and have been evacuated by helicopter to a shore- based clinic. It is believed that five crew members have been taken hos- tage,” Afren said in a statement.
A security source con- President Yahya Jammeh President Jammeh, who recently accumu-
lated the titles of professor, sheikh and doctor, came to power through a bloodless coup d’état in 1994 against the founding father of the coun- try, Sir Dawda Jawara.
Sir Jawara eventually sought exile in Eng-
land where he lived until President Jammeh al- lowed him to return to the country and given back his property in 2005 on agreement that the former president will not be involved in any form of political activities.
Professor Jammeh held the rank of army
captain when he masterminded the coup upon his return from military service with the re- gional intervention force in Liberia.
He has since been ruling the country with
an iron fist, while scaring off civilian politicians as well as international diplomats including UN officials, many of whom he had sent packing over misunderstandings with his style of gov- ernance.
Among the prominent opposition politi-
cians who are expected to take over the reins of state in the event of President Jammeh’s ab- sence from the political scene is the outspoken lawyer Ousseynu Darboe.
firmed to Reuters that those kidnapped were believed to be two French
nationals, two US citizens and one Canadian national, though there was no confirmation of this from the Nigerian security services or Afren.
The French Foreign Ministry said it had re-
ceived information suggesting two French citi- zens were among those taken and was investi- gating.
Afren said the High Island VII jackup rig had
recently arrived in the Okoro field and was pre- paring to begin drilling.
It said drilling activities were temporarily
suspended. Afren shares fell as much as 9 per cent in London. The company said there had been a second security breach at a support vessel but that both the rig and the vessel were now under its control.
In an email to the media, MEND warned of
more attacks. “In the coming days, our fighters will launch
a series of attacks on oil installations across the Niger Delta,” it said.
It also said it was holding one Thai and three
French nationals who were kidnapped several weeks ago and had since been transferred to
its custody. The three Frenchmen were kidnapped from
a vessel owned by French marine services com- pany Bourbon on September 22 by gunmen in speedboats, an attack, which was also off Akwa Ibom and similar in style to the latest strike on Afren.
The news of the planned fresh attacks came
exactly two years after the group launched an all-out war tagged “Hurricane Piper Alpha” against oil companies in the region.
MEND had on November 8, 2008 announced
the operation and gave oil companies operating in the region, a 72-hour ultimatum to vacate the area or face the consequence.
The latest threat, THISDAY learnt, is caus-
ing panic in the oil industry, as most compa- nies are still counting losses following years of violence in the region, which caused them some chunks of oil production, with facilities worth billions of dollars destroyed.
Some officials of one of the oil majors told
Thisday last night that if the threat was any- thing to go by, then oil companies should be ready to go back to the old days of frequent pro- duction shut-in.
They noted that some companies that closed
their Nigeria businesses in the wake of the heightened insecurity in the region are doing well in other neighbouring countries because the environments are conducive.
An industry expert, who expressed concern
over the MEND’s announcement said renewal of violence in the region would not only reduce Nigeria’s crude production, which currently stands at 2.1 million barrels from an all time low below 1.2 million in 2009, but would push up production costs.
He called on the federal gov-
ernment to do everything pos- sible to avert the attacks.
Uncertainly cloud’s Nigeria’s coming elections
Five months to the April 2011
general polls, a thick cloud of uncertainty is still covering the exercise. This is in spite of as- surances by President Goodluck Jonathan and chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Atta- hiru Jega, that the nation would witness free and fair elections next year.
According to Vanguard
checks, some of the issues con- stituting booby traps for credi- ble polls include uncertain legal
basis for the elections occasioned by contro- versies trailing the amended and amendment of the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act; rising insecurity and waves of violence via kid- napping, bomb blasts, arms build-up and do-or- die approach of some politicians.
Violence erupts Militants have bombed the Opokuma, Bayel-
sa State country home of the special assistant to the president on Niger Delta, Timi Alaibe, killing his police guard. A day earlier, the 73- year-old mother of an Action Congress of Nige- ria, ACN governorship aspirant in Delta State, Jude Ukusare and a nine-year old girl, lost their lives after unidentified gunmen bombed the politician’s Efurum home, near Warri.
The INEC chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega,
on Friday, in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, ex- pressed concern over the wave of violence that always trail elections in the country. Stating that the electoral umpire had met all the secu- rity agencies to ensure success of the elections, he urged traditional rulers, across the country, to prevail on their subjects not to allow them- selves be used as tools for electoral mayhem.
The Defense Headquarters vowed to “clean
out” existing militant camps in the country, especially in the Niger Delta
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