USAfricaonline.com, first African-owned U.S.-based professional newspaper to be published on the internet, is listed among the world's hot sites by the international newspaper, USAToday. USAfrica has been cited by the New York Times as America's largest African-owned multimedia company. 8303 SW Freeway, Suite 100, Houston, Texas 77074. Phone: 713-270-5500. Cell direct: 832-45-CHIDO (24436)

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On the Prof. Chinua Achebe project, log on to www.Achebebooks.com

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CNN International interview with Nigeria's President Obasanjo and USAfricaonline.com Publisher Chido Nwangwu on Democracy and Security Issues

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Corruption charges and Questions trail Obasanjo's Shares in Transcorp

By Anas A. Galadima in Abuja

September 18, 2006: Last week Wednesday, Chairman of Transnational Corporation, Dr. Ndi Okereke-Onyuike confirmed speculations that President Olusegun Obasanjo holds equity shares in the company. Her revelation came barely 48 hours after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) raided the Head Office of the company reportedly in a bid to 'investigate' the shareholding structure and operations of the company.

Okereke-Onyuike told the House Committee on Capital Markets that the president had subscribed to the shares of the company when it was established. Even though she did not specify the amount of shares held by the president, her revelation confirmed media reports that the president owns between 200million to 600million shares in Transcorp. Although throughout the nearly two years of its existence, there have been strong speculations that the president had significant shares in the company, no concrete evidence had been brought forward to substantiate the claim until about a month ago when it was reported in the papers that the president had between 200million to 600million shares being held in 'blind trust' in the corporation.

The recent revelation by Okereke-Onyuike no doubt brings to question the anti-corruption stance of the Obasanjo-led government. The many privileges and presidential waivers that the company has enjoyed within the short period of its existence are no doubt in question because these waivers were given by the president to a company in which he is a major shareholder. Transcorp upon inception got approval to build a $250 million (about N33.25 billion) refinery in Lekki Free Port Zone in Lagos.

The facility is expected to be one of the biggest refineries in the country when completed. President Oluse-gun Obasanjo, while launching the company at the State House Banquet Hall, in Abuja, also announced other concessions to the company, which include a license to build an Independent Power Plant (IPP) as well as an exclusive access to government's cassava report for the construction of a cassava processing facility. The company bought 75percent shares in NITEL under circumstances which many have described as dubious since only 51percent shares of the company were advertised for sale to a core investor. More so, this was done even after Orascom, the Egyptian telecom company that failed to meet the reserved price, was said to have offered to increase its offer to meet the reserved price.

The revised offer of Orascom was reportedly turned down by the federal government because it wanted to restart a new sale process that would enable Transcorp to acquire the company under what the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) called "negotiated sale." But Transcorp is not the only company in which the president has been reported to have acquired stakes, in the last few years.

During the consolidation programme that saw almost all the banks in the country running to the capital market to raise funds in order to meet the N25billion capital base, Obasanjo was said to have acquired significant shares in a number of banks in the country, in most cases using relatives and aides as fronts, like in Transcorp when his shares were held in 'blind trust.' The president is said to have acquired significant shares in United Bank for Africa (UBA) through one of his aides during the consolidation programme. A reliable source close to the bank told Daily Trust that during one of the meetings of the management of the bank, one of the management staff asked the Group Managing Director (GMD), Tony Elumelu whether it was true that the president had shares in the company.

Elumelu was said to have avoided giving a categorical answer to the question thereby raising suspicion amongst management that the president may be a major shareholder in the company. The seemingly unusual closeness of the GMD to the presidency can only but lend credence to these suspicions. Besides UBA, the president is also said to have up to 20 percent stake in Unity Bank following the merger of First Interstate Bank with other banks, like Bank of the North (BON) and Intercity Bank amongst others. Daily Trust was reliably told that prior to the merger, the president was the majority shareholder in First Interstate Bank. In a bid to ensure that it scaled through, the bank along with BON and others were given some waivers by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

This saw the cancellation of the debts owed by them to the apex bank. Some of the affected banks then began merger talks that led to their consolidation as Unity Bank. Although Okereke-Onyuike said the president has instructed his company to divest its shares from Transcorp, it remains questionable that the president has shares in the corporation which the presidency has repeatedly denied.

According to her "Transcorp is not Obasanjo's company. The day it appeared in the newspapers, I personally went to President Obasanjo to ask on which name he had bought the shares so that I could tell Nigerians. He said he did not buy, but that he had asked Obasanjo farms to buy but he had asked them to divest. He said he instructed his son who is managing the farm to divest but he (Obasanjo's son) travelled.

"After 30th September, I will be able to say. If I see the names of thieves and vagabonds that looted the treasury, I will cancel them. They will not be shareholders of Transcorp. It is after this that names of shareholders would be filed with the registrars," Onyiuke said. While the president, like any other citizen of the country, has the right to own private properties and investments, the way and manner he invests and where he gets the money to do so must be put under scrutiny to ensure he does not abuse his office as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to illegally acquire wealth for himself.

In the last two weeks, there has been heightened tension in the presidency, following EFCC's indictment of Vice President Atiku Abubakar of corruption and Obasanjo's subsequent reference of the case to the National Assembly for consideration. One of the allegations against the VP is that he engaged in fraudulent withdrawals from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF). Last week, Atiku Abubakar provided evidence indicting the president and his family of benefiting from the controversial account.

This came barely 24 hours after the president provided financial documents exposing Atiku's complicity in the PTDF deal. Atiku alleged that the Obasanjo benefited from the PTDF deposit in Trans International Bank (TIB) as well as from campaign funds in the account of MOFAS Shipping Line. "The documents available to us, some of which are attached to this statement, shows that the president, his family, businesses, native community and the PDP of which he has proclaimed himself the life leader, have benefited tremendously from money deposited in the accounts he is now dissociating himself from," a statement signed by Atiku's media officer, Garba Shehu, said.

The VP provided bank documents to substantiate the claims, saying that president's Personal Assistant, Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju made over 100 sorties to TIB, Abuja (located at Tofa House in the Central Business District) between 1999 and 2004. "The truth of the matter is that there is a "big linkage" between Chief Obasanjo and Otunba Fasawe contrary to the claims that the president has made. There are cheques worth over N100 million issued to IBAD Nigeria Limited, a construction company solely owned by Obasanjo from Fasawe's MOFAS TIB accounts. There are also payments Fasawe directly made to the Obasanjo Africa Leadership Forum and to Obasanjo Campaign Organization', Atiku said.

The recent revelation by the Chairman of Transcorp and the evidence provided by the VP indicting the president of corrupt practices undoubtedly raises more questions than answers on the federal government's seeming war against corruption. This no doubt raises the question on whether the much talked about anti-graft agency - EFCC - can really summon the courage to investigate activities of the president from 1999 to date.

Currently, questions are being asked as to why it took this long for the EFCC to launch an investigation into the activities and operations of Transcorp. The ability of the commission to conduct a sincere probe into the shareholding structure and operations of the firm is also being questioned.

As Nigerians wait to hear the outcome of EFCC's probe of the company, and other possible dealings of the Commander-in-Chief, the commission would do the nation a lot of good if it hastens its investigations and tell the public what it has found out about Obasanjo's Transcorp shares and the sources through which this and other investments were financed.

Many Nigerians still feel disappointed that a man (Obasanjo) who had gained so much from Nigeria would cling so tightly to power, even against the popular will of the people, moreso with age, energy and fresh ideas for a new era not on his side.

Also, USAfricaonline.com review of Nigeria's recent history show that President Obasanjo seems to be moving rapidly into the zone of ill-repute of his former military colleagues who, like him, refused to leave office when it was time to go. Gen. yakubu Gowon in 1975; Gen. Ibrahim Babangida in 1993; Gen. Sani Abacha in1995, 1996, 1997, 1998. More baffling many Nigerians we interviewed recall is the lessons of the excesses of the late Gen. Abach who jailed Obasanjo while the former schemed to remain in power. For the special report by USAfrica multimedia networks' Publisher Chido Nwangwu, click on 3rd term.

His globalist underpinnings and outlook are truly reflective of the true essence of his Igbo world-view, his Igbo upbringing and disposition. Igbos and Jews share (with a few other other cultures) this pan-global disposition to issues of art, life, commerce, juridical pursuits, and quest to be republicanist in terms of the vitality of the individual/self. In Achebe's works, the centrality of Chi (God) attains an additional clarity in the Igbo cosmology... it is a world which prefers a quasi-capitalistic business attitude while taking due cognizance of the usefulness of the whole, the community. I've studied, lived and tried to better understand, essentially, the rigor and towering moral certainties which Achebe have employed in most of his works and his world. I know, among other reasons, because I share the same ancestry with him. Permit me to attempt a brief sentence, with that Achebean simplicty and clarity. Here, folks, what the world has known since 1958: Achebe is good! Eagle on the Iroko, may your Lineage endure! There has never been one like you!
Ugo n'abo, chukwu gozie gi oo!. Chido Nwangwu, recipient of the Journalism Excellence award (1997), is Founder and Publisher of USAfricaonline.com (first African-owned U.S.-based professional newspaper to be published on the internet), USAfrica The Newspaper, CLASS magazine and The Black Business Journal. He has served as an adviser to the Mayor of Houston on international business (Africa) and appears as an analyst on CNN, VOA, NPR, CBS News, NBC and ABC news affiliates.

CLASS is the social events, heritage excellence and style magazine for Africans in north America, described by The New York Times as the magazine for affluent Africans in America. It is published by professional journalists and leading mulitmedia leaders and pioneers.

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Nelson Mandela, Tribute to the world's political superstar and Lion of Africa   Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's burden mounts with murder charges, trials Why Bush should focus on dangers facing Nigeria's return to democracy and Obasanjo's slipperyslide TRIBUTE A KING FOR ALL TIMES: Why Martin Luther King's legacy and vision are relevant into 21st century. DIPLOMACY Walter Carrington: African-American diplomat who put principles above self for Nigeria (USAfrica's founder Chido Nwangwu with Ambassador Carrington at the U.S. embassy, Nigeria) DEMOCRACY'S WARRIOR Out of Africa. …The cock that crows in the morning belongs to one household but his voice is the property of the neighborhood. -- Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah. An editor carries on his crusade against public corruption and press censorship in his native Nigeria and other African countries. By John Suval. The Economics of Elections in Nigeria HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY How far, how deep will Nigeria's human rights commission go? Rtd. Gen. Babangida trip as emissary for Nigeria's Obasanjo to Sudan raises curiosity, questions about what next in power play? 110 minutes with Hakeem Olajuwon Nigerian stabbed to death in his bathroom in Houston. Since 1958, Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" set a standard of artistic excellence, and more. By Douglas Killam Why Chinua Achebe, the Eagle on the Iroko, is Africa's writer of the century. By Chido Nwangwu(First written on March 1, 2002, for USAfrica, updated for Prof. Achebe's 74th Birthday tribute on November 16, 2004, and published in CLASS magazine same month): Africa's most acclaimed and fluent writer of the English Language, the most translated writer of Black heritage in the world, broadcaster extraordinaire, social conscience of millions, cultural custodian and elevator, chronicler and essayist, goodwill ambassador and man of progressive rock-ribbed principles, the Eagle on the Iroko, Ugo n'abo Professor Chinua Achebe, has recently been selected by a distinguished jury of scholars and critics (from 13 countries of African life and literature) as the writer of the Best book (Things Fall Apart, 1958) written in the twentieth century regarding Africa. Reasonably, Achebe's message has been neither dimmed nor dulled by time and clime. He's our pathfinder, the intellectual godfather of millions of Africans and lovers of the fine art of good writing. Achebe's cultural contexts are, at once, pan-African, globalist and local; hence, his literary contextualizations soar beyond the confines of Umuofia and any Igbo or Nigerian setting of his creative imagination or historical recall. His globalist underpinnings and outlook are truly reflective of the true essence of his Igbo world-view, his Igbo upbringing and disposition. Igbos and Jews share (with a few other other cultures) this pan-global disposition to issues of art, life, commerce, juridical pursuits, and quest to be republicanist in terms of the vitality of the individual/self. In Achebe's works, the centrality of Chi (God) attains an additional clarity in the Igbo cosmology... it is a world which prefers a quasi-capitalistic business attitude while taking due cognizance of the usefulness of the whole, the community. I've studied, lived and tried to better understand, essentially, the rigor and towering moral certainties which Achebe have employed in most of his works and his world. I know, among other reasons, because I share the same ancestry with him. Permit me to attempt a brief sentence, with that Achebean simplicty and clarity. Here, folks, what the world has known since 1958: Achebe is good! Eagle on the Iroko, may your Lineage endure! There has never been one like you! Ugo n'abo, chukwu gozie gi oo!. Chido Nwangwu, recipient of the Journalism Excellence award (1997), is Founder and Publisher of USAfricaonline.com (first African-owned U.S.-based professional newspaper to be published on the internet), USAfrica The Newspaper, CLASS magazine and The Black Business Journal. He has served as an adviser to the Mayor of Houston on international business (Africa) and appears as an analyst on CNN, VOA, NPR, CBS News, NBC and ABC news affiliates. This USAfricaonline.com commentary is copyrighted. Archiving on any other web site or newspaper is unauthorized except with a Written Approval by USAfricaonline.com Founder.

DEBATE: How Black intellectuals let Africa down, and western stereoptypes complicate the rest. By Cedrick Ngalande at the USC, Los Angeles Africa suffers the scourge of the virus. This life and pain of Kgomotso Mahlangu, a five-month-old AIDS patient (above) in a hospital in the Kalafong township near Pretoria, South Africa, on October 26, 1999, brings a certain, frightening reality to the sweeping and devastating destruction of human beings who form the core of any definition of a country's future, its national security, actual and potential economic development and internal markets. 22 million Africans HIV-infected, ill with AIDS while African leaders ignore disaster-in-waiting In a special report a few hours after the history-making nomination, USAfricaonline.com Founder and Publisher Chido Nwangwu places Powell within the trajectory of history and into his unfolding clout and relevance in an essay titled 'Why Colin Powell brings gravitas, credibility and star power to Bush presidency.' Powell named Secretary State by G.W. Bush; bipartisan commendations follow. AFRICA AND THE U.S. ELECTIONS Beyond U.S. electoral shenanigans, rewards and dynamics of a democratic republic hold lessons for African politics. CONTINENTAL AGENDA Bush's position on Africa is "ill-advised." The position stated by Republican presidential aspirant and Governor of Texas, George Bush where he said that "Africa will not be an area of priority" in his presidency has been questioned by USAfricaonline.com Publisher Chido Nwangwu. He added that Bush's "pre-election position was neither validated by the economic exchanges nor geo-strategic interests of our two continents." These views were stated during an interview CNN's anchor Bernard Shaw and senior analyst Jeff Greenfield had with Mr. Nwangwu on Saturday November 18, 2000 during a special edition of 'Inside Politics 2000.' Nwangwu, adviser to the Mayor of Houston (the 4th largest city in the U.S., and immigrant home to thousands of Africans) argued further that "the issues of the heritage interests of 35 million African-Americans in Africa, the volume and value of oil business between between the U.S and Nigeria and the horrendous AIDS crisis in Africa do not lend any basis for Governor Bush's ill-advised position which removes Africa from fair consideration" were he to be elected president. By Al Johnson Johnnie Cochran will soon learn that defending Abacha's loot is not as simple as his O.J Simpson's case. By Chido Nwangwu Should Africa debates begin and end at The New York Times and The Washington Post? No Cheryl Mills' first class defense of Clinton and her detractors' game  It's wrong to stereotype Nigerians as Drug Dealers Private initiative, free market forces, and more democratization are Keys to prosperity in Africa Apple announces Titanium, "killer apps" and other ground-breaking products for 2001. iTunes makes a record 500,000 downloads. Steve Jobs extends digital magic CLASS is the social events, heritage excellence and style magazine for Africans in north America, described by The New York Times as the magazine for affluent Africans in America. It is published by professional journalists and leading mulitmedia leaders and pioneers.