Clinton calls for progress on Electoral Reform, Nigeria Delta, and Anti-corruption. Nigerian leader, Umaru Yar’Adua, is unlikely to meet with President Barack Obama any day soon. Not unless Abuja demonstrates encouraging progress in key issues of interest to the United States, such as Electoral Reform, peace in the Niger Delta, and corruption.
This position follows a meeting between a Nigerian delegation, led by Foreign Affairs Minister, Ojo Maduekwe, and Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State. Sources say Mrs. Clinton refused to commit to a request by Maduekwe for a profile-boosting state visit by Umaru Yar’Adua. Instead, the meeting dwelled largely on African regional security issues, including the Sudan.
The meeting took place at the State Department in Washington, DC. Also in the Nigerian delegation were Senator Jubril Aminu and Hon. Umar Bature, who chairs the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee.
Mrs. Clinton, who chaired the one-hour meeting, told the Nigerian team that progress must be made on the priorities that are essential in the relationship between both countries. Although Mr. Maduekwe stated that President Yar’Adua believed the fight against corruption was tantamount to the survival of the nation and assured that there are institutions in place fighting against corruption, Mrs. Clinton was unimpressed. She stated that the effort had lagged, and that the prosecution of corrupt individuals was making no headway.
Saharareporters learnt that at another meeting with Michelle D. Gavin, the Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council and Obama’s Special Assistant for African Affairs, the Nigerian delegation fared even worse. Ms. Gavin is a former staffer from the Office of Senator Russell Feingold, a strong supporter of the Nigerian anti-corruption crusade. In Nigeria, no member of Nigeria’s high-wattage delegation would have been caught dead drinking tea with an Aso Rock Special Assistant, but estacode opportunities permit a lot of compromises. Not only was the team swiftly and tactically bundled to the humbling level of a Special Assistant, sources say Ms. Gavin delivered brutal home-truths to the shocked men.
It would be remembered that Professor Aminu was implicated in the Siemens scandal, and was said to be one of several former Nigerian who accepted of up to 10 million Euros from the German construction firm, Siemens. While Aminu did challenge that report, he has yet to be cleared, and the level of corruption in Nigeria is of such concern to the United States that his presence in the delegation was enough to set the alarm bells in State Department ringing.
Meanwhile, Honorable Umar Bature has decided to wade into the controversial sale of Embassy properties in Washington DC. Before leaving for Toronto today, the former defence attaché to the Nigerian mission in New York said he was appalled with the manner the Embassy properties were sold off under controversial circumstances. He promised to launch a full legislative inquiry into the transaction.
Bature’s statement to Saharareporters is coming on the heels of another by the Spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja, Mr. Ayo Olukanmi, that the ministry is investigating the sale of the properties and the issues of the tax refunds being withheld by the lawyer who was involved in the transaction.
Mr. Olukanmi told The Punch newspaper that his ministry would reach out to the Ministry of Justice to unravel the issue. Saharareporters sources say the Foreign Ministry might have been engaging in an empty boast as sources in the office of Nigeria’s controversial Attorney General, Michael Aondoakaa, have also said that the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not contact them to find out the status of the retainership and payment to the lawyer.
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