African News Briefs

Apr. 17 (GIN) –Nigeria’s candidate for the presidency of the World Bank, Ms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, enjoyed the support of the African Union, Brazil, and South Africa but it was not enough to defeat the U.S. pick - Jim Yong Kim – for the powerful global finance position.

 

 Kim’s selection was announced this week, ending a tight race between the developing world candidate with years of World Bank experience and a candidate endorsed by Washington, Europe and Japan.

 

For over half a century, the selection of World Bank chief was made by the U.S. but some believe those privileges of power should expire. Ms. Okonjo-Iweala was even more blunt.

 

“You know this thing is not decided on merit... It is voting with political weight and shares, and therefore the U.S. will get it,” she told a group of Nigerian journalists before the decision was announced this week.

 

South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said he had "serious concerns" about decisions made in "smoke-filled rooms" - a reference to the political carve-ups of the past. Poorer countries should have a greater say in shaping policy, he said.

 

"If the World Bank doesn't reform it runs the risk of becoming irrelevant," Kusemi Dlamini from the Institute of International Affairs in South Africa told the BBC.

 

Elizabeth Stuart, head of the development agency Oxfam shared Ms. Okonjo-Iweala’s views. "Dr. Kim is an excellent choice for World Bank president and a true development hero," she said  to a reporter. "But we'll never know if he was the best candidate for the job, because there was no true and fair competition. This sham process has damaged the institution and sullied Dr. Kim's appointment."

 

A third candidate, former U.N. under-secretary general Jose Antonio Ocampo, a Colombian, withdrew from the race in favor of Ms. Okonjo- Iweala.

 

 Jim Yong Kim, past president of Dartmouth College, is a global health expert and co-founder of Partners in Health, a group highly praised for its work in Haiti and other developing nations. He worked for three decades as a physician and medical anthropologist and with the World Health Organization combating the spread of HIV/AIDS. w/pix of J.Y.Kim and Pres. Obama

 

Apr. 17 (GIN) – James Ibori, former governor of Delta state whose outsized crimes shocked even battle-weary Nigerians, was ordered to serve 13 years in jail for the massive theft of public funds that paid for mansions in London and South Africa, a fleet of luxury cars, private jets and girlfriends.

 

In the guilty plea, the disgraced official acknowledged stealing $79 million from the public purse. The case was heard in the UK after Nigerian courts were unable to reach a verdict.

 

“You turned yourself in short order into a multimillionaire through corruption and theft in your powerful position as Delta state governor," Judge Anthony Pitts said in his ruling at Southwark Crown Court.

 

The case came to light in 2005 when Nigerian whistleblowers photographed the mansions and cars and published them in the website SaharaReporters, an internet archive of reports, exposés, photos and videos gathered by concerned citizen journalists.

 

Nigerian essayist Okey Ndibe, in a piece titled “Why I won’t write about Ibori,” nevertheless noted that .. “to fix on Ibori is to leave the impression that he is somehow exceptional in Nigeria’s political planet. We all know that there are many Iboris out there. What’s worse, the Nigerian system daily manufactures and graduates many more Iboris.

 

“These new Iboris daily enter the leeching enterprise. They take to that despicable business of a few dispossessing the many, tiny cohorts aggrandizing themselves by seizing the public harvest and doing with it as they please.”

 

Human Rights Watch praised the judgment and conviction, noting that Nigerian citizens have seen little benefit from the country's vast oil wealth due to rampant corruption, and nearly 60 percent of the West African nation's population lives on less than a dollar a day.

 

Meanwhile, in a related matter, Britain’s Department for International Development is being accused of allowing tens of millions of pounds in UK aid to be invested in Nigerian money laundering fronts.

 

According to the investigative BBC Newsnight, the CDC Group, the private enterprise arm of the development agency, is said to have put $47.5m into a private equity fund which invested in Nigerian companies allegedly linked to Ibori. The CDC denies the charge. w/pix of J.Ibori  

 

Apr. 17 (GIN) - Citizens of Timbuktu, Mali’s historic city, are rallying to protect ancient documents dating back to the Golden Age of the 12th and 15th centuries that officials fear may be looted or trafficked under the current occupation by Tuareg groups.

 

“This heritage must be protected,” said the Director-General Irina Bokova of the U.N.’s cultural agency UNESCO. She called for “concerted action,” against any attempt to traffic items stolen from the historic center.

 

“The citizens of Timbuktu have rallied to protect these ancient documents but they need our help,” she added.

 

A World Heritage site since 1988,Timbuktu was taken over by Tuareg secessionists on April 1. Fighting between government troops and Tuareg rebels forced tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.

 

Meanwhile, a former NASA astrophysicist, Cheick Modibo Diarra, was named caretaker prime minister in the regime of junior officers who forced out the democratically elected Amadou Toumani Toure in last month’s coup.

 

The U.S.-educated Diarra had been a coach for Microsoft managers on Africa-related issues. At NASA he was the “interplanetary navigator” on such projects as an unmanned mission to Venus, leading observers to say he may be ill-equipped to handle such government jobs as organizing new elections.

 

The African Union has been struggling to handle the recent wave of coups, stretching from Mali to Guinea Bissau.

 

 

Apr. 17 (GIN) – When a proposed hydroelectric project threatened the water lifeline to hundreds of thousands of indigenous farmer, herders and fishermen, 31 year old Ikal Angelei decided it was time to stand up.

 

Uniting the divided and marginalized indigenous communities of Lake Turkana, she set up a grassroots organization to fight against the mounting environmental and social implications of the Gibe 3 Dam. She informed elders, chiefs and opinion leaders—all of whom had not heard about the dam—about the project and its implications.

 

 In 2009, the groups issued a “Lake Turkana People’s Declaration” against the project and Kenya’s Parliament took notice. Angelei successfully convinced major banks, including the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank, to withdraw their considerations for financing of the Gibe 3 Dam.

 

Currently, the Gibe 3 Dam is 40 percent complete as the Ethiopian government is struggling to secure additional funding.

 

Ms. Angelei will receive the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize at a ceremony this week in San Francisco and at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Activists from Asia, Africa Europe, an island nation, North, South and Central America will also be honored at the two ceremonies. w/pix of I. Angelei

 

Apr. 17 (GIN) – This year’s Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award recipient this year goes to Teju Cole of Nigeria for his first novel “Open City,” a story of urban cityscapes as seen by a visitor to New York City.

 

Cole said he took his Twitter news briefs and fused them with real life news into what he calls “small fates.” “I had started doing research for a book that I’m writing which is about Lagos, Nigeria - a narrative of contemporary life in the city. But as I was doing my research I found that there that was certain material that I couldn’t really put into the book. Odd stories, news of the weird- strange little things of the kind that would happen in any complicated modern society. And what was I going to do with this material? So I started writing short stories based on those narratives. I found that Twitter was a perfect place to post them.”

 

Teju Cole who resides in New York will be given a $10,000 prize that will be presented by Patrick Hemingway at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. w/pix of T. Cole