Nigeria: NaijaLeaks that did not make the headlines

Lost influence despite historical ties

Back to the bottom of the pot scrapes of WikiLeaks on Nigeria, the NaijaLeaks; the ones that did not make the headlines.

In February 2009, a cable was dispatched with concerns about Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) lack of clear policy with regards to Nigeria; this was specified by “citing Nigeria’s significant financial links to the UK, large Diaspora community, and energy potential.” Cable Referenced.

Apparently, with the turmoil in the Niger Delta and issues of corruption it was suggested that the HMG’s capacity for political analysis was both “weak and shallow”.

Now, considering the historical ties between Britain and Nigeria, it is interesting that the Americans appear to have more of an insight into happenings in Nigeria and have a better intelligence gathering network embedded in the country.

Terrorist threats in Nigeria

There have been quite a number of religious sectarian attacks and violence in Nigeria, in June 2009, one cable suggests plans for a massive terrorist attack as the text below shows.

¶26. (S//NF) Nigeria - Extremists believed to be planning a massive terrorist attack: (S//REL TO USA, FVEY) Tearline states, "Unspecified extremist groups, suspected to be operating in concert with Nigerian Shi'ites, Salafiya, or Muhammad Yusuf's Nigerian Taliban are reportedly planning to launch a massive surprise attack on some piece of critical infrastructure or against high-profile targets within Nigeria.

Probable targets of this attack include top Nigerian Government officials or security agents. Members of the general public, who might be opposed to the attackers' doctrines, were also believed to be possible targets. This planned attack is reportedly aimed at sparking sectarian clashes across Nigeria."

¶27. (S//NF) DS/TIA/ITA cannot immediately corroborate the current threat with additional intelligence. While no connection can be made between this threat and previous reports, DS/TIA/ITA is concerned about recent activity surrounding extremists associated with the Nigerian Taliban. Cable Referenced.

It goes on to suggest that a Chadian terrorist might be involved and a number of speculative and circumstantial opinions are proffered which is exposed that the time could have had dire consequences for volatile regions under sectarian tensions as well as created diplomatic concerns with Nigerian-Chadian relations.

The Shi’ite connection also links up with the concern about Iranian influence in Nigeria, most especially with news about arms imports from Iran. [1]

Jobs for life for Nigerians

However, it makes such interesting reading that for all the hard and sweaty jobs some Nigerian people rise up for in the early mornings in Europe and America others are living large in Arabian opulence where the external façade of Wahhabist restraint and fundamentalism gives way to a secret debauched and wild partying crowd of sheiks up to unspeakable conduct.

One cable says, It is common practice for Saudi princes to grow up with hired bodyguards from Nigeria or other African nations who are of similar age and who remain with the prince well into adulthood. They are called “khawi,” derived from the Arabic word “akh,” meaning “brother.” The lifetime spent together creates an intense bond of loyalty. Cable Referenced

A lifetime together almost makes one wonder about the supposed closeness and that terrifyingly nasty case of servant abuse that was in the courts in the UK where a Saudi prince murdered his aide [2] who was believed to be a sexual slave.

The darker tanned Bandar Abdulaziz was probably of African origin and though he did not look like bodyguard material, history of Arab being involved in African slave trade and the contemporary situation of hiring them as sexual pleasure units, bodyguards or servants seems to be corroborated by the cable.

I have had offers to work in the Arabian peninsula and really, I have never been fully persuaded especially if the job for life was terminated with a homicide.

Sources

[1] BBC News - Iranian man charged in Nigeria over arms shipment

[2] Saudi prince guilty of servant's murder | UK news | The Guardian

Newspapers - Is it still my country?

Internet Renewal Pains

I was having a chat to one of my colleagues after having renewed my subscription to The Economist over the phone. I could have easily done this over the Internet but it appears this service had been out-sourced as capitalists do to some outfit that made the job of renewal quite fraught, all sorts of errors that would make Einstein rethink the Theory of Relativity.

I then wrote to the Economist's Subscription office complaining about the problem and rather than resolve it and consequently invite me to use the service again, they automatically extended my subscription for a year without checking if that was what I wanted to do.

In fact, I was fed up of the yearly routine that I had decided to go for the 2-year deal; a second email upbraided them first and then requested an amendment to the subscription details, this elicited an apology, but I still had to arrange to pay for the deal.

Movable times

When I called at 09:10 yesterday morning, the call centre should have been running for at least 10 minutes in the UK, but I got the overnight message still running on the outgoing message system, I also realised that international calls were still barred on my home phone as a result of Bacchus's visit in March.

Anyway, my colleague was of the opinion that the Economist was quite left-leaning, though I can understand that they have attacked a few right-leaning people not so much for being right-wing but for their actions which could be inimical to progress and justice in their countries - Berlusconi and the twin brothers of Polish politics come to mind.

It was however interesting to note that I read the weekly Economist which my colleague considered left-leaning and read The Daily Telegraph which is quite conservative in its copy and opinion.

What do you read?

It reminded me of an analysis of readers of British newspapers in the 1980s as opined in the political satire drama of that time called Yes, Prime Minister.

In the A Conflict of Interest episode, the Prime Minister had this to say of the papers. "Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Times is read by the people who run the country. The Daily Mirror is read by the people who think they run the country.

The Guardian is read by the people who think they ought to run the country. The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Independent is read by people who don't know who runs the country but are sure they're doing it wrong.

The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country. The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run. The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country". And The Sun's readers don't care who runs the country providing she has big tits.

Hmmm, I do wonder if this still fetches true 20 years on, mind you, we did not have the Internet then.

The Day of the Toothpicks

Piffle at Westminster

In politics, the Night of Long Knives has resonance, be it, 1934 when Hitler purged Germany of his opponents or 1962 when Harold Macmillan sacked 7 members of his cabinet, 2006 brings us the Day of the Toothpicks, people at the bottom rung of the ministerial ladder act to impose a resignation on the Prime Minister.

So, seven junior ministers resigned from the Blair government yesterday saying they had lost confidence in the leadership of Tony Blair to take the party forward and in readiness for the next election.

It is clear that since Mr Blair the Prime Minister had announced that he would not run in the next election which at the earliest would be 2009 or very latest 2010, a good few impatient people would be on his case to abdicate from the day after he won a third successive victory for the Labour Party.

The restless press and Labour Party have been on the verge of apoplexy trying to read when the Prime Minister would depart, we cannot entirely discount the machinations of an organ grinder who lives next door and who has played second fiddle to Tony so long, the tune is sounding like – Now is my time, get out of the way.

Chancellor of the executor

Gordon Brown cannot be blameless in what has lead to Tony Blair’s accusation of disloyalty and discourteousness from the most senior of those who resigned; it would make one wonder if Gordon Brown is the right man for Prime Minister of Great Britain in this dispensation of the New World Order.

Mr Watson who was a junior Defence Minister might have managed a pen knife as opposed to the toothpicks that the other Parliamentary Private Secretaries lanced into Mr Blair’s back. It would appear the only damage caused would be to the material of the PM’s suit, none of those people have a patch of Caesar’s Brutus even if Mr Blair accorded a polite – Et tu, Brute? – to Mr Watson.

And so, it appears Mr Blair would make an announcement today to clear up the air about when he is leaving, it might gladden Mr Brown’s heart, but it may not be as smooth sailing as everyone would want it to be.

The raid on Peking, London

Duck but not in Peking

Having just ordered Peking Duck in the local Chinese restaurant on a night out with friends and family, one would really have been put out that the only duck that became the highlight of that outing would have been the act of ducking under the table as rioting and terrifying terror police raided the restaurant to nab suspected, wait for it, logistical support to terrorism.

Somehow, through intelligence and surveillance, rather that raid the homes and other more private meeting points of these people, they went for the spectacular, hit them with their guard let down at a vulnerable but very public social meeting place, this no doubt saves a lot of money, rather than concerted raids all over the place.

It is however nice to know that so-called terrorism suspects have an international palate.

Probably not that smart

It might however be that the raid was conducted to establish association amongst groups of people and alliances, something discrete photography would have done, since they are still going to visit the homes of the arrested persons to dig for evidence.

Now, I have no problems with the need to put as many resources as possible into ensuring that we do not have another terrorist mishap like we did on July the 7^th 2006, but, the way this is barging into our way of life with the premise that the little discomfiture of the few helps the convenience of the many is flawed logic.

What is to say, another vulnerable public gathering place like a mosque, church, bowling alley, ice rink or lido is not on the list of some smart aggregating detective in cahoots with the police bean counter?

Worst still, some social activities like weddings and burials are going to lose their veneers of solemnity as we all suspect everyone around us who attempts to show any signs of life.

Suffer for the offer

So, when British Airways launched a television advertisement for World Offers, their seemingly cheap air travel offers, I thought, for all the fuss of not being able to carry my lipstick or having to dangle my tampons at Heathrow before boarding my flight and considering a decent sized paperback might have to be split in 2 to fit into those sizing contraptions, the deal must be so good to assuage the pain of the customs/security check.

As the fifth anniversary of September the 11^th approaches, expect the bizarre, the atrocious and the scandalously unacceptable as we fight our fear of the fear of the fear of terror without discerning the link between what we do and how that sometimes feeds into the causes of terrorism.

Alas! Pluto. Thou hast been diminished amongst thy peers

Holst the mystic

Lovers of classical music must have for years wondered who would write a movement to complete Gustav Holst’s The Planets for Pluto.

Gustav Holst wrote a movement for all planets, except the Earth, where he lived and by then Pluto had not been discovered, he then refused to write one for Pluto, even though Pluto was discovered in his lifetime.

However, if you note that the movement for Neptune is called The Mystic, one might just surmise that Holst had seen further into space and time to realise that Pluto would be demoted from a planet to a dwarf.

There would be recriminations for that dramatic change, but for now, we have a complete collection reflected by the Planets as envisaged by Gustav Holst.

The planet that most excites me is Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity and the score for that patriotic song and Anglican hymn – I vow to thee, My country – it was so movingly performed at the wedding and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The terminal decline of air travel

A stopover for an FBI frisking

If I understood this any better, I would be lying through my teeth. Basically, the world has now been overcome with hysteria about air travel that logic fails to feature in any of the so-called reactions taken.

The news wires are now been flooded with the news of a diversion from a Manchester – Chicago flight to Bangor, not the one in Wales but the one after crossing the Atlantic in the state of Maine in the United States of America.

What is really amusing is, if indeed there was a bomb on that plane, why the terrorist did not blow the damn thing up over the North Atlantic rather than wait for it to enter the US air space.

Extradition by stealth

One is also left suspect of the whole issue if a so-called passenger on the security list did get to embark on a flight considering how much information is demanded of airlines, most especially this airline being one of the native airlines – American Airlines.

If this is not a serious and unforgivable lapse in security, then it might be that America is implementing an extradition through the backdoor but allowing suspects to arrive in the United States, creating a diversion melodrama and then nabbing their quarry.

I might at this time be jumping to conclusions and this plane having landed on US soil might have the FBI extricate some sort of evidence no matter how contrived to justify the diversion of this flight – God help you that your name does not sound like Bush, Blair or Bin Laden.

Profiling a typical air traveller

We already know now that if you look different, speak a language other than English, look in your bag to retrieve that pulp fiction or attempt to play one of those games on your mobile phone you are completely done for without redemption.

Let us just agree that air travel is only meant for a particular kind of clone only known to the government, just as your hand baggage should fit into some impossible sizing measurement, you should fit that perfect, ordinary, normal, average buffoon who happens to love subjecting themselves to searches as intimate as would require a gloved hand.

Who compensates for this inconvenience?

However, in some cases, it has been left to those mile-high trolley dollies to profile, assess and subjectively prejudge their passengers and arrive at the preposterous conclusion that a passenger, in the light of increased security, or the plane is somehow in peril.

The trouble with all this inconvenience is that for the supposed misdeeds of one or some passengers who probably have no relationship apart from being brought together on that flight by some flight booking system, the scheduled department and arrival times of others has been put completely out of order.

The question now becomes who would compensate the affected for this outrageous abuse of freedom to travel and liberty to disembark at the original destination.

Indeed, cabin crew vigilance is paramount in these threatening times and I hear that it is good to err on the side of caution, but how much of this exercise of prerogative is intuition, hunch, premonition, supposition, suspicion as opposed to factual analysis of observed circumstances?

As I write, I also hear that a student has checked in a bag containing dynamite on a flight about to depart Argentina.

Conspiracies and opportunities

I am beginning to think this whole thing is becoming a free-for-all conspiracy to completely discredit air travel in favour for a more green earth – not too implausible.

Do we now need a nuclear powered, acoustic iceberg destroyer, ocean liner called 21^st Century Titanic and a EuroStar that traverses all closely linked continents – Europe, Asia, Africa?

The Eurotunnel proves that there might be a viable engineering case for a Gibraltar (UK bordering Spain) to Ceuta (Spain bordering Morocco) tunnel to link Africa and Europe under the Straits of Gibraltar – a mere 14 kilometres in length – (the idea is bridge has been suggested) and this air scare times might just make the Channel Tunnel breakeven, at last.

References

Two U.S. airliners diverted, passenger subdued

UK-US plane diverted over 'scare'

Airline Insanity Merely A Beta Test For Police State Caste System

London police in an institutionally culpable homicide

Crime headlines as I left

I leave London saddened and hardly elated by news that arrived on the Evening Standard paper.

You will recall that last week I noticed within a 5-minute walk, signs seeking information about grievous crimes that created a sense of insecurity about the city from the first night.

So, I left, I got a copy of the Evening Standard and the front page read, “Father is killed by teenage gun gang”. One could almost dismiss this as a typical drug dispute situation, but the detail reveals a deeper malaise in society that I am not sure is easy to address.

Standing up to be killed?

The father killed was a 22-year-old young man father of a 3-year old son and he got killed doing what we as a society has lost sight of and stopped doing – standing up to anti-social miscreants who menace our peace, property and lives.

Hardly 7 months before, a group of kids were throwing stones at his car, he came of his house and confronted the gang; he got stabbed in the neck that the stabbing just missed his jugular vein.

A rotten police for a rotting society

The police took calls from his fiancée every day for 5 weeks and still did not end up taking a statement from her, and after the police were supplied with the details of the perpetrators and so on, but no one got prosecuted for the crime that the kids deemed themselves untouchable.

The question is how kids end up with knives that they can be such a danger to society having had parents whose dereliction of parental responsibility has lead to the creation of these treacherous monsters who because they are under 18 never see enough of the toughness of the law when they offend.

The news we now have is, this very young family was terrorised since then to the most recent situation where the young father who had returned home after a confrontation with that self-same gang stepped out and got shot by a member of that gang.

The next obvious question as we learn that a 14-year old who cannot be named is arrested is how did a kid end up with a loaded gun with which he has wasted away a life?

A rotten police and a rotten job

Now we hear that the police are sorry for the way the initial investigation was conducted, well, they cannot be half sorry; the life of a young family has been ruined because the terminal point where the crime-investigation-prosecution-punishment chain should have kicked in at the first crime was left unaddressed because of police inaction.

One cannot begin to imagine what might have been going through the minds of the police when the young lady tried to report the first crime – could Canning Town in East London have been such a hopeless crime-ridden place that no crime was worthy of police attention?

Have we become so obsessed with prospective terrorist attacks that more intimate crimes no more attract interest and service?

Could, as in the case of Steven Lawrence a policeman detective have been manipulating and thwarting the investigation in favour of the suspects such that they can get away scot-free?

Taking back our society

We cannot begin to talk of the kind of people who brought forth this brood of vipers who have become a scourge on our society, who from youth have no concept of the value of life or property and have become a law unto themselves.

Sorry, is just not enough, relieving some senior policemen of their duties cannot begin to assuage the pain of that loss, in fact, apart from the prosecution of those youths; there should after a review of all the investigations of the police into the first crime charges of negligence, dereliction of duty and probably culpable homicide in seeking to address this murder should ensue.

We need to win our society back from the situation where it has become the playground of reckless criminal abuse and non-consideration for others.

Once kids get onto the first rung of a seemingly criminal existence they should be brought under strict supervision which in some cases should include confinement as well as monitoring, mentoring and vocational training – there is no scope for a politically correct assessment of this problem – society cannot afford to paper over deep seated social problems.

The parents should not only be named and shamed for allowed discipline and control to fail in the upbringing of their wards; whilst no one goes to parental school for childrearing; it is no excuse for unleashing devils unto our streets.

Institutionally incapable police

The police having been labelled institutionally racist are also becoming institutionally lazy in dealing with serious crime, it is unlikely that one can retain confident in a leadership that allows such serious issues to become headlines because requisite action has not been taken as needed to resolve crimes.

Just as I read on African Shirts a few days ago, I do not think London with all its culture, attractions and beauty is not close by far to the safest city in Europe

The heightened perception of vulnerability to crime needs to be addressed better as the deluded Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police suggests we can leave our front doors unlocked because of lessened crime, we find that we can still get shot at our doorsteps which it could have been prevented if the earlier stabbing had been given full police attention.

References

Telegraph | News | Young father shot dead as he challenges teenage yobs

Teen questioned over gun killing

Police sorry for inquiry 'hurt'

To London to see the Queen

Hand me the lipstick – Now!

Indeed, my blog has been deafeningly silent, I have been in London and this is my last day before I leave for Amsterdam en route Brussels – by train.

Well, now, they have really banned cosmetic through Heathrow, many who got away with rouge and mascara would have to consider something permanent – Botox, face lift, whatever keeps that look young, sexy and less affected by the strain of negotiating airport security.

The war on terror is now terrifyingly real amongst us and the terrorists only have to think up the next ploy to get us into a tizzy. Now, 11 of the suspects have been charged, it is shame that their attack being so imminent, the evidence is still far from being gathered enough to expect a trial for another 12 to 18 months.

Six nights of 60 hours and still not done

My Oyster card has been screaming at me for the last 2 days that it is about to expire; fine, but really, I do not intend to spend another day in London, I have spent 6 nights and if I may say, tourists do end up spending 6 nights in London.

However, coming from a continental European country where standard of living is higher and the cost of living is considerably lower, I do wonder how they get people to pay the prices I see about the place – it is atrocious to say the least – even with the doubling of prices after the introduction of the Euro, we have a cheaper existence than what Londoners have to put up with.

My 6 night sojourn has been an eye-opener if not experience, I only informed 8 people I was visiting and managed to meet just 6, even in those cases I was pressed for time and opportunity – if I had informed a handful more I would have been stressed beyond the limit in trying to satisfy the needs of meeting, visiting, seeing and staying.

This is only with 6 years away from London, imagine 16 years away from Nigeria and that would be a logistic nightmare requiring an updated version of management software from NASA expeditions – I am definitely not yet looking forward to that prospect.

Left driving for the right side

Many times I get into the argument about whether driving on the left is right or driving on the right in Europe is wrong or less popular around the world.

A good few countries drive on the left, including India, Australia, Canada and Indonesia. Some have switched sides as you will see from the link.

Imagine my consternation to the subconscious predilection to the right-side driving ideal when I find that I am on the wrong side of the road waiting for a bus or I notice that the driver is to my right when I get into a car.

Worse still, sitting in front, my eyes and head are in conflict as I expect to see cars going in one direction and they are not, this especially at turnings.

Then we got on the bus and I can claim priority seating on public transport because I do use a cane; I must note that London is a bit more tolerant compared to our Amsterdam when people with assisted mobility embark.

Do sit in my seat

Twice, at least, I was offered a seat on the tube, but when we got on a bus, a “lady” with more plastic bags than a Sainsbury’s counter got on and simply barked my friend off his seat beside me demanding to sit down.

At first we thought he had occupied reserved seats, but that was not the case, as the woman murmured without respite letting ladies have seats on buses, but she was no lady, not even if I stretched my imagination.

When we got to the last stop, she got off and started rummaging through the rubbish bins – that was our brush with the Mental Health – Care in the Community programme – if the medication does help bring good manners to the fore, she must have skipped her required dosage, where I could have had compassion, I had anger, disdain and disgust – I am only human.

Some have even suffered worse fates from those encounters, we only suffered a rude situation, and we can live with that.

Exciting Kitchen rage

On the Friday, we went up to a Nigerian Restaurant on Kinsland Road near Dalston in East London and we had the pepper soup and suya for entrées then as they had no okra soup we plumbed for the spinach and red stew.

This was the second time I felt like asking for an apron to invade the kitchen and teach a few ideas about cooking Nigerian stew – not only was it greasy and unpalatable, it completely put us off we could hardly try the beef in the stew.

The waitress then suggested a doggie-bag and in an unguarded response I rebuffed with the comment that my dogs would refuse the meal. Well, that was the truth, only it was not expressed in the finesse of tone, context and delivery.

I apologised, but I do hope that the message was clear that if another visit to that place records a failing of the sort we have once endured; my review of the place would be less appreciative than this one.

A changing London

All the area around London Bridge has changed considerably in 6 years from the City Hall and interesting performances in the bowl beside the building and those anti-skateboard knobs on the concrete platforms all down to Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge and the London Eye.

I cried off the London Eye, the queues were as long as burger-gluttons lining up for a fat expensive burger at Hard Rock cafe or was it Planet Hollywood. The VIP express – jump-the-queue tickets were not only twice as expensive, the queue did not seem to be moving any faster either.

The view from the London Eye is not exactly a view to die for, having looked from the 7^th floor of Tate Modern did not show an amazing skyline rivaling New York, I can safely give that a miss for now.

London again?

Would it be another 6 years before I return? Probably … I cannot say I am that enamoured about London per se.

However, catching up with friends and family and seeing how so grown up those little kids have become is testament to the fact that time does fly and the accumulation of passing time adds up to what makes everyone exclaim – Has it really been that long ago since you were here? Well, yes, it has.

Is this London?

I’m leaving on the slow train

With the new developments in the mind games that have been the real war on terror, travelling by air to London is completely out of the question. If you have to arrive at the airport a day before you depart and might only be able to have your hair shirt as hand luggage, why bother?

The other alternatives are road, sea and train – I took the latter which involves travel through Brussels and then the Eurostar from Brussels to London, at least you can carry whatever you want before some nut thinks that is another little scare in the making.

All signs lead nowhere

So, I arrived in London this afternoon and missed something I usually see in stations in Berlin and Paris, good signs for locations above ground and local maps on advertisement type billboards. Nothing of the sort, I need to get my A-to-Z out to find my bearings, hopefully, the street names appear where they should.

Before I surfaced, I had to get a London Underground travelcard (it used to be mainly paper-based with a magnetic strip – shows how long I’ve been away from London), it is now known as the Oyster card – a nondescript credit card sized plastic thingy that does not show any obvious sign that it is a 7-day travelcard for all zones.

Then to the hotel where I should had a deal that extended my entire stay, but with two days left, the cost is too outrageous to contemplate – this city is not paved in gold but they pay diamond prices for things that glitter like dark wood.

The spectre of crimes recent

So, I had a rather long walk to one of my old haunts and could not help but notice two crime scene notices seeking information for events that happened in the last few weeks. One victim was shot and another looked like a racial attack by a mob, all within a 5-minute stroll. Makes me weary of what is happening in London.

Then, somehow I ended up at Elephant and Castle; I remember my cousin once saying important landmarks in London are named after places in the biggest city in Nigeria – Ibadan. He gave a few examples like – Ìtá aperin (translates as the Elephant Square or Elephant and castle in this case), then Eléyelé (translates as the pigeon’s keeper or Trafalgar Square, if you like).

The maze of castle with no elephants

Anyway, I had to get a bus to my hotel, the signs indicated I need to look for bus stop C which was on the other end of that area, I got there and found that the maps did not correlate with the realities I could see, having traversed tunnels till my orientation is as bad as compass doing 10 revolutions per second, I threw up my hands in absolute despair and incredulity that anyone could make sense of those location maps.

A lady who seemed to know what my frustration was and the nonsense that masquerades as help for tourists and non-locals alike then gave directions which had me walking off in another direction, then finally I found the stop, only to see the that location map at the stop should have been the same all through.

It is strange because the map of the London Underground is considered a work of art, a masterpiece of engineering drawing and it is the standard by which other city maps are drawn; that these ideas have not converted to locations maps for bus stops is unfortunate.

London after six years of absence – not too sure – I give my views in a week.

Was that the Real Story?

When documentaries sensationalise rather than educate

I did not see the Real Story episode that was broadcast last night, but the snippets that were shown in the news stories during that day did have a touch of sensationalised histrionics to it.

It is a well-known fact that certain enterprising but dishonest Nigerians have been involved in what is known as Advanced Fee Fraud or 419 in the local parlance.

Part of what I saw showed a raid on an Internet café in Nigeria where officials of the EFCC (Nigerian Fraud Squad) had everyone vacate the computers; they asked everyone to put up their hands facing the walls and then as one of the suspects remonstrated an EFCC official assaulted the man with a slap in the face commanding him to shut up.

This is a poor reflection on the Nigerian criminal justice system that suspects can be assaulted but law enforcement agents with impunity and very little recourse for justice.

My take on 419

Back to 419 - This is where using the human susceptibility to greed and gullibility, a victim receives a request to supposedly launder ill-gotten gains from bogus contracts or stashes of frozen sums of money by providing their bank account details and paying an upfront fee for the administration of the process. Some are so sophisticated in their ploys that it becomes too good to be true – anything that has that feel to it has my radar homing in on something fishy.

Many have fallen for this get-rich-quick scheme and lost large sums of money, but I have no sympathy for both the perpetrator and the victim, they were both about to engage in a criminal act. However, there are cases where the contracts do look real, but when you are about to invest money, especially in Nigeria, you have to have your wits about you and seek an independent, impartial review of the whole thing – involve lawyers and investigators you can trust before you part with your cash.

The Real Story episode revealed that people’s details were being sold for as little as 20 Pounds, the details were supposedly gleaned of hard disks which would have been in used and second-hand computers exported to Nigeria.

Your details can be used anywhere

The fact is the information on hard disks can be read in any country and can be used by any set of criminals either in Nigeria or elsewhere. Having completed a module on Computer Forensics, I am very well aware of the fact that it takes a lot more to delete data off a hard disk.

There are tools to recover long removed data and special tools are required to wipe hard disks to the security standard of the Department of Defence, in fact, in most cases, the hard disk would be melted if the data that it once contained is considered secret.

Besides, identity fraud is probably an issue closer to home than in faraway Nigeria. All you have to do to rummage through a bin and find letters, bank statements, if not credit card PIN slips that give enough information about a person – this is called bin raiding – a further search on the Internet can reveal birth date, birthplace and parents if the genealogy, census, birth, marriage and death registrations are online.

A letter posted to my cousin in England from Nigeria some 20 years ago ended up in the hands of a lodger who used that information to obtain a National Insurance number in my name – so identity theft does not have to be so complicated or sophisticated.

Developing a sense of security to protect privacy

People who generally would lock their doors when they go out and pull the curtains to keep prying eyes out, apparently, do not apply the same principle to their information, data, computers and personal details.

Everyone who receives a letter of any importance must invest in a paper shredder and shredders do have different security ratings from strips to pulp – I never dispose of any paper that has not been shredded and I have been doing that for at least 7 years.

Your computer when online is like an open door with drawn curtains and open windows; you need more than just any popular anti-virus software because virus developers test their malevolent programs against popular anti-virus software to prevent detection.

The general idea is to develop the fortress principle to your computer, an outer wall (a firewall), the doors and windows (an anti-virus software) and then the protection of valuables within the home (malware detectors).

Use good tools

In my case, I do use a hardware firewall found in my wireless router and enable the software firewalls on all computers, I have installed the well known McAfee VirusScan Plus and Trend Micro PcCillin Internet Security ensuring that the updates run every day at night.

Malware is software that gets installed inadvertently on your system through opening a suspicious email or visiting an innocuous web site, they can install key loggers which record all the keystrokes you have typed and send that information to a harvesting system where the information can be replayed as if it were you logging on to your bank account or some other security service. These are really the identity theft perpetrators.

I use Lavasoft Ad-Aware and SpyBot – Search and Destroy, with all that attention to detail, I still find that a keylogger still ends up on my laptop every few days – you just need to keep ahead of the criminals – time after time.

In addition, to remove all references to sites, I have visited and files I have opened on an operational system, I use CleanUP.

If you are done with your computer, you can recycle it, but before you do, search for a secure hard disk deletion tool as this write-up suggests – Purge hard drives before recycling.

Common sense approach to social engineering

In all, you have your identity to protect, ensuring that the people privy to your secrets are authorised to access that information with discretion under the contract of confidentiality, not of which should violate your right to privacy.

Where people, emails or forms ask for information that should be personal and known only to you like your PIN numbers, do not under any circumstances reveal that information because that that time you would be seriously compromised – they might want information about who you are where name, address, date of birth and account number might suffice, but that should only be divulged to those your have ascertained through obtaining their own details first.

Always err on the side of caution, err of the side of keeping the information than giving it out.

References

UK Bank Details Sold in Nigeria

Top Ten Scams targeting customers – 419 comes 8^th

Britain Alleges ICT Bank Fraud on Its Citizens

Avarice Anonymous

Aspirant elimination depicts murderous democracy

Senseless killing

Just two weeks ago, we learnt of the brutal murder in Lagos State, Nigeria of a ruling party gubernatorial aspirant.

The man was bound, strangled, stabbed and probably shot, anyway, that is delving into detail where information can at best be sketchy as it gets manipulated to ends to make the police seem like they know what they are doing.

And so, the Inspector General of Police suggested that the murder might not have been politically motivated, a view that got me thinking about who would gain the most from taking the political heat off a dastardly murder.

This is weighed within the fact that were still a majority of gubernatorial aspirants locked up in prison as possible murder suspects (They were all released yesterday under strict bail conditions.) as the Scotland Yard hopefully helps clean up the morass of investigation, forensic analysis and consequent nabbing of the culprit, in the hope that the culprit is not already in the position to pervert and circumvent the course of the investigation and justice.

Painting a picture of false rectitude

Definitely, the ruling party – PDP – has the most to gain if this murder can be read is not being political. Considering how tetchy if not asinine, the President has become to the most basic criticisms of his governance; be it the use of the fraud agency to eliminate political opponents; the failed attempt to get a third term; the suspicion that the treasury might be looted with that recent cabinet reshuffle amongst other things.

The feeling that the ruling party under the leadership of the President has become a law unto itself with possible candidates sent six-feet-under for daring to allow the thought of electioneering to pop into their heads is uncomfortable enough as choices necessary to exercise our democratic rights are being made without our consent.

The landscape of security and peace in readiness for the 2007 elections does not look like an encouraging scene; the deeper foreboding would be a return to military regimes if this situation does not receive a more professional handling. Already, the military are gearing themselves up for protecting the peace during the 2007 elections as the Army Chief of Staff indicated when on a visit to the head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company who praised the army for their work in Niger Delta.

Let us be sincere, what work? People still get kidnapped with reckless abandon in the Niger Delta and our oil production is at 75% of nominal capacity. This is not that kind of force that would ensure violence is kept at bay around the whole nation in 2007.

Another murder another riot

Yesterday, we read again that another PDP gubernatorial aspirant had been murdered in his own home, in Ekiti State where hoodlums are said to now run the roost – it is said that certain politicians now run hire-a-mob services to perpetrate fear and instability around the state to the extent that the house of the state PDP chairman was burnt in the aftermath of the murder.

The PDP has now issued a threat to disqualify aspirants who allow their supporters to fall out of the discipline of well-mannered citizens – Fat Chance!

What makes this even scarier is the fact that these deaths are of aspirants, people who are yet to receive the mandate from their party to standard election in the name of the party – this is long before the primaries have taken place.

Learning the maturity of compromise

The political scene is fraught with difficulties, everyone who is anyone wants to run, for instance Lagos State had at least 18 aspirants looking to represent one party, imagine having 18 runners in a horse race - the Grand National in England usually has more but it is a murderously dangerous course that rarely do half the horses finish it.

It is clear that the people who aspire do not communicate with each other, all sorts of power brokers create factions within their party to command and wield influence more like an arm wrestling contest to ascertain who can make things happen as kingmaker.

It shows a party in utter disarray, the chairmen of caucuses do not command the respect of their party to the extent that they can impose order and discipline amongst the members. If at the grassroots level we suffer such splintering of hierarchies, the party system has failed us and we had better just have independent candidates.

Nigeria still has a lot to learnt about democracy and the fact that it does not have to be a do or die, free-for-all, no holds barred brawl of thugs, mobs and strays – it would take some time for evolution to elevate many to the stage of civilised democratic decorum.

References

Another PDP Aspirant Killed - Party reads riot act on violence

Riots follow killing in Nigeria

Williams: Ogunlewe, 14 Others Gain Freedom

Hoodlums Hunt for Ekiti Politicians

2007: Army Prepares to Check Violence

The American-Israeli tinderbox that Hezbollah lit up

Surely, this cannot be true

This reads like a conspiratorial plot out of a Tom Clancy novel and if there is any truth in this, I would have to find my voice to condemn this without reservation.

The man who exposed the embarrassing Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the Vietnam My Lai massacre has a new scoop that would rock the diplomatic world to its foundations. Thank you – Seymour Hersh.

I have only had to listen to Mr Bush’s slant about the suffering of Lebanese being brought on by Hezbollah, Syria and Iran – well I have another view, it was Israel attacks with American bombs that wrecked Lebanon over the last month.

Prearranged and executed as planned

Now, it transpires that Israel had been planning the attack Lebanon with American knowledge and support long before the June 12^th kidnap by Hezbollah presented coincidental opportunity for Israel to carry forward and carry out their pre-conceived plans.

It might also explain why there was an urgency to deliver bombs from America as the war began because there should be no need for those kinds of sophisticated weapons if there was no plan to use them somewhere.

The more sinister twist to this tale is that America thought they could do the following:

· Turn the Lebanese against Hezbollah using the loss of Lebanese life and property to create a backlash against that movement. – Failed.

· Get to completely disarm Hezbollah such that when America attacks the nuclear infrastructure of Iran; Hezbollah would not be able to retaliate against Israel. – Failed.

· Strengthen the democratic forces in Lebanon, especially giving the government the ability to control the South of Lebanon. – Failed.

Probably some truth to this

It may be that Seymour Hersh is reading too much into this contact between Israel and America where they sought the support of Dick Cheney and gained the support of the US President and UN Secretary of State.

However, with what has transpired, I am wont to see more to what Mr Hersh has to say because it all seems to add up in trying to understand why Israel had such unstinting support from America in that bombing campaign.

The losers in this battle are mainly Lebanon in terms of the sacrifices, Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister in underestimating the possible resistance and United States for their conniving, colluding and conspiring gamble – Hezbollah has in some ways won and the Israeli soldiers are still bargaining chips in what would be become a diplomatic situation where America has no clout.

America has lost authority and respect

If there is anyone who can command the respect and authority to see progress on the Middle-East issues I raised in my last blog, it is probably Bill Clinton, failing him, Nelson Mandela.

I do not think it is in the power of the people in today’s American government to sufficiently redeem themselves enough to earn the epithet of arbiter to the Middle-East crisis.

Mr Blair unfortunately has eliminated the United Kingdom from a role where we could have really shown ourselves as power worthy of the status we hold on the UN Security Council and it in the world at large.

Destabilising legitimate governments

The quest to continue to support dissident and liberal groups in governments that are not friendly to the United States in order to foment civil unrest to destabilise legitimate governments is patently unacceptable if Iran and Cuba get special funding but similar authoritarian governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia get no mention.

Like it or not, despite the theocratic organisation of the Iranian government, it has a better working democracy than that of either Afghanistan or Iraq, they are hardly the kind of examples of freedom we are told they are with all the bloodshed and insecurity that underpins their terrible lives.

Like I said in my introduction, if there is any truth in this allegation, the forked tongues I talked about over a month ago belong to slithering deceitful snakes that are up to one thing but proclaiming something else.

Seymour Hersh is in some ways a security risk if people in government have been up to no good.

References

Steppingstone to War - House passes 'Iran Freedom Support Act'

Israel, Defeated - Round one: Lebanon, 1 – Israel, 0

Bush blames Hezbollah for Lebanon fighting

Israel, U.S. are biggest losers in this war

Not leaving on a jet plane soon

A place off the itinerary

The news is full of passenger woes of not being able to board flights or endless queues at British airports.

A foiled terrorist plot, either intended or imagined, whichever the case, it is causing serious disruption to our way of life and freedoms as restrictions are imposed on the so many who are trying to visit the land of the free – the United States of America.

Somehow, we may never know if these plots would ever have been carried out, but the list of items that have been banned from cabin luggage would make travellers look like refugees who have just escaped a situation with only their shirts off their backs.

No handbags, no glass cases, no liquid medication, baby milk should be tasted by passenger, no contact lens solution, free-range tampons – what is this world coming to?

We soon might not be able to pass urine on the plane as the combination of urine and disinfectants might release noxious fumes.

My advice – cut America out of your itinerary, let them visit instead; then cut air travel out, if you can avoid it. However, this is also a British problem, air travel is no more looking like the fastest means of travel of you are visiting continental Europe..

The domestic science of explosives

Somehow, the banned stuff can be concocted into some sort of explosive to bring down planes, it all sounds like science fiction, and not to say that Al Qaeda seems to be been accorded a status of scientific genius that can use everyday items to create dangerous stuff.

I did not fully appreciate this craze till I went through Schiphol Airport; all the rubbish bin compartments were open and visible, and this was not for the cleaner to empty the bins but as a response to our fear of terror dressed up as being secure.

We need a rethink about all this terror stuff, name-calling and lumping groups together under an Al-Qaeda banner is getting us nowhere, the more we advocate our freedoms the more we lose our liberties to quests for greater security.

Terror mind games

These terrorists seem to create a stampede without anyone realising if the reaction is real or imagined, obviously, democratic governments are adopting more authoritarian slant to governance all in the name of greater security.

The sooner we begin to review the causes of terror and why people take up such despicable causes, we leave ourselves with false sense of security.

For one, the British government has dismissed comments by Muslim leaders that our foreign policies in certain Middle-East countries leave us vulnerable as facile – well, we ignore that view at our great peril.

References

Airport checks 'not sustainable'

Why al-Qaeda's real power may be all in the mind

Scotland Yard in Nigerian murder backyard

The need to improve the police

And so Scotland Yard is invited to unravel the mystery behind the brutal murder of Funsho Williams – a gubernatorial aspirant for the ruling party’s primaries in Lagos State, Nigeria.

Whilst many might lament the tacit admission that the Nigerian Police, is ill-equipped, ill-prepared and unqualified to handle high-profile political assassinations, it is a first step to seek help where you know you are lacking.

My concern is it whether it would contribute in any appreciable way to improving the standards police work in general and then detective agency leading on to effective homicide investigation practices.

Eschew Nigerian histrionics

Mainly, I would hope that Scotland Yard would just get down to the nitty-gritty of the case by first cordoning off the Dolphin Estate premises of the deceased as a crime scene – if any clues are still left to develop a murder trail.

They should also avoid unnecessary photo opportunities and press conferences which would allow our apparently incompetent criminal investigation services to appear as if they are doing something.

Then on to the President who went to great lengths to justify inviting Scotland Yard, his words bring some sort of comfort that political murders must stop and the perpetrators must be nabbed and brought to justice, having himself lost his Minister of Justice to murderers a few years before.

Curses are not helpful

It is important to keep an objective perspective to this whole matter and one would take exception to comments like – “Those who killed Funsho will experience sorrow for the rest of their lives, they and their families and they will never know peace”.

It is important we do not get emotionally carried away with ferocious passions that make public statements sound moot, irrelevant and unhelpful to attaining focus on the issues at hand.

So, an entourage of ruling party governors with the President visited the victim’s mother to pay their condolences at which he said the victim was “an apostle of politics without bitterness”.

Now, we should not speak ill of the dead, that level of praise does help express loss, but in reality, the man was the day before his death in a meeting with other aspirants and the police where they were advised to restrain their supporters and eschew violence – such slanted praise taints the victimology profile necessary to help detectives in profiling possible criminals.

That is not to say that these pronouncements do not help to taking sympathy to the level of empathy.

Ghosts of murders past

It also appears the victim’s family has returned to Nigeria to do the requisite things for arranging internment once the body is released after autopsy.

They have been receiving visitors sympathising at their loss, one such visitor is Senator Iyiola Omisore – is that not the man implicated in the murder of the Minister of Justice where the police bungled the investigation and the case was so bogged down with submissions and retractions that the toll of it all most definitely lead to the death of the widow.

Hope for new leads

Senator Omisore was eventually discharged and acquitted after 18 months in prison, all because the case was completely messed up.

It does not augur well that such a person should have a prominent platform in the another political murder – having this said of him - Describing it as sad, Omisore urged investigators to fish out the killers and bring them to book – he probably knows more about resolving political murders – the fish are usually big and they have the books.

In this case, hopefully, the police are bigger sharks than the big fish and they would scent enough from bloodied scales to home in on their quarry. With the help of Scotland Yard, they just might.

References

Funsho Williams' murder investigation: Why we brought in Scotland Yard –Obasanjo

The Ige Family & Omisore Trial

Daily Headlines : Omisore Freed

Williams: Ehindero Hints of Major Breakthrough

A poker hand of unintended consequences

A snowflake fascination

I have ranted, riled and disparaged with vehemence the fight-on-till-victor-and-vanquished policy that has spewed forth from Rice, Bush and Blair, but wait a minute; it appears we might be reaching a case of seriously unintended consequences.

Just like what would happen when you shake that fascinating Christmas snowflake glass ball, you deliberately and violently shake it, creating a chaos of flakes, then set it down and watch the snow settle, I see the same in this instance.

You cannot determine where the flakes would fall, though we assume it falls evenly on the Christmas landscape, it is probably a more sophisticated science than the simplicity belies.

It is a resolutions rat-race

So, back at the Middle-East where elaborate but historically futile plans are being put across in trying to introduce a new UN Resolution to bring about a ceasefire and the deployment of a multi-national peace-keeping force in the South of Lebanon.

We really should stop this circus of using resolutions to enforce or chase other resolutions and concentrate on the context that shaped the original ones and forcefully implement them.

Once again, the UN Security Council Resolution 1559 appears to be the gold-standard of implementing a ceasefire. That is fine, now, let us be honest, about implementing the totality of that resolution which is first really about Israel before it is about Lebanon.

Give back first

The first part refers to Lebanon having complete sovereignty over its territory, and then gradually exercising democratically managed military authority over their entire.

The bitter pill in this situation is Shebaa Farms; it is occupied Lebanese territory which Israel contends belongs to Syria as part of their annexation of Golan Heights in 1967.

That is beside the point, between Syria and Lebanon, they have agreed since 1964 that Shebaa Farms is Lebanese and Syria continues to abide by that 42-year old agreement. So, the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory in 2000, regardless of technicalities people might proffer was incomplete. Simple!

The Lebanese plan for peace leading a ceasefire which Hezbollah acquiesces to, includes the return of Shebaa Farms for a viable and enduring ceasefire. Any, right-thinking person would consider that, just and fair, I would suppose.

Stop the occupations

It also means we move on from this idea of new occupations; like a peace-keeping force to assure security, it would be expensive, fraught, dangerous and ineffective if the Shebaa Farms issue is not conclusively resolved.

That Shebaa Farms issue, would help in ensuring that Resolution 1559 is fully implemented to include the disarming of Hezbollah.

Before you heave a sigh of relief, the issue of Shebaa Farms is somewhat inter-twined with Golan Heights in the Israeli psyche. So, why just relinquish one part of illegally annexed and nominally occupied territory?

We have already been sickened and amused by the microphone tête-à-tête between Bush and Blair about Syria telling Hezbollah to stop all this shit going on in Lebanon.

Syria says

Well, Syria has given us the key to all this shit-stopping – the occupation of Arab lands. That would primarily be Shebaa Farms and Golan Heights, these fuel the frenetic activities of Hezbollah in that area, the Palestinian settlement is a distant allusion in this matter.

So, once again, the move is Israel’s – in accordance with UN Resolution 497, conveniently forgotten and dormant since it was unanimously passed in 1981; the return of Golan Heights to the rightful owner – Syria.

In two pre-existing resolutions we have the recognition and implementation of a ceasefire from the current hostilities; the end of Hezbollah’s militancy, such that they can be fully subsumed in Lebanese politics.

The child looks different

That, I submit is the unintended consequence of the “new Middle-East” as alluded to by Condoleezza Rice – the birth pangs would in the end bring forth a child in no likeness to the expected baby.

The bigger picture is more unsavoury for the West than it seems, because the price for peace exerts a serious climb-down from Israel in terms of its legacy of occupied Arab lands, and it also indicates that Western appeasement has continually allowed Israel to act with impunity when they should be adhering to their international obligations.

The Israeli protestations regarding Syria and Lebanon over the years would definitely become a shrill-sounding discomfort to all well-meaning people.

A poker hand bitter lesson in expected outcomes

Better still, if this becomes the final result of this 3-week war, you will have to give it to Hezbollah as they would have deftly out-manoeuvred all those crocodile-tear diplomatic efforts to bring about a just settlement for their struggles.

The other negotiations about the release of prisoners are just minutiae.

America, Britain and Israel, turned this issue into a game of poker thinking they had the best hands, methinks, Hezbollah only started with a Jack and might clear the pot with a Royal Flush – such is the life of gamblers.

References

A prediction of this war

US envoy foresees 'hard decision'

The Israeli conflict blog archive