03082019 - Worsening Insecurity: Suspected herdsmen kill Catholic priest in Enugu

38—SATURDAY Vanguard, AUGUST 3, 2019
The Trump administration imposed
economic sanctions on Chinese
state-owned oil trading company for
buying Iranian oil in violation of
American ban. US Secretary of State,
Mike Pompeo said that the
company, Zhuhai Zhenrong, and its
chief executive, Li Youmin, were
violating U.S. restrictions on Iran’s oil
sector. For the first time the Trump
administration penalized a Chinese
company for defying recent United
States sanctions on Iranian oil exports.
They are barred from engaging in
foreign exchange, banking or property
transactions under US jurisdiction.
China’s foreign ministry responded by
opposing the sanctions of China’s
enterprises and individuals based on
American domestic laws. China
strongly condemned and firmly
opposed sanctions on related Chinese
companies by the US.
Many had wondered whether the US
could punish Chinese companies over
sanctions breaches of Iranian oil
purchase as both countries are locked
on issues of trade war. China is the
world’s number one oil importer and
major buyer of Iranian oil. Zhuhai
Zhenrong until recently was the only
importer of Iranian crude to China
since it was set up 25 years ago. On
November 4, 2018, the United States
slammed new sanctions on Iran, as
President Trump withdrew from the
Iran Nuclear deal agreed in 2015
between Iran and five permanent
members of the Security Council;
Britain, China, France, Russia, United
States, plus Germany, P5+1 that aimed
to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Iran
exports about 1.1 million barrels of
crude oil a day, was down from around
2.5 million barrels before the United
States imposed sanctions in November.
Washington’s decision was to bring
rom the outset I need to stress that I
Fhave nothing against the idea of a
national or state title of the “First Lady.”
But when early last month President
Buhari’s wife, Aisha, announced that she
had decided to dump the title of the “Wife
of the President” to assume that of the
nation’s First Lady, she triggered an alarm.
Sincerely, she could be called anything,
really, as she became the First Lady simply
owing to the fact that her husband became
Nigeria’s first citizen once he was
inaugurated President of the Federal
Republic.
Yet, there is something terrible about that
announcement. First, Aisha Buhari and her
handlers and by extension, her husband’s
administration, once again, betrayed a total
lack of respect for Nigeria’s constitutional
federalism. Second, her explanation that
her title was causing confusion in the
states— whether the governor’s wives
were to be addressed as wives of the
governors or First Ladies—was totally out
of place even as it is an affront on the
constitution as the states reserve the right
to term the Governors’ wives whatever title
they choose. The matter at hand here is
not Abuja’s to decree but each state’s to
treat as they choose. It depends on each
state to call the wife of the governor The
First Lady or the Mother or Aunt or Angel
of that state.
Under a federal constitution, the nonconstitutional
office of the First Lady has
no power to tell any state how to treat the
wife of a governor or local government
chairman.
For those who may not like the office of
the first lady, they should train their anger
at former President Olusegun Obasanjo
and his late wife, Stella, for they had the
opportunity to reverse the first lady policy
which the rather comely late Miriam
Babangida brought to a new height, (or
notoriety to some), but failed.
How? Well, let me explain: To chart a new
direction, Obasanjo first set up a highpowered
committee, the Presidential Policy
Advisory Committee (PPAC) headed by Lt.
General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (rtd).
Characteristically, Obasanjo, a fanfareenchanted
President, received the report
amidst great ceremonies in April 1999, at
the International Conference Centre,
Abuja, a month before his inauguration.
He announced that day that a new dawn
was just over the horizon, waiting for him
to be sworn into office. Then he vowed he
would run a lean government, have no First
Sanctions backlash:Iranian oil in
Chinese bonded storage
Iranian oil exports to zero. The U.S.
sanctions are meant to deny the
regime its principal source of
revenue by putting maximum
pressure on Iran to withdraw its
alleged destabilizing activities in the
Middle East.
The trade war between the
two economic superpowers
may indeed, last longer and
could jointly drive global
economic growth a lot lower
When it announced these sanctions
in November, the United States
granted the Significant Reduction
Exceptions waivers to China, Greece,
India, Italy, Japan, South Korea,
Taiwan and Turkey that allowed them
to continue their purchases of crude
from Iran. The waivers allowed them
more time to make up for the loss
of supplies from Iran by finding
new markets in major oil-producing
countries in the Middle East, West
Africa and Russia. China which is
the largest importer of Iranian oil
buys about a third of Iran’s crude
exports. China opposed the
sanctions on the basis of
unilateralism and long-arm
jurisdiction. China which may have
been put in situation of not having
easy access to crude imports for its
slowing economy defiantly went
against the United States sanctions
by not cutting off oil supplies from
Iran. Iran is hoping on Chinese
purchases to help its economy
withstand US pressure.
Iranian tankers appear to have
loaded oil after the U.S. waivers
ended with reports that Iranian oil
cargo was first delivered to China
in June. From Tanker trackers some
Very Large Crude Carriers, VLCC
discharged at Tianjin in early July
after sailing from the Middle East.
Iran-owned tankers including
VLCC Stream discharged at
Tianjin on June 19, while
Amber, Salina and C. Infinity
offloaded crude at the ports of
First t Lady? I feel like screaming
Lady but just a wife, who was barred from
going with a convoy of cars and using
sirens. Same too for his ministers, he said.
That the Office of the First Lady existed
under Yar’Adua and Jonathan as it did
under Obasanjo, whose late wife, Stella,
actually issued orders to the state
governors’ wives to desist forthwith from
going to the airports to personally
welcome the Vice President’s wife, but
must send the Deputy Governors’ wives
instead, may not have had any direct
effect on the economy but merely served
as an example of pettiness on a grand
scale. Yet, Stella Obasanjo did not explain
the reason behind the order, but if she
felt that it was against protocol for First
Ladies in the States to extend the honours
meant for her as the national First Lady
to her deputy (?) who by all means and
purposes was the Second Lady because
she and her husband as well as their
children made up the Second Family, she
forgot that even the State Governors
always went to the Airport to welcome a
visiting Vice-President. If Stella’s
supposed but ridiculous logic were to be
extended even further, it would have
meant that only the wife of a Speaker of
a House of Assembly would be right in
the perking order to welcome a visiting
spouse of the Senate-President. But pray,
who would then have needed to welcome
the wife of the Speaker of the House of
Representatives? This is because while
the centre has a bi-cameral legislature,
the states have a uni-cameral one, and
so while the Speaker was the Federal
Government’s Fourth Citizen, the States’
Speakers real equivalent in Abuja is the
Senate President and not the Speaker!
But the states MUST NOT have offices
equivalent to Abuja’s!
The real point here is that though
Nigeria operates a federal system
whereby the states are the component
parts, and elect their own governors
independent of the president, all the
states’ First Ladies’ obeyed Mrs.
Obasanjo’s vanity-inspired and totally
whimsical order. Yet, why did they not
ignore her, especially as both hers and
their offices were unknown to the
Nigerian constitution? The answer is
simply this: Nigeria neither practiced
a true federalism nor true democracy;
so any governor whose wife disdained
the former President Obasanjo’s wife,
disdained Obasanjo, and any who
disdained the President, was inviting
the wrath of the President on himself—
and on Obasanjo rested the decision
about who would continue in office,
aspire to another office or simply end
up in jail. Or he appropriated
(misappropriated really) that emperor’s
role.
Also, on the President, especially
under Obasanjo, rested the decision
about who would be impeached, and
the person would be impeached, even
when the majority members of a given
State House of Assembly fully backed
their chief executive, he would be
impeached nevertheless, as the
impeachments effected in Plateau state
(against the then Governor Joshua
Dariye) and in Bayelsa (against then
Governor D. S Peter Alamieyesiegha)
showed. Now, this ill-thought out order
could have raised a war whose genesis
would never have been known to one
of the belligerent sides. Any illdisposed
wife of a state governor could
have raised hostilities between the
President and her own spouse if she,
for cogent reasons, asked the wife of
Huangdao, Jianzhou and Ningbo. Salina,
which can carry more than a million barrels
of crude oil, docked at Jianzhou Bay and
unloaded on June 20. Since the ban on
the purchase of Iranian oil by the United
States in May, it was reported that millions
of barrels of Iranian oil continued to flow
into bonded storage tanks in Chinese ports
for possible future use. The logic behind
what is referred to as bonded storage is
that such supplies do not cross Chinese
customs or show up in the nation’s data of
imports meaning that it is still owned by
Iran since it is still in transit and in
speculative contemplation. The
interpretation is that it is not a breach of
sanctions. But the bonded storage
encourages Iran to produce more to build
up supplies near the number one global
oil buyer in the belief that one day
sanctions would be over.
Analysts believe that the store of oil has
the potential to push down global prices
if Chinese refiners decide to draw on it,
even as the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries and allies in OPEC+
curb production as growth slows in major
economic hubs. It also allows Iran to keep
pumping and move oil nearer to potential
buyers. Iranian crude in bonded storage
tanks in China also means Iran can avoid
having to tie up part of its tanker fleet by
storing the oil at sea for months at a time.
The Iranians used floating storage from
2012 to 2016 and again in 2018 when
buyers shunned its crude due to U.S.-
imposed trade restrictions. The overall oil
market remains relatively well supplied,
with some traders saying prices could fall
sharply if China steps up purchases of
Iranian crude. Last week data showed that
China imported 855,638 tons in June, the
equivalent of about 209,000 barrels a day.
The US-China relationship is indeed
complicated. The trade war between the
two economic superpowers may indeed,
last longer and could jointly drive global
economic growth a lot lower.
In December 2014, Muhammadu Buhari
went on the record to say he would
abolish, scrap or ban the office of the
First Lady if he was elected as President,
saying that it was unconstitutional
the deputy-governor to represent her at the
Airport ceremonies for a visiting First Lady
Stella Obasanjo.
Mrs. Stella Obasanjo was generally seen as
unassuming, as opposed to over-bearing, as a
First Lady, owing to this, she did not attract
bad press as much as her two immediate
successors did. Not even the report by human
rights organisations that Mr. Orobosa Omo-
Ojo, the publisher of the inconsequential Lagosbased
Nigerian Midwest Herald newspaper,
was arrested on Stella Obasanjo’s orders on
May 2, 2005 and taken to Akure prison and
that his arrest was prompted by an article the
previous week about her, headlined “Greedy
Stella,” made a dent on her genteel image.
Now, why would the title Mrs Aisha Buhari,
(of the other room’s fame) favoured in June
2019 make news? Answer: In December 2014,
Muhammadu Buhari went on the record to
say he would abolish, scrap or ban the office of
the First Lady if he was elected as President,
saying that it was unconstitutional.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the
Niger Delta (MEND), which endorsed Buhari
for the 2015 general elections, commended
Buhari for his plans, when elected as President,
to scrap the so-called ‘Office of the First Lady.’
MEND went on to say that the office of the
first lady is obviously an irrelevant, fraudulent
and unconstitutional office, whose only purpose
is to further plunder the resources of the
country.
Poor MEND. Supporting Buhari’s policies
come with the risk of what happens when
Buhari does a policy somersault as he usually
does. This is not just an example of a campaign
promise not kept but touches on how deeply
the Buharis think things through before
pronouncing on them. Put differently; how
much is their word their bond? Or has the
Office of the First Lady become constitutional
now? Next time, Mrs Aisha Buhari should
respect Nigeria’s federalism and leave the
governors’ wives out of what to call herself.