Post #186

🇳🇬 With ministers like that, who needs colonialists? 🌐 In another unnecessary validation of the famous proverb that a fish rots from the head down, Nigeria has issued an arrest warrant for former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva. He is suspected of conspiracy and criminal conversion of $14.9 million. 🔸 The funds are linked to a planned 2,000-barrels-per-day modular refinery in Brass, Bayelsa State. In 2020, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board committed $35 million to the project. 🔸The former minister himself must have felt at home in this affair - that is, he was born and matured in the very place where the plant was supposed to be located. From 2008 to 2012, he even served as governor of Bayelsa State, which means that his in-state connections will probably be on the list of those scrutinized as a part the alledged conspiracy. ⏩ Sylva's public aid denied the accusations and pointed at political considerations behind the issued warrant. 🔸 The warrant may be linked to the recent rearrangement of Nigeria's military elite amid the context of an alleged coup attempt. However, what is known for sure is that public funds for refineries vanished with no plant built. The problem is bigger than a single name - Nigeria's recent audit of its oil sector revealed up to $300 billion worth of oil theft. A full reshuffle of Nigeria’s most rent-generating sector is long overdue - and increasingly likely. Devils Below