From an article yesterday:
"But the resignation of such a prominent African reformist is likely to be greeted with dismay by Western donor countries which had placed great faith in her capacity to deliver.
As Finance Minister since 2004, when she was head-hunted from the World Bank, Mrs Okonjo-Iweala persuaded Western donors that Nigeria was not an oil-rich nation and should qualify for debt relief. She increased civil servants' pay, while slashing their perks, and brought in reforms in banking, insurance, pensions, income tax and foreign exchange.
But her anti-corruption campaign, which saw the Nigerian police chief jailed and a number of judges and senior customs officials sacked, brought her into conflict with the most powerful interests in the land.
Just over a month ago, President Obasanjo took a crucial decision to move Mrs Okonjo-Iweala from the finance ministry to head the foreign ministry, with no reason given."
- Seems to me if you read this article, the President is getting rid of this lady because she is anti-corruption. Could she be getting too close to direct corruption involving the President? ERHE is just one of the many charges against Nigerian Govt corruption in the recent years. Getting rid of the person who is trying to crack down on this type of behavior is not the way to gain support from outside nations.
"Speculation has been rife in Nigeria about an ongoing rift between the President and Mrs Okonjo-Iweala. One Nigerian newspaper reported that their dispute escalated this week when Mr Obasanjo learnt that the Foreign Minister was planning to lead Nigeria's delegation to the forthcoming Singapore meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. As he ordered Mrs Usman to be confirmed as leader of the economic panel, he also reportedly asked Mrs Okonjo-Iweala to confine herself to Non-Aligned Movement issues. This is said to have been the last straw for the high-flying economist. However the most likely explanation is that Mrs Okonjo-Iweala's anti-corruption drive was causing too many waves in the Obasanjo administration, which in 2003 won the doubtful accolade as the most corrupt place on earth, according to Transparency International."
- Ranked as one of the most corrupt places on earth ! !
Even Nigerian officials know this is true: "The governor of Abia state, Orji Kalu, told reporters in Lagos that he was not surprised by the resignation. "I knew Mrs Okonjo-Iweala would go because the government is trying to take all the money now and side-track her. Mrs Okonjo-Iweala has done the right thing and I congratulate her for resigning from a government that is not workable; from a government that is very corrupt, and I have told everybody that this government is very corrupt."
More on the oil corruption: "But the oil industry remains mired in corruption. According to one telling anecdote, when she presented President Obasanjo with a report on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, under which oil and other companies agree to publish what they pay and governments open their accounts to scrutiny, the Nigerian leader sealed it. He was apparently afraid that it would reveal discrepancies between government revenues and the budget.
"Obasanjo didn't want to hear about missing oil revenues, because people would assume that he stole them," one source said. "
- The point is writing this is to give the other side against those that claim ERHE did nothing wrong simply because Nigeria claims there was no corruption. Of course they are not going to claim there was bribery! They are totally corrupt, have been ranked as such each year by International standards, and have been caught in many instances.
I am very interested in knowing why various posters on this board stand by their claim that ERHE did nothing wrong when they have no support for that claim, and no direct knowledge of that claim. If you do have evidence that ERHE did nothing wrong, please post it. A claim by the Nigerian government is not sufficient, it is expected.
Things like this do not bode well for ERHE. It further supports our appearance as a shell company existing on bribery. Hopefully that will not be proved the case. But there are credible reasons supporting ERHE stock price is negatively affected by corruption charges, and credible evidence that some sort of punishment will be levied. If that were not possible, IMO, the stock price would not suffer and there would be no investigation.
