| Author | Subject: MARC RICH,THE JEWISH MAN THAT OWNS NIGERIA |
| prince abdulrasheed Akanbi | Posted At 20:44:46 08/16/2002
Investigating Marc Rich and his deals with Nigeria's Through an elaborate network of carrots and sticks and a willing army of Nigeria's soldiers and some civilians, controversial global dealer and billionaire Marc Rich, literally and practically, made deals and steals; yes, laughed his way to the banks from crude oil contracts, unpaid millions in oil royalties and false declarations of quantities of crude lifted and exported from Nigeria for almost 25 years. Worse, he lifted Nigeria's oil and shipped same to then embargoed apartheid regime in South Africa. Without a doubt, Marc Rich is the most controversial businessman in the U.S. today. In a nutshell, he has been making waves here in the U.S. following insinuations by right wing activists and other Clinton critics that Rich, through some sleek ways, "bought" his January 2001 presidential pardon via his former wife, Denise Rich. Denise has made donations to the President Bill Clinton Library in Arkansas and more than $600,000 to Democratic Party causes in recent years. Clinton also attended numerous fundraisers hosted by Denise. Another issue which reflects the audacious resolve and strategic ways of the 66-years old Mr. Rich is that he hired, shall I simply say, "the best attorney for the job" of getting the Clinton pardon, Washington D.C.-based attorney Jack Quinn (who recently served as President Clinton's lawyer). Quinn delivered. As they say, the rest is history. As an unfolding drama, those form the core of the American citizens' concerns about Rich and his methods. Having stated those basic facts, let's proceed to tackle the Marc Rich issue as it pertains our community. Why is Marc Rich, former President Bill Clinton's January 2001 pardonee and fugitive from the laws of the United States of any significant interest to Nigerians, continental Africans and African-Americans and other Americans who do business with Africans? First, it is important to examine his consistent and self-serving efforts to undermine pan-African interests in the decolonization of the continent. Second, Mr. Rich's ignoble support for the apartheid regime in South Africa places his aggressive business legacy on the wrong side of history. Speaking of leagcy, I really doubt that Rich really cares about more than making big bucks, here and there. Third, our community and readers should know about the millions of unpaid royalties and misleading declarations he made in the Nigerian oil and gas business through his numerous deals with soldier-businessmen-politicans who ran Nigeria into an economic stupor. Fourth, he has been a key player for well over 25 years in Nigeria's export of its crude oil. He is not your garden-variety businessman. In fact, at certain points in Nigeria's recent economic history, Marc Rich (in this 1998 photo) has been the kingpin. For example, ...surprise, surprise(?) in August of 1999, three months after taking office, President Obasanjo's government announced 16 crude oil contracts to replace the 41 approved under previous military governments. Remarkably, the controversial international businessman Marc Rich "survived" the overhaul of the established international crude oil trading houses who dominated Nigeria's exports. They were called the "magnificent seven." seemingly ubiquitous Mr. Rich reemerged as a contractor. Unknown to some less savvy officials in Nigeria, he is the operator of Glencore International AG. The man, in that fateful month had netted a new deal, the third best, a direct contract for 90,000 bpd (barrels per day). Also, Gencore was licensed to operate Ghana National Petroleum Corporation's 30,000 bpd and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) partner Napoil's 20,000 bpd for a total 150,000 bpd. Such is the power and reach of Marc Rich, inside Nigeria, even in these days of "democracy accountability, probity and integrity...." In an insightful report titled "Corruption Flourished In Abacha's Regime", James Rupert of the Washington Post Foreign Service wrote on Tuesday, June 9, 1998: Much of the oil that Nigeria pumps each day goes to the major international oil companies -- Shell, Mobil, Chevron and others -- that operate the oil fields. But the largest single share goes to Nigeria's state oil company, which, under the direction of Abacha's camp, sells its oil to independent traders. According to official announcements of oil sales and reporting by the London-based oil newsletter Energy Compass, Nigeria's main trading partners in the Abacha era have been the London-based firms Arcadia and Addax, and the Swiss-based company Glencore, which was under the control of Marc Rich, an American commodities dealer. (He later renounced his American citizenship; he holds Spanish, Israeli and, I believe, Belgian citizenships currently). Rupert added that Abacha's predecessor, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, "doled out the contracts" to a wide circle of supporters, allowing them to take commissions from oil traders, said Patrick Smith, editor of the London-based newsletter Africa Confidential." Rupert's report underscored the fact that when the 1991 Persian Gulf War drove oil prices upward, Nigeria earned a windfall that never made it to government coffers. Soon after taking power as he wooed political support, Abacha named a commission headed by Nigerian economist Pius Okigbo to investigate. Okigbo reported that $12.2 billion in oil earnings had disappeared between 1990 and 1994, but no one was ever prosecuted. The former trader, a European, said he participated in three oil purchases in recent years -- technically from Nigeria's state oil company but negotiated with Abacha aides at the presidential villa. Each contract specified a "commission" to be paid to a specific beneficiary, he said. He declined to name the beneficiaries on the contracts he helped negotiate. He said other traders had noted that sometimes the beneficiary is a well-known Nigerian, and at other times "it's a completely unknown person" who traders believe is a front for someone else. He said the contracts he dealt with ordered the commissions paid to bank accounts in Singapore, Bermuda and Switzerland." Also, the Sunday Nigerian Tribune ran a mid-March report which linked Marc Rich and some soldiers (including former head of state retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari) to the December 31, 1983 coup which removed Alhaji Shehu Shagari as an elected president of Nigeria. The report noted that Rich's oil deals had been on even before Shagari's election, implying but without specifying the obvious that he was equally active during the first tenure of then Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (with the latter) as a military dictator in Nigeria (February 1976-October 1979). A number of Nigeria's retired soldiers and a number of civilian executives in the oil industry were willing allies of Rich as he milked the sweet Bonny Light crude and laughed to the banks while children and women in Nigeria's riverine areas and in the Sahelian, drought-stricken parts, and indeed, most of the country, went to bed hungry and with no books to study in school. He utilized his deft and far-reaching "logistical leverage" in Switzerland to "assist" his Nigeria cohorts in making huge deposits in private, secure accounts. Bribery and massive inducement through hard currency transfers were staples of the Marc Rich financial machine inside Nigeria, and beyond. He operated a number of corporations, and the most significant being Marc Rich & Co. The same company was involved in the Kaduna Refinery Supplemental Steam Production Project. Michael Dobbs' brief bio of him, includes the following: Mr. Rich was born Marc Reich on Dec. 18, 1934, in the Belgian city of Antwerp, the only child of a prosperous Jewish family. When the Nazis took over Belgium in 1942, the family fled to the United States, settling first in Kansas City, Missouri, and then in New York, where Mr. Rich's father, David, went into the burlap bag business. The Korean War created huge demand for burlap bags used for sandbags, pushing prices sky-high and turning David Rich into a millionaire. For Marc, it was an early lesson in the economics of scarcity. Dropping out of New York University at age 19, he set his sights on becoming a commodities trader." The rest is about the history of controversial deals with Libya's Muammar Ghaddafi, Iranian mullahs, Soviet Communists and a whole lot more. Another look at Rich by the U.K-based OneWorld organization chronicles Rich's schemes which weakened Nigeria's oil and embargo of all business with then apartheid South Africa. He is identified as one of the "notorious sanctions busters." Among other deeds, OneWorld recalled: For example, in the mid-1980's they copied lists of tankers which called at loading points and determined whether any of the vessels had called at South African ports in the previous year. Tankers so implicated in sanctions busting were not loaded with crude in Nigeria. The oil workers rejected out of hand the apartheid propaganda that an oil embargo against the racist regime would hurt ordinary South African citizens. They also cast unwanted light on corrupt petroleum sales by Nigerian middlemen, where 'private' sales of state-owned crude put Nigerian oil in the hands of notorious sanctions busters such as Marc Rich." In researching Mr. Rich's deals in Africa, I had access to the valuable report made by Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (EAAR), complied during the Cameron Commission of Inquiry of 1994/95, titled "The Betrayal of the Struggle Against Apartheid." Again, Rich factors into the deals of the ruinous bank, the BCCI. Before anyone underestimates the credibility and insight of the EAAR, let me cite the leadership of the group: the chairman is globally-acclaimed economist James K. Galbraith while the vice-Chairs are Jurgen Brauer, Michael Intriligator and Ann Markusen. Some of the trustees include Robert S. McNamara, formerly of the World Bank and the U.S. State Department, Clinton's Labor Secretary Prof. Robert Reich and Harvard's international economics scholar Prof. Jeffrey Sachs. Although dated September 28, 2000, the EAAR report looks back and quoted from the executive summary of the United States Senate investigation into notorious BCCI Bank (it had branches in Nigeria, too), as follows: "BCCI's unique criminal structure -- an elaborate corporate spider-web with BCCI's founder, Agha Hasan Abedi and his assistant, Swaleh Naqvi, in the middle -- was an essential component of its spectacular growth and a guarantee of its eventual collapse. The structure was conceived by Abedi and managed by Naqvi for the specific purpose of evading regulation or control by governments. It functioned to frustrate the full understanding of BCCI's operations by anyone. BCCI's criminality included fraud by BCCI and BCCI customers involving billions of dollars; money laundering in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas; BCCI bribery of officials in most of those locations; support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies; management of prostitution; the commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling and illegal immigration, illicit purchases of banks and real estate. Unanswered questions include BCCI's financing of commodities and other business dealings of international criminal financier Marc Rich." Recall that one of Obasanjo's efforts which gained him some regional stature during his first rulership of Nigeria was his actions (initiated by his predecessor the late Gen. Murtala Muhammad) against aparthied South Africa and British Petroleum (which later became AP). Such commendable efforts included the Muhammad-Obasanjo support for southern Africa nationalists. Remarkably, Rich was working against their efforts. I've also read the informative Platt's Oilgram (Volume 79 Number 15, January 23, 2001) where it is reported: In 1973, with oil trading profits soaring after the first Arab embargo, Rich left Phibro to form his own firm, Marc Rich & Co, which soon became a major player in world oil markets. He was particularly adept at securing supplies of Nigerian and Iraqi crudes, and gained a reputation as a reliable supplier in tough times to crude-short oil majors." In the light of these developments (and one hopes that Nigeria's economic intelligence groups are aware of these facts prior to the latest Rich scandal), the question which millions of concerned and informed Nigerians will be asking, today and later, is not only whether the government of retired Gen. Obasanjo should immediately seek financial remedy for unpaid millions in royalties and false declarations of quantities of crude lifted by Marc Rich & Co., but can the Obasanjo's presidency assert Nigeria's fundamental economic interests on this issue without wavering. The answer, in my view, is blowing in the wind. Why? The Obasanjo government is still predominated in major areas by most of Abacha's and Babangida's cronies and henchmen who benefited, in part, from Rich's massive lucre and loot from Nigeria. It will be a telling pointer to the collective failure of Nigeria's ruling groups, especially its soldier-politicians (led currently by Chief Obasanjo, seen in picture to the right) if they do not ensure some forms of remedy through responsible agencies of international law and economic recompense. Some individuals might question why Nigeria should bother "after all these years." Here's a simple answer, made more persuasive by the mid-March 2001 announcement by the New York State Commissioner of Taxation and Finance that the state has begun legal action seeking $137 million from financier Marc Rich for personal income taxes on his earnings from fraudulent business activities during the early 1980s. Yes, the early 1980s. Commissioner Arthur J. Roth is an interesting and colorful writer, too. Here are his lucid words: Mr. Rich has avoided his tax payments in New York for nearly two decades while he was under federal indictment. It is now time for him to pay the piper." Again, can Obasanjo's government stand up to be counted? And, demand the Roth standard on Rich, specifically "It is now time for him to pay the Nigerian piper!" Although certain facts and realities regarding the funding of the 1999 presidential elections makes one wonder if the Obasanjo government can, seriously, probe the other retired but active political generals who bankrolled his election in 1999 with multimillion dollars and the sacks of the Naira (Nigeria's local currency). It is equally important to ask: should the Obasanjo "fight" against corrupt enrichment remain, largely, an inquiry into the stolen funds amassed by the infamous, late dictator Gen. Sani Abacha. Only a few days ago, this March 2001, the U.S. State Department and the Catholic Bishops in Nigeria criticized President Obasanjo on the issue of corruption. Let me add that President Obasanjo should be commended for reclaiming some of the funds Abacha and his gang pillaged from our national treasury. Yet fact is that song is getting very worn and hoarse for Nigerians. Regarding the Rich issue and his swift deals with and on Nigeria, the key question remains: Who will stand up for Nigeria's economic rights and the financial rights of Nigerians? When; and for how long? I recall vividly the day I moderated and co-hosted Chief Obasanjo's visit to Houston shortly after his release in 1998, by former head of state retired Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar (he handed over to Obasanjo in May 1999), he told us "I've seen many things in my life; both the high and low... and I intend to stand up for what I believe is right." Without a doubt, Rich's various and convoluted dealings in the oil and gas and security sectors of Nigeria had too many shady contours and less than honest elements. Hopefully, Nigeria's President Obasanjo believes it will be "right" for Nigeria to retrieve and demand its funds, any funds that might have been acquired through corrupt enrichment by either Nigeria's domestic charlatans or international flimflam dealers who ruin and despoliate the destiny of our country, such as Mr. Rich. To be sure, how those Marc Rich shenanigans in Nigeria are handled will count either as one of the major marks of economic nationalism or monumental failures of the Obasanjo presidency. It is a defining moment, personally and professionally, for President Obasanjo since he is also in charge of the Petroleum/Oil/Gas portfolios/ministries of his boisterous country of 110 million people. Now, Mr. President, who will protect Nigeria's interests and oil resources from this (Rich) cat with nine lives; excuse me.... |
| Obinna Nwokedi |
Re: MARC RICH,THE JEWISH MAN THAT OWNS NIGERIA (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 04:59:05 01/28/2003 Being in the nigerian government financial circles, I already know about all this and more, but u did a nice job any how. Meanwhile another person you should try and look into in this Mr Goan (NOGA). He's another guy that has been ripping nigeria off over the years.. |
| GP_SOS |
Re: MARC RICH,THE JEWISH MAN THAT OWNS NIGERIA (Currently 0 replies)
Posted At 15:25:34 01/31/2003 Obinna, you may know of this already, but there are millions of Nigerians who should know yet don't know. Please don't let your ego discourage people from providing enlightening us about our country which we need desperately right now. And please if you have similar enlightening information share it with us. Thanks. |
| Mark Perline |
Re: MARC RICH,THE JEWISH MAN THAT OWNS NIGERIA (Currently 1 replies)
Posted At 09:57:42 02/11/2003 Can anybody explain to me what this fellow's religion has to do with this? Is this just more anti-semitism? |