Author: mopress

Excellent perspective, enlighteningly ironic. May it be well and widely regarded.

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You factually caught exactly the viewpoint of any non-American whose country is either visited, guarded or occupied in order to bring ‘prosperity’, ‘democracy’ or ‘culture’ from
God’s Own Country…they would like to cry as with your name-sake: “let our people go” !

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Fortuitously, after a respite of forty days in the wilderness, I was fortunate to be able to affort the time to read your froth in Counterpunch today. As can be your forte, you put forth a well observed and well written effort…

Following are several newsclips from Nigerian sources, where Peacefile takes a special interest in the labor movement. Leader of the white collar oil union PENGASSAN escaped an assassination attempt soon after the union won rights to staff several management positions in Total-Fina-Elf operations. Unionists are planning to picket gas stations that violate court-ordered price controls. And if Nigerian refineries have not been rehabilitated by the government in late July, the oil unions are promising a strike. Union lawyers in a Nigerian court are meeting delays as they seek a contempt ruling against the government for not enforcing court-ordered price controls on fuel.

Meanwhile in Delta State, government troops are widely reported to have burned down six villages, killed dozens, and sent hundreds fleeing into the countryside, in a maneuver called Operation Hope purportedly directed against pirates who allegedly killed American oil workers and Nigerian Navy sailors in April.

Writing from Boston, two academics report on the environmental devastation of the Nigerian oil patch. Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged nearly a decade ago for his activism on this front.

The plea by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to have the Federal Government charged with contempt over increase in fuel prices in disregard of the order of the Federal High Court failed yesterday as the court’s Chief Judge, Justice Roseline Ukeje declined entertaining the contempt charge.

–FUEL CASE: Court declines to charge FG with contempt: NLC appeals, says FG not above the law, By LEMMY UGHEGBE, Abuja, New Age Online [Nigeria]

The Federal Government on Monday mediated in the controversy raging between the Rivers and Akwa-Ibom states over ownerships of some oil wells that straddle their borderlines.

At a meeting that lasted over three hours, President Olusegun Obasanjo was able to make governors of both states reconcile their positions on the ownership of some the oil wells along their borders….

Numbers of oil wells located within a state boundary is a major indicator in the calculation and allocation of revenue by the [Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC) chaired by Alhaji Hamma Tukur].

—FG resolves oil wells dispute between Rivers, A’Ibom states, Michael Faloseyi and Yomi Odunuga, Abuja, The Punch [Nigeria] July 15, 2004.