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06/26/20
Ex-Oyo State Governor, Ajimobi, To Be Buried On Sunday
The remains of late former governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi, will be interred on Sunday, 28th June at his Ishaq Abiola Ajimobi Central Mosque, Oke Ado.
Strict COVID-19 protocols are to be adhered in light of the current circumstances of our national health challenges. 
Details of a larger funeral gathering will be announced where more of his well wishers will have the opportunity to pay him their respect, the family said.
See Also 
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Many Corrupt Nigerians Now Keep Their Loot In Ghana, Says EFFC Boss, Magu
Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, has said that many Nigerian looters are hiding in Ghana.
Magu disclosed this when a delegation of the Chartered Institute of Public Resources Management and Politics visited the EFCC headquarters in Abuja on Friday.
He said the commission was putting resources together to go after the treasury looters and recover the country’s wealth stashed in the neighbouring West African nation.
Magu also urged Nigerians to disregard reports about him and the commission, saying the EFCC activities are transparent. 
He said, “Corruption is a borderless crime. We are putting our resources together to allow us go to Ghana without restrictions and recovery our stolen property back home.
“I am appealing to Nigerians to trust the commission with relevant information about corrupt practices in the country.
“There are a lot of looters hiding in Ghana. We are already talking, we will bring them back. We will go bring the assets back to the country.
“We follow the international best practice when it comes to areas of investigations, tracing of looted assets, recovering looted assets. We all have our records.
“We are aware that we have ruffled many feathers. We have touched the untouchables and we have dared lions in their dens. We are doing all these, not because we love dangers and death, we are doing them because we value the comfort and development which anti-corruption brings.
“We value good lives for our fellow men and women and we value better future for all our children. The costs of fighting corruption may be grave, but the costs of not fighting it is more deadly.
“This is why we continue to call on every Nigerian to enlist in the anti-graft war. A good war is a war that is waged by the majority for the good of all."
Corruption News AddThis : Original Author : Saharareporters, New York Disable advertisements :https://ift.tt/2KYKYHW
BREAKING: Police Confirm Kidnap Of Nine Commuters In Ondo
The Ondo State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has confirmed the kidnap of nine commuters along the Akoko Road in the state.
Tee-Leo Ikoro, spokesperson for the police in the state confirmed the incident on Friday in Akure.
Ikoro said the hoodlums waylaid a Toyota Sienna vehicle and marched all passengers into the bush. 
He added that the passengers were travelling to Lagos when they were seized at a bad spot at Isua in Akoko South-East Local Government Area of the state.
According to him, the police was already working with some local hunters in the area to track the hoodlums and abducted victims.
A family member of one of the victims revealed that the kidnappers has been asking for a ransom of N100 million.
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Shiites Defy Nigerian Security Forces, Hold Massive Protest In Kaduna
Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria held a protest in Kaduna State on Friday to demand the release of their leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, and wife, Zeenat.
Anti-riot policemen had on Wednesday in Abuja dispersed the protesting Shiites with teargas and water cannons in a similar protest.
The movement had vowed not to be deterred in the demand for justice irrespective of the intimidation by the police and other security agencies.
Speaking during the protest, Sheikh Aliyu Tirmizi said the Nigerian Government led by President Muhammadu Buhari had continued to trample on the rights of Zakzaky and Shiites in the country. 
He posited that the President had derailed from the teaching of Prophet Muhammad.
He said, “Most people, after the gross flagrant abuse of power by the military on Sheikh Zakzaky and his followers couldn’t express their condemnation, choosing to remain silent since the military excesses didn’t affect them directly.
“This explains why for the past five years we have been explaining how this Buhari regime has trampled upon the rights of Sheikh Zakzaky and his followers, demanding that citizens condemn this repression and call for the release of our leader unconditionally.”
He insisted that members of the movement, despite proscription by the Nigerian Government, would continue to protest and demand the release of El-Zakzaky.
The movement had accused the Kaduna State Government of resorting to delay tactics in the prosecution of their leader in order to continually keep him in prison.
Human Rights News AddThis : Original Author : Saharareporters, New York Disable advertisements :https://ift.tt/3eGBvDk
ECOWAS Court Orders Nigerian Government To Pay 244 Soldiers Dismissed In 2016
The West African regional court, ECOWAS Court of Justice, has ordered the Nigerian Government to pay the arrears of the salaries of 244 soldiers dismissed from service in 2016, a report by PUNCH said.
A summary of the verdict released by the court’s information department on Friday stated that the judgment was delivered on Thursday.
It was stated that the court had in an earlier judgment delivered on May 15, 2019 declared the process of dismissal of the 244 soldiers as flawed and a violation of their right to work and fair hearing.
The court on Thursday delivered a supplementary judgment in which it reviewed the earlier May 15, 2019 verdict to include the order for the payment of the dismissed soldiers their entitlements, which was committed in the said previous verdict.
A three-man panel of the court presided over by Justice Gberi-Be Ouattara, therefore ordered the Nigerian Government to pay all arrears of monthly allowances, salaries and other entitlements of the applicants up to January 2016.
In the judgment, which was delivered by Justice Keikura Bangura, the court held that the decision to review the earlier judgment after listening to the parties to the parties in the case and considered the documents tendered.
Issuing the fresh order, the court said, “The judgment of the court in ECW/CCJ/JUD/21/19 delivered on May 15, 2019, is hereby supplemented with an additional paragraph no (vi).”
The court however, rejected the request of the soldiers for an order directing the government to reinstate them.
“The court did not omit to give a decision on reinstatement of the applicants in the original judgment,” the court ruled.
The applicants had filed the supplementary application on June 14, 2019, urging the court to make an order mandating the respondent (Nigerian Government) to immediately reinstate them, including to their respective ranks, having found that their dismissal without arraignment, prosecution, and sentence by a duly constituted court-martial is illegal, null and void.
They also asked the court for an order directing the respondent to pay their monthly salaries and other allowances from the whole of 2015 and such other months until the date the judgment is enforced.
Legal Military News AddThis : Original Author : Saharareporters, New York Disable advertisements :https://ift.tt/2ZcvUhx
Armed Robbers Attack Gas Station In Ondo, Kill Attendant, Injure Another
Footage from a CCTV obtained by SaharaReportershas shown how a four-man armed robbery gang shot dead a petrol attendant, Bola Akale, at Farbas Oil, a popular filling station in Akure, Ondo State, on Wednesday at about 8:30pm.
It was gathered that the armed robbers stormed the petrol station and dispossessed the attendants on duty of all money made from sales for the day.
Another attendant identified only as Kazeem was shot on the leg by the robbers during the operation. 
Kazeem is said to be receiving treatment at the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital in Akure at the moment.
Tee-Leo Ikoro, spokesperson for the Ondo State Police Command, confirmed the incident, adding that two of the robbers had been arrested.
Ikoro said the robbers also snatched a motorcycle used in carrying out the operation at the petrol station.
He said, "The one bearing James among the robbers has confessed to the crime and told us that he took concoction a few minutes to the operation and the substance made him lose his sense of reasoning.
"He confessed that the sum of N20, 000 was shared to him by his colleagues which he intended to use to travel to his village in Akwa Ibom State."
CRIME News AddThis : Original Author : Saharareporters, New York Disable advertisements :https://ift.tt/382MpAL
Reject APC, PDP In 2023, Arewa Consultative Youth Forum President, Yerima, Tells Nigerians, Describes Buhari As Failure
National President of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Shetima Yerima, has said President Muhammadu Buhari had failed to secure and pilot the affairs of the Nigerian nation well.
Yerima in an interview with journalists in Kaduna enjoined Nigerians to reject any candidate sponsored for the presidency on the platform of All Progressives Congress or Peoples Democratic Party in 2023 and opt for a fresh political group that will provide a platform for Nigerians to produce a new, intelligent and honest leader.
He said Nigerians, especially the Northerners have virtually gained nothing from the Buhari-led administration and don’t have any basis to vote for either PDP or APC in 2023. 
Alhaji Shettima Yerima, the President of Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF) Daily Post
He said his group was working on a broad-based political platform, which will transform into a new political party that they will sponsor a presidential candidate to give Nigerians fresh lease of life different from what all existing political parties can offer.
He said, “Right from when Buhari was President-elect that it took him six months to select those that will serve in his government as his ministers, I knew that something was wrong because somebody who has been aspiring to be president since 2003 should have a template that will assist him to choose those that will work with him, but Buhari spent six months looking for who to be ministers in his government and he ended up with worst set of ministers.”
Speaking further, Yerima said both Bola Tinubu and Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State were not credible candidates that Nigerian’s should vote for in 2023.
He added, “In my life, I was severally penciled to be killed by government agents and military juntas, I was severally arrested and detained because of my belief that there should be democratic government in Nigeria, or that Nigerians should be given dividends of democracy, as such, I will not allow or be part of an arrangement that will allow Tinubu or a civilian dictator like el-Rufai to be president in 2023, even Atiku that wanted to be president in 2019 should go home and rest.
“The Southerners thought IBB annulled June 12 for Northerners to continue to be in power. Far from that, they annulled Abiola’s election because of their selfish desire to remain in power and it has nothing to do with the ordinary Northerner who massively voted for Abiola and rejected Bashir Tofa even in Kano.
“I, Shetima Yerima, as of today does not have political role model. President Muhammadu Buhari was the man that naturally should be Nigeria’s Mandela because of the massive goodwill people gave him in 2015 but unfortunately, Buhari has failed, and in 2023 we may campaign on the basis of restructuring Nigeria so that power will go back to regions, slightly different from parliamentary also differently from the American presidential system of government.”
Politics News AddThis : Original Author : Saharareporters, New York Disable advertisements :https://ift.tt/2BEXDPI
Trump orders statues be protected from 'mob rule'
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"Anarchists" who damage US monuments should face up to a decade in prison, the president says.
"Anarchists" who damage US monuments should face up to a decade in prison, the president says.
US imposes visa restrictions on Chinese officials over Hong Kong security law
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The sanctions aim to punish Beijing over a planned security law that could erode Hong Kong's autonomy.
The sanctions aim to punish Beijing over a planned security law that could erode Hong Kong's autonomy.
Toronto officer guilty of assault after blinding black man
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A black man loses an eye in a beating by an off-duty Toronto officer, who accused him of car-hopping.
A black man loses an eye in a beating by an off-duty Toronto officer, who accused him of car-hopping.
Coronavirus: The health claims that won't go away
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Why this misleading health advice keeps appearing online.
Why this misleading health advice keeps appearing online.
Cross River State Government + Former Israeli Weapons Supplier Strike A Deal
It is widely known that Nigeria’s Cross River State Governor Ayade has many grand ambitions and projects. With numerous projects ranging from a toothpick factory, rice mill, a piles and pylon outfit, instant noodles factory, and poultry farm. Indigenous people in Cross River State admire his ideas, but their main concern has been implementation. Of all the numerous projects over several years, few have led to tangible outcomes and unemployment numbers continue to rise.
In August 2019, a widely circulated video surfaced showed Governor Ayade promoting a “ultra-modern 21st-century” chocolate factory in Ikom, Cross River. He claimed it “was the first cocoa processing factory that goes from cocoa bean to chocolate bar in Africa.” and that “the company is already ready for commissioning”. 
Governor Ben Ayade
This looked and sounded like a great opportunity for jobs and local manufacturing of chocolate.
Cocoa Processing Factory To Change Economy, Fate and Fortunes of Cross River - Ayade WATCH: Cocoa Processing Factory To Change Economy, Fate and Fortunes of Cross River - Ayade
Unfortunately, nearly a year later, the plant is still not in operation.
Interestingly, very recently, on June 10, 2020, reports show The Cross River signed for $15M deal with an Israeli company to allocate “5,000-10,000 hectares of land for an out-growers scheme” and constructing an Agro-Industrial Centre. This includes “a processing plant, seedlings nursery, and training facility as well as pulp powder and dry cocoa beans for export.”
They are partnering with an Israeli company to construct “a processing plant to enable pulp powder and dry cocoa beans for export” was strange for a government that already claims to have constructed a cocoa to chocolate factory in Ikom. Even if the initiative is meant to complement what was already built, the implementing partner has an even more questionable background.
The implementing Israeli company Bean & Co is owned by Israeli agribusiness firm, LR Group. “LR Group manages large scale sustainable cocoa plantations worldwide in South America, Africa, Oceania & Asia and produces a wide range of cocoa products for distribution.”
Having a large global cocoa plantation manager sounds normal for a government looking to enter cocoa processing, however, the weapons trade history of LR Group is what ventures into abnormal.
Excerpts from an article from one Israel's most respected and longest-running newspaper Haaretz details their background:
“LR Group was founded by three Israeli former fighter pilots (Eitan Stiva, Ami Lustig and Roee Ben-Yami), who monetized on business opportunities that arose out of Angola's 27-year-long civil war, which ended in 2002.
“Similarly to other resource-rich African nations that have oil, gold, diamonds or particularly fertile soil, Angola is a paradox of a country full of natural wealth that actually makes its citizens poorer largely due to the involvement of foreigners in its local conflicts and corrupt government.
LR got involved in defense exports in Angola in the mid-80s and spent years massively arming the government there and training its troops.
In the 2000s, after the war ended, the ex-pilots sought to break into civilian fields. They entered into infrastructure, technology and agriculture projects; first in Angola and then in other countries. They led ambitious projects to set up dozens of agricultural communities in Angola and Congo, modeling them after the Israeli moshav. Later they set up farms, barns, water purification plans and other agricultural projects in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, and most recently, Chad.
This trio seem to be among the richest people in Israel, but because their business is private, people don't know them,” a source familiar with them said."
A company formally fully involved in weapons trade and arming of African governments, may have changed gears and adopted agricultural projects. However, even within agriculture, citizens Papua New Guinea encountered some strange oddities in further probing into LR Group during its collaborations with their government. As Papua New Guinea’s premier anti-corruption blog PNGBlogs writes:
“Inside Israel, the only service that LR Group advertises as their specialty is the repair, service, and testing of elevator drives & MRL (machine room-less) motors.
But outside Israel, LR Group seems to have the expertise to build and manage anything and everything. For example, outside PNG they state that they not only engage in rural development and construction, and telecommunication infrastructure businesses, but also can build villages and renovate existing structures, construct farm buildings and community facilities, storage silos, produce processing plants, cow sheds, chicken houses, pig pens, schools, clinics, churches and roads. They offer crop management, dairy farm development and management, and poultry farming related services. They say they can do cellular and satellite infrastructure; radio transmission equipment and infrastructure, with IT integrated solutions, including IT applications design other areas of expertise. On one web site, LR Group says that they have interests in real estate, aviation and healthcare worldwide.” Through its “subsidiary” Karat Israel Ltd, LR Group “specializes in international trade management, offering credit lines arranging pre-finance activities, and guaranteeing purchase and export of the client's goods and services. LR Group is additionally involved in civil engineering, supply, train, infrastructure, and cellular operations, as well as civil and military projects.”
Looks like this company can do ANYTHING! But only outside Israel. In its home country, LR Group isn’t even listed in any on-line Israeli phone books. Its stated physical address in Israel is 11 Shenkar Arie Herzliya, yet on Shenkar Arie street, there are no physical addresses for numbers 10-15. Maybe their office is at 16 Shenkar, but if so, they only have an office in a much larger office building containing lots of businesses. There is another LR Group office listed at 45 Natanya in Sokolov, Israel. Unlike the Herzliya street address, this one is valid – but it’s an ugly plain concrete building that looks like warehouse and home to other businesses. You can see it all on Google Street View.
Seems like LR Group has a very light, almost imaginary footprint in its home country, but is master of everything overseas, a middleman operation that relies on everyone else to implement their projects.
LR Group looks like little more than a networking company whose greatest asset is exaggerated self promotion and the ability to find expensive long-term consultants.
One of LR Group’s secrets now out in the open is the company’s involvement in land grabs. through the sneaky land grab technique called “land leases”. Land leases allow the lessee, not the lessor, to make the big money, since there is almost never a profit-sharing clause for the landowner in a land lease. Even when there is, the lessor takes care to manipulate the accounts so that there’s always little to no profit shown coming from the business activities on that land, hence little to no profit sharing with the landowner. The corruption of land leases via the SABL process is what allowed foreigners to steal and export, tax- and royalty-free, hundreds of millions of kina worth of hardwood timber logs, the benefits of which are now lost forever to the true landowners.
LR Group likes African land. In 2012 it grabbed a 2,000 hectare Rivers Farm Village venture in collusion with a Nigerian state government. It also grabbed the Etche Agro Industrial Farm, in which LR Group coerced the local state government to put up 60% of the money. Another recent LR Group prize was the contract to revive the agro-industrial area of N'sele (DAIPN) in the Congo.
Examining LR Group’s recent agricultural deals, they seem to like the tired old strategy of taking land rights away from former landowners, then offering them low paying jobs in return, to slave away on their own land. If the landowners turn up their noses in anger, the company brings in labour from other parts of the country to take the jobs.
LR Group likes operating in the world’s most corrupt countries. They operate in Nigeria, with a TI corruption index rating of 25 (just like PNG), but majority activities are in Angola, which has a corruption rating of 23. The Congo where LR Group also rates is rated a lowly 22. All these countries are oil/gas/resource rich so there’s lots of money around just waiting to be stolen.
The company was involved in a series of arms deals in Angola. It sold the country artillery systems made by Elbit, and also partnered with IMI to sell mortar bombs and artillery shells that the government used in its war against Angolan rebels. A much larger deal was LR’s sale to Angola of eight U.S.-made Bell 212 helicopters that the IDF had taken out of service. Aside from selling Israeli equipment, the company also sold Angola two Sukhoi Su-27 fighter planes and radar systems from Ukraine. But after two to three years of intensive activity, the three founders decided to get out of the arms business and focus on civilian projects like setting up agricultural villages in Angola and elsewhere in Africa.”
At best, there are clear implications of a foreign agricultural contractor and colluding with African governments to acquire indigenous plantation land to facilitate the export of raw commodities as was written in the agreement between LR Group and the Cross River State government. At worst, there are deceptive precedents of former weapons trade companies using shell agricultural projects to facilitate weapons trade. As Haaretz writes:
Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department put Maj. Gen. (res.) Israel Zivon on its blacklist of people suspected of terror financing and money laundering, due to allegations that he illegally sold $150 million worth of arms to South Sudan during its civil war. The Americans say Ziv was arming both the government and the rebels while disguising his arms sales as agricultural projects. The farming project was instead used to cover up the sale of approximately US$150 million in weapons, including rifles, grenade launchers, and shoulder-fired rockets.
It should also be reminded that the Cross River State Government has a track record of participating in diversion and misappropriation of earmarked funds. And furthermore, behavior to obfuscate inquiry by citizens into these matters. As the NGO Global Voices writes:
“On July 17, 2019, Cross River journalist Agba Jalingo wrote a critical story about an alleged diversion of 500 million naira (about $1.4 million United States dollars) meant for the establishment of Cross River state Micro-Finance Bank. Jalingo stated that “eight months after the opening of the bank,” Ayade had failed to release the money meant for the start-up of the state-owned bank:
On August 14, the Cross River State Command of the Nigerian Police invited Jalingo for questioning on the allegation of “conspiracy to cause unrest and conduct likely to cause a breach of peace”: However, Jalingo was arrested in Lagos on August 22, four days before the scheduled date to honour the police invitation.”
After citing evidence of government mismanagement of public funds, Agba was charged with treason, terrorism, cultism, and public disturbance for protesting bad governance. He was accused of "undemocratically" attempting to "force the government of Ayade to end through violent means.”
Ayade’s government has shown a penchant for building several factories with state funds, coupled with private investors. As seen in the alleged chocolate factory implementing company, AA Universal Agro Industries Ltd, consists of 90% private ownership and 10% to the state. This is a potentially favorable arrangement to use the state powers as a means to secure private business opportunities that will remain in private hands even after the government tenure.
So while journalist Agba Jalingo was charged for treason by Cross River Government for calling attention to these inconsistencies, The Cross River Government struck a deal with a former Israeli weapons dealing company for the purchase of local indigenous land.
It may sound laudable to create local jobs with foreign partners on the surface. But instead of an ultra-modern chocolate factory that was promised for all, we see that the agreement is actually to sell a 5,000-10,000 plantation land to former weapons supplier, in the process, taking land rights from local populations in return for low wages and export of raw materials. This is the classic example of what was experienced under colonialism in Africa. And one has to inquire, who really benefits from this deal in the end?
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Original Author : Saharareporters, New York Disable advertisements : https://ift.tt/2Vl5Krx
Cross River State Government + Former Israeli Weapons Supplier Strike A Deal
It is widely known that Nigeria’s Cross River State Governor Ayade has many grand ambitions and projects. With numerous projects ranging from a toothpick factory, rice mill, a piles and pylon outfit, instant noodles factory, and poultry farm. Indigenous people in Cross River State admire his ideas, but their main concern has been implementation. Of all the numerous projects over several years, few have led to tangible outcomes and unemployment numbers continue to rise.
In August 2019, a widely circulated video surfaced showed Governor Ayade promoting a “ultra-modern 21st-century” chocolate factory in Ikom, Cross River. He claimed it “was the first cocoa processing factory that goes from cocoa bean to chocolate bar in Africa.” and that “the company is already ready for commissioning”. Governor Ben Ayade
This looked and sounded like a great opportunity for jobs and local manufacturing of chocolate.
Cocoa Processing Factory To Change Economy, Fate and Fortunes of Cross River - Ayade WATCH: Cocoa Processing Factory To Change Economy, Fate and Fortunes of Cross River - Ayade
Unfortunately, nearly a year later, the plant is still not in operation.
Interestingly, very recently, on June 10, 2020, reports show The Cross River signed for $15M deal with an Israeli company to allocate “5,000-10,000 hectares of land for an out-growers scheme” and constructing an Agro-Industrial Centre. This includes “a processing plant, seedlings nursery, and training facility as well as pulp powder and dry cocoa beans for export.”
They are partnering with an Israeli company to construct “a processing plant to enable pulp powder and dry cocoa beans for export” was strange for a government that already claims to have constructed a cocoa to chocolate factory in Ikom. Even if the initiative is meant to complement what was already built, the implementing partner has an even more questionable background.
The implementing Israeli company Bean & Co is owned by Israeli agribusiness firm, LR Group. “LR Group manages large scale sustainable cocoa plantations worldwide in South America, Africa, Oceania & Asia and produces a wide range of cocoa products for distribution.”
Having a large global cocoa plantation manager sounds normal for a government looking to enter cocoa processing, however, the weapons trade history of LR Group is what ventures into abnormal.
Excerpts from an article from one Israel's most respected and longest-running newspaper Haaretz details their background:
“LR Group was founded by three Israeli former fighter pilots (Eitan Stiva, Ami Lustig and Roee Ben-Yami), who monetized on business opportunities that arose out of Angola's 27-year-long civil war, which ended in 2002.
“Similarly to other resource-rich African nations that have oil, gold, diamonds or particularly fertile soil, Angola is a paradox of a country full of natural wealth that actually makes its citizens poorer largely due to the involvement of foreigners in its local conflicts and corrupt government.
LR got involved in defense exports in Angola in the mid-80s and spent years massively arming the government there and training its troops.
In the 2000s, after the war ended, the ex-pilots sought to break into civilian fields. They entered into infrastructure, technology and agriculture projects; first in Angola and then in other countries. They led ambitious projects to set up dozens of agricultural communities in Angola and Congo, modeling them after the Israeli moshav. Later they set up farms, barns, water purification plans and other agricultural projects in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, and most recently, Chad.
This trio seem to be among the richest people in Israel, but because their business is private, people don't know them,” a source familiar with them said."
A company formally fully involved in weapons trade and arming of African governments, may have changed gears and adopted agricultural projects. However, even within agriculture, citizens Papua New Guinea encountered some strange oddities in further probing into LR Group during its collaborations with their government. As Papua New Guinea’s premier anti-corruption blog PNGBlogs writes:
“Inside Israel, the only service that LR Group advertises as their specialty is the repair, service, and testing of elevator drives & MRL (machine room-less) motors.
But outside Israel, LR Group seems to have the expertise to build and manage anything and everything. For example, outside PNG they state that they not only engage in rural development and construction, and telecommunication infrastructure businesses, but also can build villages and renovate existing structures, construct farm buildings and community facilities, storage silos, produce processing plants, cow sheds, chicken houses, pig pens, schools, clinics, churches and roads. They offer crop management, dairy farm development and management, and poultry farming related services. They say they can do cellular and satellite infrastructure; radio transmission equipment and infrastructure, with IT integrated solutions, including IT applications design other areas of expertise. On one web site, LR Group says that they have interests in real estate, aviation and healthcare worldwide.” Through its “subsidiary” Karat Israel Ltd, LR Group “specializes in international trade management, offering credit lines arranging pre-finance activities, and guaranteeing purchase and export of the client's goods and services. LR Group is additionally involved in civil engineering, supply, train, infrastructure, and cellular operations, as well as civil and military projects.”
Looks like this company can do ANYTHING! But only outside Israel. In its home country, LR Group isn’t even listed in any on-line Israeli phone books. Its stated physical address in Israel is 11 Shenkar Arie Herzliya, yet on Shenkar Arie street, there are no physical addresses for numbers 10-15. Maybe their office is at 16 Shenkar, but if so, they only have an office in a much larger office building containing lots of businesses. There is another LR Group office listed at 45 Natanya in Sokolov, Israel. Unlike the Herzliya street address, this one is valid – but it’s an ugly plain concrete building that looks like warehouse and home to other businesses. You can see it all on Google Street View.
Seems like LR Group has a very light, almost imaginary footprint in its home country, but is master of everything overseas, a middleman operation that relies on everyone else to implement their projects.
LR Group looks like little more than a networking company whose greatest asset is exaggerated self promotion and the ability to find expensive long-term consultants.
One of LR Group’s secrets now out in the open is the company’s involvement in land grabs. through the sneaky land grab technique called “land leases”. Land leases allow the lessee, not the lessor, to make the big money, since there is almost never a profit-sharing clause for the landowner in a land lease. Even when there is, the lessor takes care to manipulate the accounts so that there’s always little to no profit shown coming from the business activities on that land, hence little to no profit sharing with the landowner. The corruption of land leases via the SABL process is what allowed foreigners to steal and export, tax- and royalty-free, hundreds of millions of kina worth of hardwood timber logs, the benefits of which are now lost forever to the true landowners.
LR Group likes African land. In 2012 it grabbed a 2,000 hectare Rivers Farm Village venture in collusion with a Nigerian state government. It also grabbed the Etche Agro Industrial Farm, in which LR Group coerced the local state government to put up 60% of the money. Another recent LR Group prize was the contract to revive the agro-industrial area of N'sele (DAIPN) in the Congo.
Examining LR Group’s recent agricultural deals, they seem to like the tired old strategy of taking land rights away from former landowners, then offering them low paying jobs in return, to slave away on their own land. If the landowners turn up their noses in anger, the company brings in labour from other parts of the country to take the jobs.
LR Group likes operating in the world’s most corrupt countries. They operate in Nigeria, with a TI corruption index rating of 25 (just like PNG), but majority activities are in Angola, which has a corruption rating of 23. The Congo where LR Group also rates is rated a lowly 22. All these countries are oil/gas/resource rich so there’s lots of money around just waiting to be stolen.
The company was involved in a series of arms deals in Angola. It sold the country artillery systems made by Elbit, and also partnered with IMI to sell mortar bombs and artillery shells that the government used in its war against Angolan rebels. A much larger deal was LR’s sale to Angola of eight U.S.-made Bell 212 helicopters that the IDF had taken out of service. Aside from selling Israeli equipment, the company also sold Angola two Sukhoi Su-27 fighter planes and radar systems from Ukraine. But after two to three years of intensive activity, the three founders decided to get out of the arms business and focus on civilian projects like setting up agricultural villages in Angola and elsewhere in Africa.”
At best, there are clear implications of a foreign agricultural contractor and colluding with African governments to acquire indigenous plantation land to facilitate the export of raw commodities as was written in the agreement between LR Group and the Cross River State government. At worst, there are deceptive precedents of former weapons trade companies using shell agricultural projects to facilitate weapons trade. As Haaretz writes:
Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department put Maj. Gen. (res.) Israel Zivon on its blacklist of people suspected of terror financing and money laundering, due to allegations that he illegally sold $150 million worth of arms to South Sudan during its civil war. The Americans say Ziv was arming both the government and the rebels while disguising his arms sales as agricultural projects. The farming project was instead used to cover up the sale of approximately US$150 million in weapons, including rifles, grenade launchers, and shoulder-fired rockets.
It should also be reminded that the Cross River State Government has a track record of participating in diversion and misappropriation of earmarked funds. And furthermore, behavior to obfuscate inquiry by citizens into these matters. As the NGO Global Voices writes:
“On July 17, 2019, Cross River journalist Agba Jalingo wrote a critical story about an alleged diversion of 500 million naira (about $1.4 million United States dollars) meant for the establishment of Cross River state Micro-Finance Bank. Jalingo stated that “eight months after the opening of the bank,” Ayade had failed to release the money meant for the start-up of the state-owned bank:
On August 14, the Cross River State Command of the Nigerian Police invited Jalingo for questioning on the allegation of “conspiracy to cause unrest and conduct likely to cause a breach of peace”: However, Jalingo was arrested in Lagos on August 22, four days before the scheduled date to honour the police invitation.”
After citing evidence of government mismanagement of public funds, Agba was charged with treason, terrorism, cultism, and public disturbance for protesting bad governance. He was accused of "undemocratically" attempting to "force the government of Ayade to end through violent means.”
Ayade’s government has shown a penchant for building several factories with state funds, coupled with private investors. As seen in the alleged chocolate factory implementing company, AA Universal Agro Industries Ltd, consists of 90% private ownership and 10% to the state. This is a potentially favorable arrangement to use the state powers as a means to secure private business opportunities that will remain in private hands even after the government tenure.
So while journalist Agba Jalingo was charged for treason by Cross River Government for calling attention to these inconsistencies, The Cross River Government struck a deal with a former Israeli weapons dealing company for the purchase of local indigenous land.
It may sound laudable to create local jobs with foreign partners on the surface. But instead of an ultra-modern chocolate factory that was promised for all, we see that the agreement is actually to sell a 5,000-10,000 plantation land to former weapons supplier, in the process, taking land rights from local populations in return for low wages and export of raw materials. This is the classic example of what was experienced under colonialism in Africa. And one has to inquire, who really benefits from this deal in the end?
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