Cameroon: Boko Haram abducts wife of President Paul Biya's security icon

Sunday 27 July was a prodigious day in Cameroon after Boko Haram’s unprecedented and deadly attack upon the homes of two key Cameroonian politicians in the country’s Far-North Region. 

Besides partially exposing the country’s security weakness, the attack was also a pertinent reminder to the authorities in Yaoundé that Boko Haram is becoming increasingly ambitious, organised, and deadly. Ultimately, the attack that left 18 dead and saw a further 17 kidnapped, including the wife of Cameroon’s Vice Prime Minister, was an ominous warning to President Paul Biya’s government that it is in a battle against a tenacious enemy that is willing and able to use alternative tactics to strike Cameroon’s most senior politicians.

The attack took place in Kolofata, in the Far-North Region of Cameroon, home to the country’s Vice Prime Minister, Amadou Ali, and a prominent Muslim leader and critic of Boko Haram, Seini Boukar Lamine, who is also the town’s mayor. Eyewitnesses stated that the attackers arrived in a convoy of eight 4x4 pickups vehicles and several motorbikes. The militants precisely targeted the two politicians’ residences, firing a rocket-propelled grenade into Amadou Ali’s home before leaving with his wife as their prisoner. 

The attacks came on the fifth day of a running gun battle between Boko Haram and Cameroon soldiers in the north of the country. Cameroon has deployed more than a thousand soldiers along its border to help combat the Nigerian armed group, which last week launched a massive assault on the north-east Nigerian town of Damboa near the Cameroonian border, displacing more than 15,000 people. The group gained international notoriety after kidnapping more than 270 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria in April, but has been active in the country for more than 12 years.

There were very specific reasons for the attack and the kidnapping in Cameroon. For further detailed analysis on why Boko Haram targeted Amadou Ali - and on his pivotal role in Cameroon’s current and future political and security hierarchy – see Cameroon Politics & Security – 30.07.14  

Nigeria's President sounds out supporters for 2015 re-election bid

President Goodluck Jonathan won backing for a re-election bid from several People's Democratic Party (PDP) state governors and House of Representatives members at a meeting held at the Aso Rock presidential villa in Abuja in the week ending 19 July.

Insiders say Jonathan will officially declare his candidacy in late August, following the end of Ramadan and out of respect to Muslim members of the PDP. He also wants to pre-empt any rivals. His most likely opponent within the PDP for the nomination is Jigawa state’s governor Sule Lamido who has the backing of former president Olusegun Obasanjo (1999–2007).

Lamido, a quietly spoken former foreign minister, is scarcely more charismatic than Jonathan but the PDP’s northern caucus would find him more acceptable. If he mounts a serious campaign, with strong backing from PDP governors in the north, he could really damage Jonathan. This, however, requires courage and money and no one is certain about Lamido’s reserves of either commodity.

Despite this Jonathan may need to offer him a very important job if he is to be persuaded to cease and desist.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria or East Africa, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Nigeria 2014 growth to exceed 6% despite downwards revisions on previous years

Nigeria's recent rebasing of its GDP continues to lead to statistical adjustments. These include last week’s downwards revision of Nigeria’s 2013 GDP growth rate from 7% to 5.5%. The 2012 GDP growth has also been reduced to below 5% by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), although 2014 growth is still expected to exceed 6%.

While Nigeria is still operating from a massively increased GDP "base" level, such a change does raise concerns about future official growth rates and whether growth - quite aside from broader questions of "job creation" and increase in living standards - is being adequately assessed.

Nevertheless, the NBS projects that GDP growth in 2014 will be approximately 6.2%, based on a first quarter GDP growth rate of around this level. NBS director general Yemi Kale claims that Q1 growth is typically slower than growth for subsequent quarters.

Although growth in the oil and gas sector has been modest, optimism about growth in other sectors of the economy abounds. For example, the Renaissance Capital emerging markets bank has recently released a report entitled "Nigeria's GDP: Bigger but slower - Manufacturing is the engine of growth". It suggests that percentage manufacturing growth has been in double digits, with the Dangote-dominated and Lafarge target cement sector being a notable success story. Rencap also cites textiles as a major growth area, a significant development given the decimation of textile producers in West Africa, including in Ghana, because of foreign competition.

The attraction of the diversified Nigeria growth story is also illustrated by analyst observations that at least US$500 million of investment is planned to build a series of major shopping centres by or before 2016. South African banks, retail players, plus the UK’s CDC private equity spin-off Actis, are among the participants in a country with a significant "demographic dividend". South Africa's Shoprite Holdings, which operates a number of shopping centres or malls throughout Africa - including in Lagos' Ikeja district, Abuja and Accra - has just announced a 10.5% increase in its profits through to June 2014, and so interest is likely to continue.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Abuja shopping centre hit

An explosion hit a busy shopping centre in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on 25 June, and casualties are reported. The explosion hit the Wuse district, shattering windows and causing people to flee the shops with blood on their clothes. It is not yet clear what was behind the attack.

Although most of its targets have been in the northeast, Boko Haram has hit Abuja several times before, including an attack on the UN national headquarters in 2011. In April, more than 70 people were killed in a bomb blast at a bus stop on the outskirts of the capital in an attack claimed by the extremist group. In May, a car bomb near a bus station in the suburbs killed at least 19 people and injured 60 others.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria or East Africa, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Kenya's Eurobond success indicates improved appetite for African debt

Kenya has pushed ahead with its Eurobond while Nairobi's officials negotiated with their Nigerian counterparts on preferential pricing for oil and gas purchases. Market watchers are drawing attention to the parallels between Nigeria and Kenya in that they are politically important and dynamic economies facing growing security risks.

Kenya's Eurobond has gone ahead with outsized interest for the US$2 billion bond, apparently more than four-times over-subscribed. International investors seem prepared to accept yields of less than 6% for a five-year tranche and less than 7% for the ten-year tranche of the issuance. These rates were significantly below analyst expectations of 7.5% or more if Kenya were to raise as much as US$2 billion.

Eurobond issuances are less of a factor for Nigeria - which issued a US$1 billion Eurobond in May 2013 - than for smaller economies seeking to announce their impact on the capital markets. The low yields are, however, a notable indicator that - despite the US Federal Reserve tapering earlier this year - investor interest in emerging and frontier market (including African) debt is increasing which, in turn, may have implications for even non-sovereign African fundraising.

Africa may also be fortunate that the highest profile emerging market debt negotiations are currently in Argentina, as ruthless bondholder "vulture funds" circle. This continues the saga that once led to the 2012 impounding of an Argentinean navy training vessel at a Ghanaian port in 2012 following a pro-bondholder ruling by a US court.

Kenya, following Nigeria's lead, has also announced its revised GDP figures following its "rebasing" exercise. Its 20% revision increase is proportionally less than Nigeria's GDP rebasing announced earlier this year. The revised calculations of the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicates, however, that Kenya's 2009 GDP was US$37 billion rather than US$31 billion which implies that its current GDP is around US$50 billion. This is according to investor disclosures in its Eurobond prospectus.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Ghana: Mahama cancels visit to WEF in Abuja

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan has ordered a three-day lockdown of Abuja during the upcoming World Economic Forum.

This week, President John Mahama wrote a letter, in his capacity as ECOWAS chairman, to his Nigerian counterpart expressing deep sadness at the recent bomb attacks in Abuja as well as the abduction by Boko Haram of around 300 schoolgirls from Borno State. We have heard, however, that Mahama has cancelled his planned visit to the WEF in Abuja citing pressure of work in Accra.  A government spokesperson told Ghana Politics & Security that the country will instead be represented at the meeting by a range of officials and leading local business people.

The meeting in Abuja, themed Forging Inclusive Growth, Creating Jobs, is scheduled to take place from 7-9 May and will be attended by world leaders and business executives around the world, including President Mahama, the presidents of Rwanda, Senegal and Kenya, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

Jonathan has ordered officers and equipment to be deployed all over the city and its outskirts, and security has been increased at all strategic locations, entry and exit points, airports and highways. This is the result of Boko Haram’s recent attacks in Abuja. Last week, a car bomb exploded in the suburb of Nyanya, killing at least 19 people. In mid-April, there was an attack at a busy bus station in the same location which killed at least 75 people.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

US human rights report criticises both Boko Haram and Nigerian military

Neither the Boko Haram insurgency nor the government itself escaped lightly in the new Country Report on Human Rights practices for 2013 just published by the United States State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. 

Boko Haram - "which conducted killings, bombings, abduction and rape of women, and other attacks throughout the country, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries, and widespread destruction of property" - came in for first criticism. But the report gave over plenty of column inches for the security services, "which perpetrated extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, beatings, arbitrary detention, mistreatment of detainees, and destruction of property." 

President Goodluck Jonathan's pardon of former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who was convicted of money laundering in 2007, did not escape the attention of the report's authors. Indeed, the report was harshly critical of the small number of prosecutions against police abuse and official corruption. "Impunity remained widespread at all levels of government." The report also condemned the practice of "parading" arrestees: "Bystanders often hurled taunts, food, and other objects. Police defended this practice with the argument that public humiliation helped deter crime." 

It is a common practice. In the past week, reports appeared in the media of the parading of 13 suspected members of the "Supreme Eiye Confraternity", arrested in Lagos. In Cross Rivers State the commander of the NNS Victory arrested and paraded a dozen people who were allegedly transporting contraband worth millions of naira. While the arrests might win plaudits for the authorities, it looks like a clear violation of due process for the arrested persons whose names and photos appear in the media before they have come to trial. 

On a more positive note, the State Department researchers found that there were few reports of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) being used to harass political opponents of the ruling party. "Existing allegations tended to rise and fall with election cycles," the report dryly noted, leaving open the possibility that new accusations will appear as the 2015 elections approach. 

Other events were too recent to appear in the report. It said that "on 17 December a harmonized version of the 'Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill' passed the Senate." That bill, signed into law by President Jonathan in January 2014, triggered fresh round-ups of gays and lesbians and provoked international condemnation. It will be sure to feature more prominently in the 2014 report.

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Nigeria's celebrations disrupted by bombs

According to the latest reports from our sources in Nigeria, at least eight people have been killed in an explosion in the country's capital Abuja. Nigerian police have confirmed that the explosion was caused by car bombs outside the Justice Ministry.

Earlier in the day, militant group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) had issued a threat to target Nigeria's celebrations marking 50 years since independence from the UK.

In the message, Mend, who is demanding a fairer distribution of the country's oil revenues, said there was "nothing worth celebrating after 50 years of failure".

President Goodluck Jonathan, who was inspecting a guard of honour at the time, called the attack a "wicked act of desperation by criminals and murderers".

Most of Mend's leaders are observing a ceasefire and have already disassociated themselves from the attack, but a small faction within the group is discontented with the government's handling of an amnesty process in the Niger Delta. It is believed that this faction is behind the attack.

The two bombs went off about five minutes apart. Police said the bombs appeared timed to do most damage to those who responded to the first blast.

"There were more casualties at the second explosion because the first explosion drew crowds to the scene, which is close to the second explosion," said an unnamed intelligence officer.

President Jonathan is himself from the Niger Delta region and according to one senior rebel leader he is be the best person to solve the crisis in the Delta, as he understands its problems.

Source: BBC News

For more news and expert analysis about Nigeria, please see Nigeria Focus and Nigeria Politics & Security.