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

Elections hold key to elusive Mozambique peace deal

Aside from Mozambique’s upcoming October elections, both the government and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) have announced that they have made significant progresses in peace talks and are close to reaching a deal. Government spokesman, Gabriel Muthisse said both sides have made concessions on the main points of disagreements.

Negotiators have been pursuing common grounds on issues including the integration of Renamo men in the army and the withdrawal of the army's soldiers near Gorongosa. One of four Renamo spokesmen, Saimone Macuiana, who leads the Renamo delegation in talks with the government, had said that they will soon be able to publish the terms of reference for international observers who will oversee disarmament and a ceasefire.

Bishop Dinis Sengulane, one of the mediators of the talks and who was in London last week, has told Mozambique Politics & Security that this should happen on time to allow RENAMO leader, Afonso Dhlakama, to campaign for elections. He has also hinted that some of the outstanding issues may have to wait until after the elections.

Sources say that Dhlakama is expected to return to Maputo to launch his presidential campaign sometime in August. As for a possible meeting between Dhlakama and President Guebuza, the Renamo leader says that the detention of his spokesman Antonio Muchanga has made him reconsider that possibility. According to him, Guebuza has invited him to Maputo to arrest or assassinate him.

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

© 2014 Menas Associates

RIGZONE - Bloomberg: Spain's Repsol Considering a Bid for Talisman Energy

RIGZONE - Bloomberg: Spain's Repsol Considering a Bid for Talisman Energy

Azerbaijan: Baku hits back after UK minister's criticism

The Azeri Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement in response to recent comments by UK minister for Europe David Lidington on the sentencing of the civil society activist Hasan Huseynli to a six-year prison term on charges of “hooliganism”. Huseynli has headed the Gandja-based Intelligent Citizen NGO and repeatedly criticised human rights abuses in Azerbaijan.

His trial has drawn a barrage of criticisms from local civil society and international observers as well as from the US diplomatic mission. “In recent years the British embassy in Baku worked closely with Mr Huseynli on projects designed to promote social entrepreneurship and strengthen female participation in civil society,” Lidington said. “Mr Huseynli joins a growing number of civil society activists sentenced to lengthy prison terms. I again call on Azerbaijan to address concerns felt by many about the increasingly worrying trend of detentions and prison sentences which appear to be politically motivated.” 

The Azeri foreign ministry called this assessment “unwarranted interference in a sovereign state’s internal affairs” and added that Huseynli’s contributions to civil society development did not exempt him from responsibility for the criminal actions he has been indicted with. It advised Lidington to direct his efforts to the “improvement of the human rights situation” in his home country, instead of lecturing other countries on what they should or should not do.

This incident highlights Azerbaijan’s nearly allergic reaction to any sort of external criticism of its political system, which has been dominated since independence by the clan of the late president, Heydar Aliev. His son Ilham Aliev has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2003 and was re-elected to the presidency with 83% of the popular vote in October 2013. 

The Azeri-British relationship is unlikely to suffer any collateral damage. Britain’s new defence secretary Michael Fallon was in Baku earlier this month in his previous capacity of energy minister. During this trip he reiterated the obvious by saying that Azerbaijan remains a top foreign policy priority for the UK because of its tremendous gas reserves and their significance for the EU’s energy security. There is no better proof of the simple fact that no western country is willing to sacrifice its energy stakes in Azerbaijan for the sake of human rights concerns.

For more news and expert analysis about the Caspian region, please see Caspian Focus.

© 2014 Menas Associates

IOCs evacuate staff from Libya

Italian energy giant, ENI, has responded to the escalating violence in the capital by moving fifteen members of its staff out of Tripoli. The employees were moved to the offshore Bouri oilfield before being whisked away to Malta and onto Italy.

French company Total has also moved its staff out of the capital, getting them out of the country by road to Tunisia. The United Nations has also pulled its remaining staff out of the country. 

Following the abduction and beheading of a Filipino construction worker on 15 July, the Philippines government ordered its estimated 13,000 nationals in Libya to leave the country, instructing them to contact the embassy in Tripoli for instructions on "mass evacuation."

Yet how such evacuations are going to take place while the airport is out of action and with little prospect of its restarting operations any time soon is unclear. 

Although the airport at Zawara is preparing to take both domestic and international flights, it is still going to take several days before it is in a position to do so. It also still requires the agreement and support of the Ministry of Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority. More importantly there are still question marks over safety and insurance issues.  

Meanwhile there are growing fears about evacuation by road given that the confrontation has now spilled beyond the airport area and out to Janzour. 

For more news and expert analysis about Libya, please see Libya Focus and Libya 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

Cameroon: Anglophone secessionists to ratchet up tension in oil-rich South West Region

There are risks of a clash between government troops and supporters of the Anglophone secessionist Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) in the oil-rich South-West Region. The SCNC plans to hoist its flag to show its territorial autonomy and hold a national assembly on the side-lines of burying its late former chairman Ayamba Ette Ottun.

Under Ayamba the SCNC has witnessed an unprecedented split into several factions, mainly based on age, between the council’s older leaders and the more militant younger generation. The latter blame the former for having lost the thrust of the mission for outright independence of the Cameroon's two Anglophone regions: South-West and North-West. Their quest for Anglophone autonomy is based on claims that the country’s Francophone majority government and people marginalise them and treat them as second class citizens.

Ayamba's funeral will, however, be used as a reconciliatory platform for the SCNC's various domestic and expatriate factions A new and vibrant leader is expected to be elected by about 5,000 SCNC activists attending the national assembly in Mamfe. Menas Associates learnt during a visit to the South-West Region that the tussle for the leadership has been heating up but that Paul Abine Ayah is the name on most lips.

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

© 2014 Menas Associates