Islamists wield hidden hand in Sudan conflict, military sources say

Thousands of men who worked as intelligence operatives under former president Omar al-Bashir and have ties to his Islamist movement are fighting alongside the army in Sudan's war, three military sources and one intelligence source said, complicating efforts to end the bloodshed.

The army and a paramilitary force have been battling each other in Khartoum, Darfur and elsewhere for 10 weeks in Africa's third largest country by area, displacing 2.5 million people, causing a humanitarian crisis and threatening to destabilise the region. Reinforcements for either side could deepen the conflict.

The army has long denied accusations by its rivals in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that it depends on discredited loyalists of Bashir, an Islamist long shunned by the West, who was toppled during a popular uprising in 2019.

In response to a question from Reuters for this article, an army official said: "The Sudanese army has no relation with any political party or ideologue. It is a professional institution."

Yet the three military sources and an intelligence source said thousands of Islamists were battling alongside the army.

"Around 6,000 members of the intelligence agency joined the army several weeks before the conflict," said a military official familiar with the army's operations, speaking on condition on anonymity.

"They are fighting to save the country."

Former officials of the country's now-disbanded National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), a powerful institution composed mainly of Islamists, confirmed these numbers.

An Islamist resurgence in Sudan could complicate how regional powers deal with the army, hamper any move towards civilian rule and ultimately set the country, which once hosted al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, on a path for more internal conflict and international isolation.

Reuters spoke to 10 sources for this article, including military and intelligence sources and several Islamists.

In a development indicative of Islamist involvement, an Islamist fighter named Mohammed al-Fadl was killed this month in clashes between RSF forces and the army, said family members and Islamists. He had been fighting alongside the army, they said.

Ali Karti, secretary general of Sudan's main Islamic organisation, sent a statement of condolences for al-Fadl.

'OUR IDENTITY AND OUR RELIGION'

"We are fighting and supporting the army to protect our country from external intervention and keep our identity and our religion," said one Islamist fighting alongside the army.

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Bashir's former ruling National Congress Party said in a statement it had no ties to the fighting and only backed the army politically.

The army accused the RSF of promoting Islamists and former regime loyalists in their top ranks, a charge the RSF denied. Army chief Abdel Fattah Burhan, who analysts see as a non-ideological army man, has publicly dismissed claims that Islamists are helping his forces. "Where are they?" he cried out to cheering troops in a video posted in May.

The military, which under Bashir had many Islamist officers, has been a dominant force in Sudan for decades, staging coups, fighting internal wars and amassing economic holdings.

But following the overthrow of Bashir, Burhan developed good ties with states that have worked against Islamists in the region, notably the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Gulf states provided Khartoum with significant aid.

Nowadays, former NISS officers also help the military by collecting intelligence on its enemies in the latest conflict. The NISS was replaced by the General Intelligence Service (GIS) after Bashir was toppled, and stripped of its armed "operations" unit, according to a constitutional agreement.

Most of the men from that unit have sided with the army, but some former operations unit members and Islamists who served under Bashir entered the RSF, one army source and one intelligence source said.

"We are working in a very hard situation on the ground to back up the army, especially with information about RSF troops and their deployment," said a GIS official.

BASHIR-ERA VETERANS

The army outnumbers the RSF nationally, but analysts say it has little capacity for street fighting because it outsourced previous wars in remote regions to militias. Those militias include the "Janjaweed" that helped crush an insurgency in Darfur and later developed into the RSF.

Nimble RSF units have occupied large areas of Khartoum and this week took control of the main base of the Central Reserve Police, a force that the army had deployed in ground combat in the capital. They seized large amounts of weaponry.

But the army, which has depended mainly on air strikes and heavy artillery, could benefit from GIS intelligence gathering skills honed over decades as it tries to root out the RSF.

On June 7, fire engulfed the intelligence headquarters in a disputed area in central Khartoum. Both sides accused the other of attacking the building.

After Burhan and RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, carried out a coup in 2021 which derailed a transition to democracy, Hemedti said the move was a mistake and warned it would encourage Islamists to seek power.

Regional heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the UAE had seen Sudan's transition towards democracy as a way to counter Islamist influence in the region, which they consider a threat.

Publicly, the army has asserted its loyalty to the uprising that ousted Bashir in 2019.

But after the military staged a coup in 2021 that provoked a resurgence of mass street protests, it leaned on Bashir-era veterans to keep the country running. A taskforce that had been working to dismantle the former ruling system was disbanded.

Before the outbreak of violence, Bashir supporters had been lobbyingagainst a plan for a transition to elections under a civilian government. Disputes over the chain of command and the structure of the military under the plan triggered the fighting.

About a week after fighting broke out in April, a video on social media showed about a dozen former intelligence officials in army uniforms announcing themselves as reserve forces.

The footage could not be independently verified by Reuters.

Several senior Bashir loyalists walked free from prison in Bahri, across the Nile from central Khartoum, during a wider prison break amid fighting in late April. The circumstances of their release remain unclear. Bashir is in a military hospital.

Reuters

Shortly after his investiture as the new Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, proclaimed that he felt like a tiger ready to chase away criminals in the country. Despite the jeers he received from those who wondered if he has a multiple personality disorder, the man’s point is well-understood. It is that feeling of exhilaration that accompanies being imbued with administrative political powers. Besides, through both physical and metaphysical means, humans have always sought to extend the limits of their abilities by appropriating the attributes of animals. So, I will take him up on his metaphor to ask him what kind of tiger he plans to be in office: a paper tiger or Tiger Woods? Only one of those options has made a historical impact and Egbetokun must quickly clarify his choices to himself now that the duty to secure justice for another Nigerian over supposed blasphemy calls on him.

On Sunday, a mob accused and killed a butcher, Usman Buda. The unfortunate incident was eerily reminiscent of the lynching of Deborah Samuel in that same town just a year ago. Her vile murderers were so confident they put their own faces on video. The police responded to the attendant public outrage by arresting and charging two suspects, Bilyaminu Aliyu and Aminu Hukunci, to court. For a moment, it seemed justice would prevail and those who carry out such crimes would have their privilege undercut. Unfortunately, that never happened. Last month, Aliyu and Hukunci were freed because, according to court documents, the police prosecutors absconded from the trial.

Their cowardly retraction from confronting the fanatics that killed Samuel was worse. By starting what they could not finish, the police emboldened those who would kill again over such spuriousness. If Egbetokun’s immanent raging beast raring to go all out against those who diminish our citizenry wants to proclaim his tigritude, he should consider revisiting Samuel’s case. If Egbetokun does not want to end up as another tiger in a gilded cage that cannot bare its claws, he should stand up for Buda too. These two cases afford him a chance to stand up to the cowards who take lives cheaply because they have been nurtured to believe they can determine who should live or die.

If there is anything Buda’s case should teach the faux liberals who, in the wake of Samuel’s killing, urged us to “respect other people’s religious beliefs,” it is that one can never try enough to please those who have arrogated the power over one’s life to themselves. All it takes to kill you is their wanting to kill you. They will do it because they know that no law in Nigeria restrains them. Sorry, some laws proscribe lynching, but those who should enforce it will rather avoid it. To confront lynching incidents is to challenge the nation’s ideological fault lines cracked by the compounding of regional and religious identities.

You know how badly the police have been cowed when an alleged lawyer blackmailed them into arresting Mubarak Bala for his atheistic views and they capitulated. Imagine a world where a random guy with a law degree has the effrontery to petition the police and demand they clamp down on someone’s rights to freedom of thought and expression. The police not only ran this petitioner’s errand, but they also disobeyed the court order that mandated them to release Bala. Ideally, the police should have set the petitioner and his cohort straight by pointing out to them an atheist has the democratic right to proclaim his non-belief the same way they proclaim their beliefs, but no, they were too fearful of mob action.

Nigeria has had one too many instances of people taking religious offence and ascribing the power to mete out violence to themselves. These people have neither understanding nor respect for other people’s democratic freedoms. Nigeria, unfortunately, condones their barbarism. Those who try to downplay religious killings by pointing out that they are no different from the regular violence one can experience on the streets in Nigeria willfully forget that this crime is unique because of politics. Lynching in the name of God is a crime indulged by people in high places who cannot risk their political capital. We were all here when a presidential candidate who initially condemned the killing of Deborah eventually withdrew his sympathies. Some loose-nuts-and-bolts-in-the-head threatened they would not vote for him in the elections for daring to speak out against their barbarism, and he backtracked.

That pattern of refraining from the path of justice so as not to offend the voting mob has been consistent. Some religious and political agents who condemned the lynching of Buda could not just bring themselves to hit the nail on the right part of the head. For instance, Sokoto governor Ahmed Aliyu issued a press release where he asked the people to be calm and law-abiding. He said, “I want to call on the people of Sokoto State to avoid taking laws into their hands, instead, report any alleged crime or blasphemy to the appropriate quarters for necessary action. Our religion does not encourage taking laws into one’s hand, so let us try to be good followers of our religion.”

An Islamic rights advocacy group, the Muslim Rights Concern of Sokoto went as far as condemning the lynching of Buda but still upheld the erroneous idea that something called “blasphemy” is punishable. They said, “Islam does not allow people to do what they like or take laws into their hands as they deem fit. It is only the courts (Shariah and common law courts) that have powers to execute offenders after proving them guilty through fair trial.”

The question for both the governor and MURIC is the law under reference here. Which law are these maniacs taking into their dirty hands? They are sheer murderers, simple. By construing their crime as “taking the law into their hands,” you make it seem they have a legitimate grouse that only needed appropriate channelling. Look, the whole idea of blasphemy might have made sense in medieval times, but it has no basis to stand in our modern times. Some religious laws were designed for an era when people’s eyes were still on their knees, and they are no longer tenable in the 21st century. You cannot kill people because their (ir)religious views offend you. The best you can do is to obey religious laws for yourself as a private individual. For instance, if a butcher says things you consider a negation of what you believe, your freedom to respond accordingly could go as far as dissociation. While you are free to never buy meat from them forever, you cannot coerce their beliefs without violating their inalienable right to thought and expression.

Nigeria should have long taken charge against blasphemy accusations and the concomitant vigilantism. They should have disallowed even Sharia courts from pronouncing death sentences for it (or for any reason). These acts are unconstitutional, negate democratic tenets, and outrightly barbaric. They cannot stand. Those that killed Buda and others did not “take any law into their hands” because there is no law proscribing blasphemy anyone is constitutionally bound to obey.

If the IG is serious about displaying some savagery against Nigeria’s enemies, this is his opportunity. This case is his chance to inscribe the integrity of the law because it is about belief—not just in God or any supernatural being—but in Nigeria as a political entity. This is ultimately about belief in democracy, the rule of law, and the rights of citizenship which it grants. If those who killed Buda are—once again—allowed to get away with their crime, you would have legitimised their conflicting vision of the ruling order of the nation.

Punch

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed paper-thin solar cells that can be attached to any kind of surface to convert it into a power source. 

Thinner than human hair, these cells could be laminated onto various kinds of surfaces, such as the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea, onto tents and tarps that are deployed in disaster recovery operations, or onto the wings of drones to extend their flying range.

The findings were first published in the journal Small Methods in a paper co-authored by Vladimir Bulović, a professor of electrical engineering at MIT, Mayuran Saravanapavanantham, an electrical engineering and computer science graduate student at MIT, and Jeremiah Mwaura, a research scientist in the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics.

Scientists used electronic printable inks, using a technique similar to how designs are printed on t-shirts. As these thin solar cells are difficult to handle and can tear easily, scientists searched for a lightweight, flexible, and resilient material that could adhere to those solar cells. The fabric they chose was Dyneema Composite Fabric, a material known for its incredible strength. 

After printing the electrodes on a flat sheet of plastic, they glued the sheet of plastic on Dyneema. Lastly, they peeled away the fabric, which has picked up the electrodes, leaving a clean sheet of plastic behind. 

“While it might appear simpler to just print the solar cells directly on the fabric, this would limit the selection of possible fabrics or other receiving surfaces to the ones that are chemically and thermally compatible with all the processing steps needed to make the devices,” Saravanapavanantham told MIT News. “Our approach decouples the solar cell manufacturing from its final integration.”

Although the cells can only generate half the energy per unit area compared to traditional silicon panels, they can generate 18 times more power per kilogram, Fast Company reported.

During testing, the solar cells generated about 730 watts per kilogram of energy freestanding and about 370 watts per kilogram if deployed on Dyneema fabric. For reference, it would only add about 44 pounds to the roof to generate the same amount of power as an 8,000-watt traditional solar installation on a home in Massachusetts, as MIT News reported.

The scientists are aiming to make solar energy more accessible and portable to be used where traditional solar panels cannot instead of replacing them entirely. 

“My expectation would be that the format of these new cells should allow us to completely rethink how rapidly we can deploy solar cells, and how rapidly we can manufacture solar cells,” Bulović told Fast Company. “In the long run, we think this can be as rapid as printing a newspaper.” 

As the demand for clean and renewable energy grows, this technologycould revolutionize solar energy by making it more accessible. 

The Cool Down

When were you last lied to? To your knowledge, obviously. Was the lie something that mattered? Was the liar convincing? Did they confess, or did you find them out? And how did you react? Maybe with anger. Maybe with hurt bemusement. Or contempt – like my grandmother, who had a stock retort for anyone who tried to pull the wool over her eyes: “I hate liars. They’re worse than thieves.”

Did you feel, afterwards, that you’d been easy to fool? If so, you’d be in good company. It’s the norm to assume communication is honest – and that’s something to be thankful for, because we’d live in a miserable, suspicious world otherwise. Less helpfully, it’s common to assume that body language gives away dishonesty when it does arise. Liars look shifty, in the popular imagination. They cough before they speak, fidget and don’t look you in the eye. Unfortunately, none of these cues are very reliable.

People who convince themselves of their own truthfulness while being dishonest may act no differently to normal. The weight of empirical research shows it’s hard to identify even very purposeful liars from their behaviour. A meta-analysis from 2006, “Accuracy of Deception Judgments”, by social psychologist Charles F Bond of Texas Christian University and others, looked at more than 200 studies to find that people’s accuracy when distinguishing truth from lies isn’t much better than chance. A more recent review, 2019’s “Reading Lies: Nonverbal Communication and Deception”, led by Aldert Vrij of the University of Portsmouth, hammered home the point. People are mediocre judges of deception. This seems to be true generally, but the question of who we might find believable, and why, gets more complicated within certain relationship dynamics.

I once knew a woman, Julia, who by any measure was attractive and charming. She seemed a kind, sympathetic listener. She was generous with cake, hugs and praise. I loved her for all these things, yet I often felt guarded in her company for reasons I could neither put words to nor think about clearly. Her compliments were so warm one could feel dizzied. Within such a context, if she made improbable claims people tended to take them at face value. I know I did.

Her believability was filtered through a troubling pattern of behaviour. Sometimes she’d persuade me I had said things I didn’t remember saying. Other times she’d persuade me I’d imagined things she’d said. She would advise me on a practical problem – emphatically, in detail and with certainty, because she had a love of organisation – and I’d follow her guidance. Months later, she would express dismay at my choices and ask what had driven them. Over time my trust in my judgment eroded. If I was so very forgetful, I couldn’t rely on my own perceptions; I could barely feel them through a mental fog. She had the same effect on other people.

Within this fog, Julia said extreme things about people I knew – Cathy was mistreating a pet, Daniel was ripping off his mother, Pamela kept taking Julia’s belongings for use in a stalkerish shrine. I privileged Julia’s perception over my own, until I had distorted views of Cathy, Daniel and Pamela.

One day, the leopard ate my face. I learned Julia had been discussing my health with people. Under the pretext of concern, she’d claimed I had a range of illnesses, physical and mental, that I’ve never suffered from or matched criteria for. They included stigmatised conditions that people usually have strong reactions to. What she said was untrue. I asked a few of Julia’s other contacts if we could compare notes. We discovered Julia had set us against each other with a complicated web of falsehoods. Several relationships had broken down, extracting a painful toll from those involved.

The moment Julia realised we were on to her, she severed ties. She never explained her behaviour, nor could I tell whether she believed her own contradictory and false accounts in the moment of giving them. I have guesses, but I’m more interested in how the rest of us responded to her growing implausibility. As a rule, she was believed.

Anyone online these days is likely to have encountered the idea of gaslighting, or denying a shared reality, to manipulate someone into questioning their senses. The most effective gaslighters I’ve met also seemed more likely to be believed when they told common-or-garden lies, with one strategy supporting the other. After all, a gaslighter can isolate victims more effectively if their more basic lies are readily accepted by outsiders. Who the liar is – rather than what they’re saying – factors into their success, because humans are unfortunately prone to cognitive bias. Perceived credibility can be gendered and racialised. It’s also influenced by what psychologists call halo errors; we expect people to be truthful when we like them. Good looks, hospitality and generosity with compliments (at least to one’s face) are qualities that can buy undeserved leeway, without consciously being weighed in the balance.

Normal desire for connection can also muddy the waters. Take a situation such as friends sharing gossip. For the purposes of psychological research, gossip is often defined as unsubstantiated personal chat rather than as malicious activity per se. According to a recent review of evidence, “When and Why Does Gossip Increase Prosocial Behavior?”, led by Annika S Nieper of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, gossip can benefit your wider social group – provided the content is true. Anthropologists such as Robin Dunbar and Max Gluckman before him, have argued that gossip plays a part in forging social bonds. Sharing an inside scoop flatters the receiver because it implies trust, belonging or even, in whisper networks, the urge to protect. Such an exchange involves powerful feelings that serve a purpose when the whispers are accurate; but can be readily exploited by a liar. The flipside of heightened intimacy is lowered guards. Drama and mess can feel pleasurable, in a queasy way; it’s tempting to roll with a compelling story from a friend.

While I was writing my latest novel – a supernatural horror set in a 1920s hotel – I kept coming back to why we believe some people even as they make extraordinary, unsupportable claims. (Gothic fiction in general is littered with unreliable narrators, doubles and people not being quite what they seem.) The characters in my novel include a young woman who fakes clairvoyant visions to express socially unacceptable feelings, and a psychoanalyst who is skilled at “paltering”, or the use of factual statements to mislead. The ease with which the clairvoyant cons her audience inspires a little jealousy in the psychoanalyst, who bitterly comments that the audience must want to be deceived. In context, the line is meant to be an example of bad-faith victim-blaming. It’s also a stance that victims of deception can internalise; they may feel gullible to a fault once the lie comes to light, or even fear they had a vested interest in the ruse.

But rather than wanting to be deceived, there is a sadder explanation for extending the benefit of the doubt, at least in situations where warning signs can’t penetrate the fog. Freud wrote of disavowal: minimising a reality that we can’t tolerate. Some truths are painful and we protect ourselves from them by proceeding in a conflicted state of knowing and not-knowing. Julia was deeply familiar to me. I loved her, and valued the nurturing persona she cultivated. So, along with everyone else, I smiled at her exaggerations, while I pushed to the back of my mind her more disturbing capacity for damage. This is why, when I learned how she had misrepresented me, I felt something wordless I’d always known about her was finally in full view.

Being lied to can impair trust in several ways that outlast the original harm. First, and most obvious, is an ongoing suspicion that other people don’t mean what they say. This is both understandable and a distortion. Several studies show that telling one or two white lies a day is common, but the percentage of people who lie prolifically is estimated in single figures. Second, and more subtly, there is the disturbing knowledge that people in general, good people, struggle at lie detection. In a conflict, they cannot be relied upon to back an honest person over a liar. Third, you may lose confidence in your own judgment, and it has to be re-earned. The best course of action, it seems to me, is to attend to any sense of being divided against oneself. Confusing, wordless unease at the back of one’s mind should be pulled into the light as a matter of course.

A tricky balance must be struck between the kind of dignity my grandmother once showed – when telling a liar to sling his hook – and faith in humanity, because the desire not to be fooled again can go badly astray. There’s a comforting simplicity to viewing everyone sceptically: a liar won’t get through and no one else will, either. What helps me is knowing how very much better my life has been without Julia in it. Outside her influence, optimism is easier, which includes realising most people are honest – and deserve to be met as such.

The Guardian, UK

The 2023 general elections did not ensure a well-run transparent, and inclusive democratic process as assured by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) has said. 

The EU EOM noted that shortcomings in the law and electoral administration hindered the conduct of well-run and inclusive elections and damaged trust in INEC.

In its final report released on Tuesday in Abuja, the EU EOM said public confidence and trust in INEC were severely damaged during the presidential poll and were not restored in state-level elections, leading civil society to call for an independent audit of the entire process.

“The widely welcomed Electoral Act 2022 (the 2022 Act) introduced measures aimed at building stakeholder trust. However, the Act’s first test in a general election revealed crucial gaps in terms of INEC’s accountability and transparency, proved to be insufficiently elaborated, and lacked clear provisions for timely and efficient implementation.

“Weak points include a lack of INEC independent structures and capacities to enforce sanctions for electoral offences and breaches of campaign finance rules.

“Furthermore, the presidential selection of INEC leadership at the federal and state level leaves the electoral institution vulnerable to the perception of partiality. Closer to the polls some started to doubt INEC’s administrative and operational efficiency and in-house capacity. Public confidence gradually decreased and was severely damaged on 25 February due to its operational failures and lack of transparency.

“While some corrective measures introduced before the 18 March elections were effective, overall trust was not restored,” it said.

Addressing a press briefing in Abuja, Chief Observer, EU EOM, Barry Andrews, noted that his team carried out its work between 11 January and 11 April on the invitation of INEC.

The EU EOM offered 23 recommendations for consideration by the Nigerian authorities that would contribute to the improvement of future elections.

Andrews said: “We are particularly concerned about the need for reform in six areas which we have identified as priority recommendations, and we believe, if implemented, could contribute to improvements for the conduct of elections.”

The six priority recommendations point to the need to; remove ambiguities in the law; establish a publicly accountable selection process for INEC members; ensure real-time publication of and access to election results; provide greater protection for media practitioners; address discrimination against women in political life, and; impunity regarding electoral offenses.

Reacting, INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, who spoke to journalists after the presentation said: “We are going to harmonise all the reports by international observers that have been presented and we are going to look at the reports holistically.

“From the report presented, the EU made mention of the fact that there have been significant improvements in our electoral process and there have been so many positives to this particular election.

“One of the positives is that we registered over 93 million Nigerians during this election. Not only that if you look at the reports submitted by international observers, in terms of voters accreditation, the BVAS performed optimally.”

Okoye, however, admitted that there were challenges, promising that recommendations from international observers would be worked on and implemented.

Daily Trust

Nigerian banks are heading for their best quarterly performance in six years as a return to more conventional economic policies and a sharp devaluationof the naira are expected to boost profits in the West African nation. 

Banking stocks are up 34% this quarter and headed for the best quarterly performance since 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The NGX10 index, which tracks the performance of the lenders on the Nigerian Exchange, is up 45% so far this year, extending its gain to 54% in the last 52 weeks. That compares with a 2.3% loss on the MSCI Emerging Markets Europe, Middle East and Africa Index over the same period. 

Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) shows that the currency in circulation (CIC) reached a year high of N2.5 trillion in May 2023, up by 7.4% from N2.3 trillion in January 2023.

The CIC comprises the currency outside the banking system and the vault cash of banks.

According to the data, currency in circulation rose from N2.3 trillion to N2.5 trillion, the highest recorded in 2023, and since the Supreme Court reversed a CBN policy on new naira notes.

Meanwhile, currency outside banks also rose to N2.1 trillion in May from N2 trillion at the end of April 2023.

The spate of rise in currency in circulation suggests the country is gradually going back to trends recorded in 2022 when the currency in circulation grew month and month, climaxing to about N3.3 trillion in May 2022.

Between February when the currency in circulation was around N982 billion and May this year, it has risen by 50%, the fastest we have seen in recent years.

Daily Trust

Nigerian authorities have reported a new oil spill at a Shell facility in the Niger Delta, which they say has contaminated farmland and a river, disrupting livelihoods in fishing and farming communities.

The spill came from the Trans-Niger Pipeline operated by the British multinational oil and gas company, which runs through communities in the Eleme area of Ogoni land in Rivers State, the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) told Associated Press.

It was detected on June 11 and lasted for more than a week before bursting into the Okulu River, which connects to other rivers and eventually empties into the Atlantic Ocean, according to the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria), an NGO that monitors spills in the Niger Delta.

Authorities in the West African country are investigating the cause of the spill in order to determine the volume of oil leaked, which is currently unknown.

The YEAC said a team comprising NOSDRA and local community representatives was at the site on Monday to gather information, analyze data, examine physical evidence, and determine the causes of the leak.

Shell has faced decades-long local pushback to its oil explorations in the Niger Delta, with numerous legal disputes regarding oil spills.

Earlier this year, more than 11,000 people and 17 institutions in Nigeria’s oil-producing state’s Ogale community sued the company for allegedly disrupting their livelihoods through pollution caused by spills.

The London-based energy giant attributes the majority of the spills to pipeline sabotage and illicit extraction of crude oil.

Climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, Thandile Chinyavanhu, said the recent spillage further damages Shell’s reputation in Africa’s largest economy.

“Shell must be held accountable and financially responsible for this spill and for its neocolonial role in causing climate loss and damage,” she said.

The oil company has “money to pay, after reporting $40 billion in profits last year,” Chinyavanhu added.

Last month, the UK Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by two Nigerians against two Shell subsidiaries over a 2011 offshore oil spill in which the claimants had argued that the consequences of the pollution constituted a “continuing nuisance.” The judges rejected the claimants’ submission, stating the leak “was a one-off event or an isolated escape.”

Russia Today

Despite the curfew imposed by Plateau State Government to curb insecurity in the Mangu Local Government Area, gunmen, on Monday, killed five persons during an attack on the Sohon Kerang community in the the local government area.

It was gathered that the suspects, after perpetrating the crime between 5pm and 8pm, fled into the bush.

It was learnt that the attack occurred after gunmen, in a similar manner, attacked neighbouring communities last week and reportedly killed several persons.

Speaking with our correspondent on Tuesday, a resident of the community, Joseph Kabir, said the slain victims included a yet-to-be-identified man and his wife, adding that all the victims were given a mass burial a day after the attack.

Kabir said, “I can confirm to you that five people including a man and his wife were killed by terrorists between 5pm to 8pm on Monday, June 26, 2023, in the Sohon Kerang community of the Kerang District, Mangu Local Government Area.

“We thought that with the declaration of curfew by the government, security agents will be able to stop the terrorists from killing innocent residents. But the gunmen came to the community which is behind the SWAN Water Company Limited located around 5pm and started firing gunshots which killed the victims.

“They escaped into the bush after carrying out their evil acts. It was this morning that the corpses of the victims were discovered by residents who have been thrown into mourning. The victims were given a mass burial this morning.”

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Alabo Alfred, had yet to make a statement regarding the attack as of the time of filing this report.

Punch

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

NATO warns that Russian forces should not be underestimated and increases its readiness

NATO’s chief said Tuesday that the power of Russia’s military shouldn't be underestimated following the weekend mutiny against it by Wagner Group mercenaries, and said the alliance has increased its readiness to confront Russia in recent days.

Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance may decide to further boost its strength and readiness to face Russia and its ally Belarus when NATO leaders meet in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on July 11-12.

”So, no misunderstanding and no room for misunderstanding in Moscow or Minsk about our ability to defend our allies against any potential threat," Stoltenberg said.

At a meeting in The Hague of eight NATO leaders, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said that neighboring countries would face a heightened danger if the Wagner Group deploys its "serial killers” in Belarus.

Stoltenberg said it was still too early to draw any conclusions about what Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his forces might do or whether they all might end up in Belarus.

The leaders agreed that, given the short-lived revolt by Wagner fighters in Russia over the weekend, that the allies should continue to bolster their forces along NATO’s eastern flank to discourage Russian President Vladimir Putin from attempting to widen his war.

NATO responded to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by deploying multinational battle groups in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They complement another four deployed in 2017 in the three Baltic states and Poland, to expand NATO’s presence from the Baltics to the Black Sea. On Monday, Germany said that it stands ready to permanently base forces in Lithuania, if needed.

Rutte and Stoltenberg met with the presidents of Romania and Poland and leaders of Belgium, Norway, Albania and Lithuania at the Dutch leader's official residence in a leafy suburb of The Hague.

Earlier Tuesday, Russian authorities said they had closed a criminal investigation into the aborted armed rebellion led by Prigozhin and are pressing no charges against him or his troops.

The mutiny by Wagner Group forces lasted less than 24 hours, but formed the latest twist in a series of events that have brought the gravest threat to Putin’s grip on power in the 16-month-old war in Ukraine.

The war led Sweden and Finland to seek to join NATO. Finland has already become the alliance's latest member, but Sweden's membership is being held up by Turkey.

On Monday, Stoltenberg said he will call an urgent meeting in the coming days to try to overcome Turkish objections to Sweden joining the military organization in a last-ditch effort to have the Nordic country standing alongside the allies at the July summit in Lithuania.

NATO requires the unanimous approval of all members to expand. Turkey accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups that Ankara says pose a security threat, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.

** East Europe NATO allies say Wagner troops in Belarus spell trouble

Eastern European NATO countries on Tuesday warned that a move of Wagner's Russian mercenary troops to Belarus would create greater regional instability, but NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is ready to defend itself against any threat.

"If Wagner deploys its serial killers in Belarus, all neighbouring countries face even bigger danger of instability," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said after a meeting in The Hague with Stoltenberg and government leaders from six other NATO allies.

"This is really serious and very concerning, and we have to make very strong decisions. It requires a very, very tough answer of NATO," Polish President Andrzej Duda added.

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal negotiated by President Alexander Lukashenko that ended the mercenaries' mutiny in Russia on Saturday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wagner's fighters would be offered the choice of relocating there.

NATO's Stoltenberg said it was too early to say what this could mean for NATO allies, and stressed the increased defence of the alliance's eastern flank in recent years.

"We have sent a clear message to Moscow and Minsk that NATO is there to protect every ally, every inch of NATO territory," Stoltenberg said.

"We have already increased our military presence in the eastern part of the alliance and we will make further decisions to further strengthen our collective defence with more high-readiness forces and more capabilities at the upcoming summit."

Stoltenberg said the mutiny had shown that Putin's "illegal war" against Ukraine had deepened divisions in Russia.

"At the same time we must not underestimate Russia. So it's even more important that we continue to provide Ukraine with our support."

Poland's Duda said he hoped the threat posed by Wagner forces would be on the agenda at a summit of all 31 NATO members in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 11-12.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Putin says Wagner group fully financed by Russian government

The Russian government fully ensured the financing of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC), President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the Defense Ministry’s military personnel.

"I want to note and I want everyone to know that the financing of the entire Wagner group was fully ensured by the state," he said. "We fully financed this group from the Defense Ministry, from the state budget," Putin added.

From May 2022 to May 2023, the state alone allocated 86.2 bln rubles ($1 bln) to PMC Wagner in the form of salary to fighters and incentive rewards, the president noted. "Of that amount, remuneration equaled 70.38 bln [rubles], incentive rewards amounted to 15.87 bln [rubles], insurance payments totaled 110.17 bln [rubles]," he said.

Meanwhile, Wagner’s owner, the Concord company, received 80 bln rubles ($940 mln) from the state in one year for supplying food and providing food services to the army, Putin added. "The state fully ensured the financing [of Wagner], whereas a portion of that group, this Concord company, earned 80 bln rubles during the same period," he said. "Hopefully, nobody stole anything during these activities or, let’s say, stole less," he noted. "We will obviously look into all this," the president stressed.

** Russian forces repel seven Ukrainian attacks in Donetsk area over past day — top brass

Russian forces successfully repelled seven Ukrainian attacks in their active defense in the Donetsk area over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Tuesday.

"In the Donetsk direction, units of the southern battlegroup successfully repelled seven enemy attacks in their active defense. Operational/tactical and army aircraft, artillery and heavy flamethrower systems destroyed as many as 325 Ukrainian personnel, a tank, three infantry fighting vehicles and five motor vehicles," the spokesman said.

In the area of the settlement of Avdeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, an ammunition depot of the Ukrainian army’s 110th mechanized brigade was obliterated, the general reported.

Ukraine’s military continues offensive attempts in three directions

Ukrainian troops continue attempts to attack in three directions, Konashenkov reported.

"During the last 24-hour period, Ukrainian troops continued attempts to advance in the Krasny Liman, Donetsk and south Donetsk directions," the spokesman said.

Russian forces destroy Ukrainian ammo depot in Kupyansk area

Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian ammunition depot and over 30 enemy troops in the Kupyansk area over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"Near the settlement of Ogurtsovo in the Kharkov Region, an ammunition depot of the Ukrainian army’s 60th mechanized brigade was destroyed," the spokesman said.

In the Kupyansk direction, aircraft and artillery of Russia’s battlegroup West struck the enemy units in areas near the settlements of Krasnoye Pervoye, Sinkovka and Berestovoye in the Kharkov Region, Novosyolovskoye and Stelmakhovka in the Lugansk People’s Republic, the general specified.

"The enemy’s total losses in the past 24 hours amounted to over 30 Ukrainian personnel, two armored combat vehicles, two motor vehicles, a D-20 howitzer and a US-made AN/TPQ-36 counter-battery radar station," he said.

Russian forces eliminate over 100 Ukrainian troops in Krasny Liman area

Russian forces repulsed two Ukrainian attacks and eliminated over 100 enemy troops in the Krasny Liman area over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the Krasny Liman direction, two enemy attacks were successfully repulsed by skilled and coordinated actions of units from the battlegroup Center. Air strikes and artillery fire inflicted damage on units of the Ukrainian army’s 63rd and 67th mechanized brigades near the settlements of Chervonaya Dibrova and Chervonopopovka in the Lugansk People’s Republic and Serebryanka in the Donetsk People’s Republic. Also, the activity of two subversive and reconnaissance groups was thwarted near the settlement of Chervonaya Dibrova in the Lugansk People’s Republic," the spokesman said.

Russian forces destroyed over 100 Ukrainian personnel, four armored combat vehicles, three pickup trucks, a D-20 howitzer and a D-30 howitzer and two Gvozdika motorized artillery systems in that direction in the past 24 hours, the general reported.

Russian forces repel three Ukrainian attacks at Vremevka bulge in past day

Russian forces repelled three Ukrainian attacks at the Vremevka bulge in the Donetsk People’s Republic over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"At the Vremevka bulge in the south Donetsk direction, three enemy attacks were repelled by courageous and coordinated actions of units from the battlegroup East, air strikes, artillery and heavy flamethrower fires," the spokesman said.

Russian forces wipe out Ukrainian command post in DPR

Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian command post in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the area of the settlement of Avdeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a signal center of the Ukrainian army’s 110th mechanized brigade was destroyed. Near the settlement of Viyemka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a command post of the Ukrainian army’s 10th mountain assault brigade was eliminated," the spokesman said.

Russian forces destroy 115 Ukrainian troops, US-made Bradley vehicle in south Donetsk area

Russian forces destroyed roughly 115 Ukrainian troops and a US-made Bradley infantry combat vehicle in the south Donetsk area over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"The enemy’s total losses amounted to 115 Ukrainian personnel, five armored combat vehicles, including a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, three pickup trucks, a Msta-B howitzer and a D-20 howitzer," the spokesman said.

The activity of a Ukrainian subversive group was thwarted near the settlement of Rabotino in the Zaporozhye Region, the general reported.

Russian forces push back Ukrainian troops near Orekhov in Zaporozhye area

Russian forces pushed Ukrainian troops back to their positions near Orekhov in the Zaporozhye area over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the Orekhov tactical direction, Russian forces halted and pushed back a Ukrainian motorized infantry platoon conducting reconnaissance by fire as a result of damage inflicted on the enemy by firepower," the spokesman said.

Russian forces destroy 30 Ukrainian troops in Kherson area

Russian forces destroyed roughly 30 Ukrainian troops and a motorized artillery system in the Kherson area over the past day, Konashenkov reported.

"In the Kherson direction, as many as 30 Ukrainian personnel, three motor vehicles and an Akatsiya motorized artillery system were destroyed in the past 24 hours as a result of damage inflicted on the enemy by firepower," the spokesman said.

During the last 24-hour period, operational/tactical and army aircraft, missile troops and artillery of the Russian groupings of forces struck 89 Ukrainian artillery units at firing positions, manpower and military equipment in 112 areas, the general reported.

Russian air defenses intercept two US-made HIMARS rockets

Russian air defense forces intercepted two rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system and shot down six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the past day, he said.

"Air defense capabilities intercepted two rockets of the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system. In addition, they destroyed six Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the past 24 hours in areas near the settlements of Belogorovka and Verkhnekamenka in the Lugansk People’s Republic, Mirnoye and Pshenichnoye in the Zaporozhye Region," the spokesman said.

In all, the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed 444 Ukrainian warplanes, 240 helicopters, 4,804 unmanned aerial vehicles, 426 surface-to-air missile systems, 10,371 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,131 multiple rocket launchers, 5,246 field artillery guns and mortars and 11,213 special military motor vehicles since the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine, Konashenkov reported.

LA Times/Reuters/Tass