/ 28 March 1999

MILITARY CRONIES GET OIL CONCESSIONS

NIGERIA’S outgoing military rulers have allocated some of the country’s most sought-after oil prospecting blocks to local companies with alleged links to serving officers, the Financial Times reported on Friday. Citing associates of the president-elect Olusegun Obasanjo, the British newspaper said Obasanjo is ”quietly furious”. The 10 ultra-deepwater blocks were awarded two weeks ago in an area adjacent to where Royal Dutch Shell, Texaco, Statoil and Agip have each discovered hundreds of millions of barrels of crude, the FT said. The ownership of the local companies has not been made public. But they have been linked by oil industry officials to some retired and serving military officers, the newspaper said.