Hillary Clinton
In 2011 the UN headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria was hit by a massive
car bomb. The concrete structure’s first three floors collapsed, killing
21 and wounding 60.
Later, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram claimed responsibility
for the attack. As word spread of an American who survived the bombing,
many expected the U.S to step up its efforts to combat terrorists in
Nigeria.
But that’s not what happened, according to an explosive 5,000-word investigative report by Mindy Belz and J.C. Derrick in WORLD Magazine.
Bombing of UN bldg in Abuja, Nigeria
They allege that millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton
Foundation by Nigerian billionaires with oil interests in northern
Nigeria may have caused Secretary Clinton’s surprising disinterest in
combatting Boko Haram.
Strangely, the State Department never publicly disclosed the killing
of the American, Vernice Guthrie, on assignment with the UN Development
Program, according to WORLD.
“What followed the bombing were months stretching into years of
uncharacteristic foot-dragging by then-Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton,”
Interior of UN bldg
WORLD notes. Even though the U.S. intervened in Libya, Syria, and
other hot spots, “Clinton resisted the pleas of lawmakers and the
recommendations of both high-level officials and Pentagon brass to
designate Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under U.S.
law.”
One important reason for FTO designation is to provide financial
tools that allow the Department of Treasury and others to impede or halt
the flow of funding to terrorist organizations.
The State Department will not divulge documents pertaining to that
decision—and some documents may be lost due to Clinton’s questionable
use of a private server in the basement of her residence.
Could details pertaining to Nigeria be among the 30,000 emails
destroyed by Clinton’s lawyers that may reveal troubling conflicts of
interest between the Clinton Foundation and State Department
decision-making?
Belz and Derrick allege that certain Nigerian
businessmen—billionaires who donated money toward both Clintons’
presidential campaigns and the Clinton Foundation—stood to benefit in
seeing Boko Haram proliferate in northern Nigeria, where the oil fields
are located.
As Boko Haram drove out legal oil exploration from the North, they
provided cover – like organized criminal gangs – for illicit oil
activities worth billions of dollars.
In the five years since the Abuja U.N. bombing, Boko Haram developed
into the deadliest terrorist organization in the world, responsible for
killing 10,000 people last year. Most of the victims are Christians.
While Nigeria had no suicide bombings before 2011, last year it
endured 89. To date, the group’s attacks are responsible for displacing
more than 2 million people across Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, and
other states, according to WORLD.
If Washington had designated Boko Haram as a FTO earlier, the U.S.
could have provided greater military surveillance and financial tracking
to thwart the radical group’s progress.
Clinton took none of those steps, instead actually blocking sales of
U.S. helicopters to aid in counterterrorism. Such actions led some
Nigerian leaders to complain the U.S. government “aided and abetted”
Boko Haram, Belz and Derrick discovered.
At the time of the UN bombing the U.S. was involved in the
intervention in Libya, where a coalition ousted leader Muammar Qaddafi.
“As a result, arms and mercenaries were flowing across Africa from Libya
to (among other places) Nigeria, boosting groups like Boko Haram,”
they found.
The Pentagon, the Department of Justice, the CIA, the FBI, and
lawmakers in both parties were all in favor of designating Boko Haram as
a FTO, but the State Dept. remained the only holdout.
Clinton agreed with those who said Boko Haram was not a threat to
U.S. interests. “FTO critics said a terror designation needlessly would
raise the group’s profile. They claimed Boko Haram was not attacking
foreigners and not using international finance,” WORLD noted.
But evidence Belz and Derrick gathered from interviews—which included
Gen. Carter Ham, five former U.S. ambassadors in Africa, numerous
defense and intelligence experts, and Nigerian church leaders—plus State
documents undercut that thinking.
Moreover, the State Department designated at least five lesser-known
groups as terrorist organizations in the two years following the Abuja
U.N. bombing.
WORLD obtained evidence showing Boko Haram is making use of
sophisticated methods—including social media—to funnel illicit proceeds
from Western sources through European banks to northern Nigerian
charities that provide cash to militants.
While Secretary Clinton stalled efforts to combat Boko Haram, former
President Bill Clinton gave two of his three most lucrative overseas
speeches in Nigeria—earning $700,000 each in fees in 2011 and in 2012,
according to
Nduka Obaigbena with former Pres. Bill Clinton
WORLD. Hosting Clinton at both events was Nduka Obaigbena, a Nigerian media mogul.
“In 2013 the Clinton Foundation took in $140 million and spent only
$9 million on direct aid (under 7 percent). Tax-exempt charitable
organizations, according to the IRS, “must not be organized or operated
for the benefit of private interests,” yet over and over the
foundation’s donors look more like a list of influence-seekers and power
brokers in search of access to top government officials,” WORLD noted.
Charity Navigator dropped its assessment of the Clinton Foundation,
saying its “atypical business model can not be accurately captured in
our current rating methodology.”
Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel conducted more than 40 separate
investigations into Clinton Foundation programs, and told WORLD they are
“committing epic charity fraud.”
Nigerian oil tycoon Gilbert Chagoury was among the top supporters of the Clinton Foundation. Chagoury
Clinton with Gilbert Chagoury
donated between $1 million and $5 million to the foundation and in 2009 pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative.
Chagoury developed a reputation for corruption starting in the 1990s,
according to WORLD. Chagoury, an adviser to the late Nigerian military
dictator Sani Abacha, used his controlling interest in South Atlantic
Petroleum to siphon off millions in oil sales.
He and Abacha placed the money in overseas bank accounts, allegedly
helped by the head of Nigeria’s Petroleum Trust Fund, Muhammadu Buhari,
who has become the current president of Nigeria. Buhari, a northern
Fulani Muslim who failed in three previous
Clinton with Buhari
presidential bids, hired AKPD in Chicago, David Axelrod’s firm – to design his winning campaign strategy.
Incredibly, also involved in the nefarious oil dealings was Marc
Rich, the fugitive U.S. financier who bought up oil on the black market.
He was pardoned by President Bill Clinton on his last day in office.
(Rich died in 2013, still facing an indictment for tax evasion in the
U.S.)
Nigeria’s former top anti-corruption prosecutor alleges Chagoury
steered more than $4 billion in illicit oil revenues into bank accounts
in Switzerland and elsewhere, according to WORLD.
David Axelrod with Pres. Obama
Bill Clinton traveled with Chagoury on his first trip to Nigeria. In
2013 the two celebrated the opening of Eko Atlantic, a massive, $6
billion reclamation project on the Atlantic that Chagoury planned to
make into a financial hub with luxury high-rises and businesses modeled
after Dubai.
“As dredging and construction for Chagoury’s Eko Atlantic began—and
would continue for years—any international sanction like the FTO
designation was likely to dampen investors’ enthusiasm,” Belz alleges in
WORLD.
Artist’s rendition of plans for Eko Atlantic
In January, 2012, Boko Haram coordinated bombings at 23 separate
locations in the city of Kano, which killed more than 185
people—Africa’s worst terror attack since 1998, according to WORLD.
The Kano attacks presented one more overwhelming reason the U.S. should have designated the group a FTO, according to WORLD.
Many voice in Washington argued for FTO designation, but at the State Department, Secretary Clinton continued
Clinton at groundbreaking for Eko Atlantic
to resist it.
Meanwhile, Boko Haram often had better equipment than the Nigerian
military. “Very wealthy Muslim businessmen totally have been backing
Boko Haram. There was huge money involved. Money used to purchase
arms—it was crazy,” an American told WORLD who had worked in Nigeria for
many years.
“Where were the funds and support coming from? In part from a corrupt
oil industry and political leaders in the North acting as
quasi-warlords. But prominently in the mix are Nigerian billionaires
with criminal pasts—plus ties to Clinton political campaigns and the
Clinton Foundation,” WORLD charges.
Did some Clinton donors gain from the U.S. not taking action against Boko Haram?
Another powerful Nigerian with ties to the Clintons is Houston-based
Kase Lawal. The founder of CAMAC Energy, an oil exploration and energy
consortium, Lawal had a long history with Bill Clinton before becoming a
“bundler” for Hillary’s 2008 presidential bid and hosting a fundraiser
in his Houston home—a 15,264-square-foot mansion.
Lawal is a devout Muslim who began memorizing the Quran at three-years-old while attending an Islamic school.
Today the Houston oil exec tops the list of wealthiest Nigerians living in North America. His firm reports about
Kase Lawal
$2.5 billion in annual revenue, according to WORLD.
Over the last decade, Lawal faced charges in South Africa over an
illegal oil scheme along with charges in Nigeria of illegally pumping
and exporting 10 million barrels of oil.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lawal arranged a 2011 plot to
purchase 4 tons of gold from a rebel warlord, Bosco Ntaganda, who has
been linked to massacres and mass rapes. Ntaganda was on a U.S.
sanctions list, meaning anyone doing business with him could face up to
20 years in prison.
“Lawal contacted Clinton’s State Department, and authorities in Congo
released his plane and associates (involved) in the plot. He never
faced charges in the United States, and he remains a commissioner for
the Port Authority of Houston,” according to WORLD.
Lawal’s energy firm has held contracts in Nigeria for crude oil
lifting, or transferring oil from the ground to refineries. In previous
years, contracting for lifting has involved kickbacks, bribes, and
illegal activity.
These contracts often involve partnerships with the North’s past and
present governors, including those who serve as quasi-warlords with ties
to Boko Haram and other militants.
“Lawal’s enterprises have long been rumored to be involved in such
deals, as have indigenous oil concerns like Petro Energy and Oando,
Nigeria’s largest private oil and gas company, based in Lagos and headed
by Adewale Tinubu, another controversial Clinton donor.”
In 2014, Oando pledged 1.5 percent of that year’s pre-tax profits and
1 percent of future profits to a Clinton Global Initiative education
program.
In 2013 Bill Clinton stood alongside Adewale’s uncle, Bola Tinubu,
while attending the dedication of Eko Atlantic. Critics call Bola
Tinubu, leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress party, Nigeria’s
“looter in chief.”
In the U.S., where he studied and worked in the ’70s and ’80s, Tinubu
is still a suspect in connection with a Chicago heroin ring he
allegedly operated with his wife and three other family members. In 1993
Tinubu forfeited $460,000 to American authorities, who believe he
trafficked drugs and laundered the proceeds.
About the time of the Kano bombings, a lucrative new oil field opened
up in Nigeria’s North—in the Borno State area where Boko Haram has its
headquarters.
On the surface Boko Haram violence halted oil exploration in Nigeria,
with many government geologists and staff fleeing the region. WORLD
documented 85 separate terrorist attacks between 2011-2016 in the Lake
Chad Basin areas of Nigeria.
But Boko Haram’s attacks allowed illicit operators to pump oil from
Nigeria’s underground reserves, which found their way to Chad, according
to WORLD.
“The very terrorism that seems to be deterring oil exploration in
reality can help illicit extraction, forcing residents to flee and
giving cover to under-the-table oil traders. In 2015, a year when
overall oil prices dipped 6 percent, Lawal’s Erin Energy stock value
skyrocketed 295 percent—the best-performing oil and gas stock in the
United States.”
The more unstable an area is, the more illegal traders can control
supply and pricing. “Terrorism is the poor man’s weapon of mass
destruction. You want the land and what might be beneath, not the
people, so you kill them,” one oil analyst told WORLD.
Sadly, Christians are the primary victims of Boko Haram in Borno and
surrounding states. “Among 85 documented attacks in a five-year period,
Boko Haram killed at least 11 pastors and destroyed more than 15
churches. In all, Boko Haram and its affiliated militants have killed an
estimated 6,300 people and displaced 2 million in the Lake Chad Basin
area since 2011.”
“While it’s become increasingly clear that oil and corruption are
fueling Boko Haram, the full story will take a serious U.S.
investigation,” WORLD noted.
“There has not been an investigation that has had any positive
consequences,” Rep. Chris Smith told WORLD. He said he plans to convene a
hearing to find out why U.S. inattention persists: “It’s time to have
[some] people come up and testify.”
Hillary Clinton’s successor at the State Department, John Kerry,
finally approved the FTO designation for Boko Haram in November 2013,
but the U.S. has done little to impede the group since then, according
to WORLD.
Mindy Belz is senior editor of WORLD Magazine and the author of “They Say We Are Infidels“
J.C. Derrick is WORLD Magazine’s Washington Bureau chief. He
spent 10 years covering sports, higher education, and politics for the
Longview News-Journal and other newspapers in Texas before joining WORLD
in 2012.
For their complete story in WORLD, go here
Source: Godreports