Obama To Announce Ebola Czar As Businesses, Senators Press for More!

Administrative sources confirmed that President Obama is expected to announce the appointment of a high-level coordinator to manage the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak during his forthcoming visit to Atlanta.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the President is visiting Atlanta, Georgia-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to receive a briefing from officials at the organization.

Obama will also discuss U.S. assistance to fight the Ebola virus and will thank the doctors, scientists and health care workers who have been engaged in the effort to stop its escalating spread. 

A stepped-up administration plan, which has been discussed by officials from across the executive branch for more than a month, received higher level attention this past week as the scope of the outbreak became more widely acknowledged – at least partly in response to pressure from private sector companies engaged in the most-affected countries and from members of Congress.

ArcelorMittal, a multinational steel manufacturing corporation headquartered in Luxembourg - which has profitable iron ore mining operations in Liberia - has been hosting telephone conferences for a number of weeks among dozens of global companies, mostly in mining, on an Ebola response. After internal discussions, the companies widened the dialogue to include health officials, such as World Health Organization Director Margaret Chan.

Last Monday, chief executives from 11 of the companies operating in the three most-affected countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, made an urgent appeal for the international community "to pool its resources and lend support" to fight Ebola.

"Our companies have made long term commitments to these countries and their people and we intend to honour these commitments," the executives said. "Despite the challenging environment, we are continuing where possible with normal operations, with the health and safety of our employees being the absolute priority at all times."

Riva Levinson, whose boutique Washington DC-based firm KRL International serves both government and corporate clients in west Africa, applauded the private sector efforts as "a valuable tool for mobilization of resources". She noted that the corporate consultations started before global health organizations and governments, with few exceptions, recognized the urgency of a large-scale response.

Businesses have been sharing information and pooling assets for the Ebola fight in a creative and coordinated way that other sectors should emulate, she said in an interview.

"Companies are inventorying their assets to deploy on the front line to support humanitarian and healthcare workers on a real-time emergency basis," she said. Their activities include grading roads, providing equipment, including generators, and contributing materials such as chlorine solutions.

"It's not going to turn the tide," Levinson said of the corporate effort, "but it's going to have an impact."

United States envoys in the three most-affected countries are now points of contact for the broader donor and in-country efforts. There are working groups led by company teams at the operational level in each of the countries, and in Liberia that coordination is managed by a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) from USAID.

Senators Call on Administration and Congress to Act

Speaking on the Senate floor on Thursday, Delaware Democrat Chris Coons, who heads the Foreign Relations Africa Subcommittee, called for the appointment of a coordinator, saying it is "critical" for the U.S. government to have "one leadership point". Coons appealed to the administration and members of Congress "to dramatically increase our support as communities across West Africa struggle to confront and combat Ebola."

Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy also addressed the Senate, decrying "the lack of urgency exhibited by much of the international community" and governments, "including our own." He paid tribute to "courageous public health workers who have risked their lives" and to the Liberian government for its efforts "in the face of woefully inadequate resources."

Leahy, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees appropriations for the State Department and other international activities and is the Senate's most senior member, said large budget cuts at the World Health Organization contributed to the slow response, with "ample blame to go around."

He said Ebola is "a public health issue, a moral issue, and one that should unite us all to do what is necessary to defeat this epidemic."

On the House side of the U.S. Congress a hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday by the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations to hear from the National Institutes of Health and other experts.

Culled

Did South Africa really rig Guinea’s elections?!

We know that the South African government takes a huge interest in African affairs. We know that South Africa’s diplomats move in the very highest corridors of continental power, and play a leading role in mediation and peace-building in some of the continent’s most trouble-prone areas. 

We know that South Africa considers itself to be the African superpower – politically, economically, diplomatically – and we know that it feels the weight of expectation that this label brings with it, and the responsibility to act accordingly.

But just how involved are we prepared to get? And what exactly are our motivations? On Friday, the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism published an extraordinary claim on the front page of the Mail & Guardian. 

It comes from a court in New York, where a mining company is fighting to regain lucrative exploration rights that were recently confiscated by Guinea’s new government. Their defence is that this new government had no authority to rescind its rights, because it was fraudulently elected – and that the South African Secret Service helped to rig the vote.

The mining group in question, BSG Resources, has a shady history itself in Guinea. In 2008 it was the beneficiary of an unusually generous deal with Guinea’s government (led then by the decrepit dictator Lassana Conte, who would die shortly afterwards, leaving his country in a dangerous, violent limbo from which it is still recovering).

Even in an industry renowned for corruption and exploitation, this deal was especially toxic. It covered the rich iron ore deposits in the remote but picturesque Simandou Mountains, but BSGR had no previous experience in iron ore. The blocks apportioned to Simandou had been owned by mining giant Rio Tinto, who was none too happy at their sudden appropriation. BSGR’s efforts to develop the blocks were half-hearted at best, their true motive evident when it sold a 50% stake in its Guinean business to another mining giant, Vale, for an astonishing $2.5 billion – a huge sum, very little of which was intended to find its way back into Guinea.

And then, of course, there were allegations of corruption, which are being contested yet again in the court in New York. The new authorities in Guinea – led by President Alpha Conde – have already found that BSRG’s contract was obtained illegally, through bribing officials with bags of cash and diamond-encrusted watches, and has revoked it.

But BSRG are claiming that President Conde should never have come to power in the first place. It has named several well-known South Africans as defence witnesses to prove that, in fact, the 2010 election was fixed with the help of the South African Secret Service and several South African companies. 

These include former President Kgalema Motlanthe; former Cabinet Minister and multi-millionaire Tokyo Sexwale; and former intelligence sector bosses Moe Shaik and Gibson Njenje (good luck getting that lot into a court room). BSRG argues that this was designed to secure access to Guinea’s lucrative mining assets for the companies involved.

What to make of these allegations? Of course, BSRG is hardly an impartial observer. It has lost billions in potential revenue, and is fighting desperately to get it back (or, at the very least, to improve its tarnished reputation). And, as yet, they have offered no evidence to back up their claims.

“Although some aspects of this tale are anchored in reality, amaBhungane has been unable to substantiate the central claim of [South African Secret Service]-sponsored electoral rigging,” concluded Craig McKune and Stefaans Brummer, the authors of the amaBhungane story.

Nonetheless, given South Africa’s track record on the continent, it’s hard to dismiss the allegations entirely.

For one thing, several intelligence sources have told the Daily Maverick that South Africa’s involvement in specific African contexts is much more widespread, and often more direct, than is publicly admitted. 

The lid on this secret world was lifted briefly in March last year, when 14 South African soldiers died in heavy fighting in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. 

Most people didn’t know that South African soldiers were there in the first place; those that did thought they were merely on a training mission. It later emerged that they were actually there to protect President Francois Bozize, playing an active role in the conflict – all without parliamentary approval or oversight.

For another, this is not the first time that South Africa has been accused of acting for its own commercial benefit. In more good work, amaBhungane reported in May that South Africa’s military involvement in the CAR was entwined with a series of ANC-linked deals in that country. 

And in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where South Africa has sent over a thousand soldiers to assist a UN force, President Jacob Zuma’s businessman son Khulubuse Zuma just so happens to own two oil licences worth in the region of R100 billion. 

These, too, are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg – the entwining of commercial and political interests that characterizes domestic politics in South Africa is a model that is being exported on the continent as well.

We don’t know if South African spooks rigged Guinea’s elections in 2010, and we certainly hope they didn’t. But if that court in New York finds that there was some nefarious South African involvement – well, we wouldn’t be all that surprised.

Source: DM

AU Requests Lifting of Ebola Travel Bans!

The African Union has called on its member states to urgently lift all travel bans imposed on countries affected by the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

The AU has also called on member states to respect the principles of free movement and urged that any travel related measures should be in line with WHO and ICAO recommendations, which supports proper exit and entry screening procedures at airports, seaports and land crossings instead of travel bans and border closures.

According to a Foreign Ministry dispatch from Ethiopia, the AU at an emergency meeting of its Executive Council on the Ebola Virus Disease Outbreak held in Addis Ababa, Tuesday, September 8, 2014, also decided to take all necessary steps for the rapid establishment of an African Center for Disease Control.

AU encourages ongoing scientific researches on the use of serums and vaccines. The AU said it is also working closely with member states, international and national organizations, African partners with a view to mobilize adequate resources to respond to the EVD crisis in the spirit of African solidarity and approach.

The decision by the AU Executive Council followed earlier presentations made by the Foreign Ministers of the three worst Ebola affected countries of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

In his presentation, Liberia's Foreign Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan told African Foreign Ministers and Ministers of Health at the meeting that the continent runs the risk of creating a legacy of blanket stigmatization and unnecessary restrictions based on the action of some member states against countries currently affected by the Ebola Virus Disease.

Minister Ngafuan said the action by these member states, if not urgently reconsidered would be tantamount to "unwittingly writing a dangerous prescription for how countries on our continent should be treated whenever they get afflicted with any public health challenge in the future.

"It is this grim possibility that we all, as African nations, must avoid by revisiting all measures that are not consistent with expert advice but only fly in the face of African solidarity and integration," the Liberian Foreign Minister stressed amidst applause from the delegates at the well-attended meeting.

He called on members of the Executive Council not to allow what he called hysteria and paranoia to underpin reactions to this Ebola outbreak.

"What is even more heart-rending and ironical is that no country in Europe, Asia, the Americas, or elsewhere has done to us what some of our fellow African countries have done to us", Foreign Minister Ngafuan passionately noted.

He lifted praises to African countries and members of the international community including some African countries that have contributed cash and kind to assist our fight against Ebola.

"Among African countries deserving special mention are the Federal Republic of Nigeria for committing US$500,000 to assist our fight; the Democratic Republic of Congo for recently deploying a six-member medical assessment team to Liberia in advance of the deployment of a larger group of medical experts to Liberia; the Republic of Ghana for committing to assist in airlifting critically needed humanitarian supplies to the worst affected countries; and the Kingdom of Morrocco for maintaining flights of its national carrier, the Royal Air Maroc, to and from Monrovia," he remarked in gratitude while also recognizing SN Brussels of Belgium.

Also speaking during the AU Executive Council meeting, the UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission of Africa Carlos Lopes called on African countries putting in place draconian measures that are not medically justified against Ebola affected to think of themselves being under the same measures in a not so distant future as the virus have the potential to spread.

He said Ebola can only be tackled through massive investment to address on an urgent basis the contributing factors to the outbreak. "Countries in the epicenter are over-stretched and they need the whole of Africa to put a stop to misinformation and a call for action for a substantial funding of the outbreak control measures", Mr. Lopes stated.

For her part, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma called on AU member nations to ensure Ebola does not spread to other countries, by implementing effective procedures to detect, isolate and treat those who may be infected and protect the rest of the populations from infections.

She at the same time called on member states to be careful not to introduce measures that place more averse social and economic impacts than the disease itself.

The AU Chairperson said the commission welcomes the work of the WHO to speed up efforts on treatments and vaccines to halt the spread of Ebola while calling on the scientific community and pharmaceutical companies on the continent, in the Diaspora and elsewhere to work together, even in the absence of a business case for developing treatment and a vaccine for Ebola.

Source: The News

Taraba State Acting Governor Shuned by Suntai At Abuja Airport!

Danbaba Suntai (Left) and his wife

Reports has it that the Danbaba Suntai, Taraba State Governor, over the weekend returned from a medical trip to the United Kingdom.

Suntai, who suffered injuries from a plane crash in 2012, recently went to London for a medical check following initial treatments received in Germany and the United States.

Arriving the Nnamdi Azikiwe's airport, Abuja, Suntai was received by a former Governor of the state, Rev. Jolly Nyame.

Also at the airport were Senator Emmanuel Bwacha, Minister of Niger Delta, Isiaku Darius and a former Deputy Governor, Alhaji Uba Maigari.

Speaking with journalists, Darius said "Tarabas State will heave a sigh of relief following the coming of the governor. "I am excited, he just addressed us and expressed joy to be back home and l will like to add that his health is a miracle,".

Taraba ex-governor Nyame said Suntai's mental alertness indicated that he was capable of taking over the affairs of the state.

"It is obvious that the governor can recognise everyone here which shows that he is mentally alert and lucid.

"He just addressed the press, but the last time, he didn't, which shows that he can take over as the governor," Nyame said.

News reported that Gov. Suntai was taken to the guest house of General T.Y Danjuma from the airport.

Sources reportedly disclosed that although he was at the airport, the state's acting Governor, Alhaji Garba Umar, could not meet with Suntai, because of what Suntai loyalists called his betrayal of their leader.

"You know, Umar, last Wednesday, led the state executive to mandate the Speaker of the state House of Assembly to set up a medical team that would declare Suntai incapacitated. So his presence at the airport was like a contradiction and so Suntai men blocked him."

Suntai, at the guest house, addressed the press, expressing gratitude to well wishers.

From observation, he looked stronger than the time he returned from the United States in August in 2013. The governor reportedly spent most of his day receiving visitors in the guest house.

Lagos Church Building Collapse, Truth Will Be Revealed Soon- T.B Joshua!

Ibrahim Farinloye, the Public Relations Officer of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), reportedly confirmed in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, that death toll from the collapsed building in Synagogue Church of All Nations, Ikotun, Lagos, on Sunday increased to 41, while people trapped in the building that had been rescued have also risen to 130 with varying degrees of injury.

Debris of the collapsed building

Information given to news men by Ibrahim Farinloye revealed that 80 percent of people rescued after a six-storey building guest house under construction belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations collapsed on Friday were women.

According to him, two female children, aged four and eight years, were among those rescued from the collapsed building.

He said the continued rescue exercise has increased the number of dead persons from 17 to 40.

It was gathered that after the collapse, members of the church were said to have at first prevented emergency officials from participating in the rescue, making it difficult to establish a toll for the dead and injured. But NEMA were allowed in on Saturday.

“We’re still working at the site,” Farinloye had said, adding he expected the clear-up would extend into today.

There was no immediate explanation for the collapse from the government.

Emergency services officials said the lower three floors of the building located in the large church compound had already been operating as a guest house, and it appeared construction work was underway to add three more floors.

However, the Senior Pastor of the church Temitope Joshua attributed the cause of the collapse to a mysterious helicopter flying repeatedly over the building.

Pastor T.B Joshua reportedly showed a three-minute video clip taken from CCTV cameras to journalists in Lagos on September 13, claiming the helicopter might have been responsible for the collapse of the six-storey guest house.

From the short video clip, a jet was observed to have hovered four times -11:30 am, 11:43 am, 11:45 am and 11:54 am -- before the building caved in.

After the fourth passage over the building, the structure collapsed at exactly 12:44 am.

He said from the video clip, the building might have been collapsed as a result of chemical substances poured on it.

Explaining after the clip, T.B Joshua said the building might have caved in as a result of a terrorist attack: "In a few weeks, the truth behind the collapsed building will be revealed. The last time the Boko Haram issue occurred, the press were against the church including the police but after some weeks, the truth behind the attack was revealed."

Joshua explained his reasons for being quiet initially as: "I do not want to put fear in the minds of Nigerians. We are still battling with the Ebola virus disease, and that was why I have decided to delay my comment till now."

He urged the Pressmen to analyse the video and come to their own conclusion as to what might have happened.

He further argued that building of such solid foundation would not have collapsed in the manner that the six-storey building came down.

Iragi Government Air Strike killed at least 31 civilians, including 24 kids on September 1- Human Right Watch!

Calls have been made for the Iragi government to investigate an airstrike that allegedly hit a school housing displaced people near Tikrit on September 1, 2014. 

Report says the attack killed at least 31 civilians, including 24 children, and wounded 41 others. According to three survivors, no fighters from the armed group Islamic State or other military objects were in or around the school at the time.

The attack occurred around 11:30 p.m. on September 1 on the Al-Alam Vocational High School for Industry in the Alwayi Al-Thawri neighborhood of Al-Alam, 18 kilometers northeast of the city of Tikrit. 

The area is under the control of Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS).

“Iraq’s allies in the fight against ISIS need to put pressure on Baghdad to stop this kind of violence,” said Fred Abrahams, special adviser. “ISIS is incredibly brutal, but that’s no excuse for what the Iraqi government is doing.” 

Information revealed by the Human Rights watch revealed that on September 13, new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the Iraqi Air Force to “halt shelling of civilian areas even in those towns controlled by ISIS.” 

The unprecedented order could help minimize civilian casualties but accountability for past unlawful attacks is still needed, Human Rights Watch said.

The three survivors and a local resident told Human Rights Watch that they heard an aircraft, most likely a helicopter, fly over the area shortly before midnight, followed by a large explosion at the school. The unidentified munition hit the school courtyard, where dozens of displaced people from Tikrit had gathered.

Based on a list reportedly provided by one of the survivors, the attack killed six men, eight women, and 24 children. Thirty-two people died immediately and six died later from their wounds, the survivor said. Fifteen of the 41 wounded were children.

The member of parliament from Al-Alam, Ashwaq al-Jabouri, said that 31 people died in the attack and 11 were wounded. She called on the presidency of the Iraqi parliament to investigate.

The Iraqi government told Human Rights Watch on September 13 that the pilot involved had targeted a car that the military thought was transporting Islamic State fighters. The car drove near the school and was apparently carrying explosives when the missile struck it, causing an explosion that was “far larger than normal,” the government said.

The three survivors, interviewed by phone, told Human Rights Watch that about 70 people from the extended Jurefat family had been living in the school for about two months prior to the attack. The group had fled Tikrit when the Islamic State took that city in late June. 

ISIS seized control of Al-Alam on June 23 after townspeople fought them for two weeks.

“There was no ISIS in the school,” one of the survivors said. “We’re all tribesmen and according to our traditions we don’t let strangers sit with our families.”
Islamic State fighters were in the Al-Alam area and the Alwayi Al-Thawri neighborhood, including at times in a police station 250 meters west of the school, two of the survivors and two local residents said. But the three survivors Human Rights Watch interviewed said there were no fighters or military equipment in or around the school at the time of the attack.

Two of the survivors and one neighborhood resident said Islamic State fighters had fired at an Iraqi government aircraft flying over the town at about 6 p.m. on September 1, approximately five hours before the attack on the school. There was no fighting in the area after that, they said.

The Iraqi military has carried out multiple attacks in Tikrit and nearby areas in its fight against Islamic State. One man who fled Tikrit told Human Rights Watch that a government airstrike on August 27 hit a home where his family and eight others, all from the extended Albu Nassir family, were staying in the village of Samra, eight kilometers north of Al-Alam. The attack killed six members of the man’s family, including two children and two pregnant women, and wounded 20 other people, he said.

In July, Human Rights Watch documented 17 Iraqi airstrikes that killed at least 75 civilians and wounded hundreds of others, including six attacks with barrel bombs. The attacks took place in Fallujah, Beiji, Mosul, Tikrit, and al-Sherqat.

The attacks revealed a pattern of aerial bombardments in residential areas by government forces using helicopters, jets, and other aircraft. The attacks hit areas around mosques, government buildings, hospitals, and power and water stations.

Accounts of the September 1, 2014 Al-Alam Attack 
One survivor of the Al-Alam school attack said he was spared because he was near the bathrooms when the munition hit the courtyard:

Suddenly we saw a huge flame that struck. I was near the bathrooms. There was a lot of flying shrapnel. When I ran toward the flame I found my family killed and wounded. I lost four of my relatives, three of my children, and my wife.

The man said he also lost his brother, nephew, and niece.

Another survivor said he heard what he thought was a helicopter about 11:30 p.m. and then saw a huge explosion in the school courtyard:

I lost my father, brother, and sister, and my mother was severely wounded, which led to the amputation of her left leg. My cousin is still in intensive care. My wife endured two operations. Fourteen members of our family are severely wounded and 15 lightly wounded.

The man had shrapnel injuries in his legs and back and was evacuated first to Hawija and then to Kirkuk, both nearby cities, for treatment.

A third survivor, who was also wounded, said the men were sitting apart from the women and children in the courtyard when the munition struck. He lost his wife, two sons, a daughter, a sister, and a nephew. Five members of his family were wounded, including his son Yazin, who was six months old. “There was no fighting at all before the attack,” he said.

Two men who live near the school said they heard the attack at about 11:30 that night and quickly went to the school. One of them said that when he got there he saw Islamic State fighters keeping civilians away from the school and evacuating the wounded. “I saw no wounded or killed ISIS fighters,” he said.

The man said that he had seen ISIS fighters shooting at an Iraqi plane in his neighborhood at about 6 p.m. A few minutes later a drone flew over the area but the fighters did not shoot at it, he said.

One of the survivors said that the morning after the attack, relatives of those killed traveled in a convoy of minivans to a nearby cemetery to bury the dead. As they approached the cemetery at around noon, a munition fired from a plane struck the ground about 100 meters in front of them in what he believed to be an attack on the funeral gathering. No one was wounded.

The survivor and a local resident who accompanied the group said the relatives sought shelter in a nearby house and then took the bodies to the cemetery one by one for burial.

As of September 10, 13 of the wounded survivors were receiving medical treatment in Kirkuk, one of the survivors said. He claimed that Kurdish authorities controlling the city, fearful of the influx of Arabs from areas held by Islamic State, were not letting him into the city to see his injured relatives. When his son died in the hospital on September 8, he had to get the body at a checkpoint, he said.

Eni Chief Under Investigation By Over Nigerian Oil Deal!

Four months after he took the helm at Italy's biggest listed company, Eni SpA chief Claudio Descalzi has been placed under investigation over alleged corruption relating to a big Nigerian oil deal. 

According to report, Milan prosecutors opened a probe earlier this year and have now widened the net to include Descalzi, in a case relating to a $1.09 billion acquisition of Nigeria's OPL-245 offshore oil block in 2011.

It was gathered that Eni confirmed Descalzi was being investigated after a report in Italian daily Corriere della Sera said he was being probed over the Nigeria deal.

The statement said "Eni is cooperating with the Milan prosecutor's office and is confident that the correctness of its actions will emerge during the course of the investigation,".

Descalzi could not immediately be reached for comment.

A long-standing executive at Eni and former head of its core exploration and production division, Descalzi took over in May from Paolo Scaroni, himself under investigation for alleged corruption in Algeria, although the company said in January it had found no evidence of illegal conduct by the group in relation to the north African country.

Eni said its Operations and Technology Officer Roberto Casula was also being probed. 

Court sources told Reuters on Thursday that Scaroni was also under investigation in the Nigerian case. However, Scaroni and Casula could not immediately be reached for comment.

Milan brokerage Akros noted Eni had been involved in a similar case in Nigeria in 2009, when it paid around $400 million to settle the dispute.

"We believe that the potential negative impact on Eni may be worth 500 million euros or around 1 percent of the current market capitalisation," it said in a note.

At 1436 GMT shares in Eni, Italy's biggest company by stock market value, were down about 2 percent, under-performing the European oil and gas sector stocks index, with traders citing concerns about the investigation.

IN DISPUTE

Ownership of the OPL 245 field has been in dispute for more than a decade.

Former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete awarded the block in 1998 for $20 million to Malabu Oil and Gas, a company in which he was a leading shareholder. Malabu however only ever paid $2 million for the stake, in 1999.

The field was eventually sold on to Eni and Shell in 2011 for a total of $1.3 billion, including a signature bonus of around $207 million.

Malabu received around $1.09 billion from the sale, while the Nigerian government kept the rest, a British court document has shown.

Campaigners for greater transparency in political and business dealings, who asked Britain to look into the matter, allege Shell and Eni used the Nigerian government as a go-between to obscure the fact they were dealing with Etete.

Eni, the biggest foreign oil and gas producer in Africa, has always said it dealt exclusively with the government of Nigeria and Shell over the acquisition.

Elsewhere Ebeka Obi, a Nigerian intermediary for Etete, has brought a court case in Britain against Malabu for unpaid fees relating to what he says was his help in brokering the Shell-Eni deal.

A judicial source on Thursday said the London court had seized Malabu funds worth $83 million. This follows the seizure of $110 million from a Malabu account in Switzerland a few months ago, the source said.

Descalzi, who was head of the group's exploration and production (E&P) unit at the time of the Nigerian deal, was appointed chief executive of Eni in May.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi came to office in February pledging to clean up Italian business and introduce ethics rules at publicly-controlled companies, aiming to eject directors found guilty of financial crimes.

But shareholders at many of Italy's big state-controlled companies, including Eni, threw out the proposals by voting against their inclusion in company bylaws.

OPL 245 could contain up to 9.23 billion barrels of crude oil, more than enough to keep China running for two and a half years.

Eni has operated in Nigeria since the early 1960s and the country accounted for around 8 percent of its total output last year. Chronic oil pipe sabotage in the country has recently affected the group's hydrocarbon production in the country.