Why the DHL is Better than the UPS and other Courier Services in Nigeria

Why the DHL is Better than the UPS and other Courier Services in Nigeria

I have been using the DHL and other local and international courier services in Nigeria for over twenty years and from experience the DHL has proved to be the best.
The DHL delivers on schedule without hitches and the customer service is first class in their customer relations. The DHL has very efficient and proficient staff and the receptionists are disciplined and polite.



The UPS has not been as efficient and proficient as the DHL in Nigeria. The reception at the UPS head office in Lagos lacks good customer relations. When I did not receive any notification of the delivery of the package I paid to be sent to the United States, I called the UPS desk clerk who collected it from me, but she has not responded till date and of course I have been disappointed and I am giving the UPS two thumbs down for poor customer relations.

The management of your customers will determine their response to your service.
If you fail to impress your customers, they will be turned off and go to other places where they would be well treated, efficiently and politely.

I cannot recommend the local courier service companies, because my company has lost very important packages we paid them to deliver and they could not give any good account of the whereabouts for over seven months. Most of them are not trustworthy.

Osama bin Laden Can Attack the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria

Monday morning in Lagos, the US warned of possible attacks on embassies in Nigeria. The red alert sent the Nigerian Armed Forces to the streets of Lagos and other major cities and towns in Nigeria, during the rush hours of Monday morning, but the Nigerian soldiers and mobile police officers soon returned to their normal duty posts before sunset.

It was the CNN that reported Sunday night that the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria had received threats of a possible attack on diplomatic missions in Lagos.

"As a result of this information, Nigerian police have heightened their vigilance along Walter Carrington Crescent and are monitoring traffic more closely," the CNN quoted the U.S. Consulate General. Then the embassy warned U.S. citizens in the capital Abuja, and Lagos, to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings in Africa's largest crude oil producer, and fifth largest exporter to the United States.

Osama bin Laden once mentioned Nigeria as one of the targets of his terrorist organization al-Qaeda.

The U.S.Consulate in Lagos is a sitting duck target for terrorists, because of the location near the Atlantic ocean and the lack of enough security. A refuse disposal truck could be used by dare-devil terrorists to attack the consulate from less than 100 meters. So Osama bin Laden can attack US targets in Nigeria as the al-Qaeda did in Kenya and Sudan.


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New Amnesty International Report Cites United States Mirroring Global Progress Toward Death Penalty Abolition

24 Mar 2009 01:00 Africa/Lagos

New Amnesty International Report Cites United States Mirroring Global Progress Toward Death Penalty Abolition

WASHINGTON, March 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Amnesty International (AI) reported today that the global trend toward eliminating capital punishment continued in 2008 and that "[t]here is increasing evidence that the United States itself is slowly turning away from the death penalty."


(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081014/AILOGO)


AI's new report, Death Sentences and Executions in 2008, which provides a global overview of the death penalty, found that only 25 out of the 59 countries that retain the death penalty executed in 2008. In the United States, only nine of the 36 states that retained the death penalty in 2008 actually carried out executions, and the vast majority of these executions took place in one region: the South. Texas accounted for, in essence, half (18 of 37) of the U.S. executions in 2008.


"Executions in the United States are increasingly a regionally isolated phenomenon. Elsewhere, concerns about cost, the possibility of executing the innocent and racial bias have led to a significant decline in support for capital punishment," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of AIUSA's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. On March 18, 2009, New Mexico became the 15th state to become death penalty-free as a result of these concerns. Currently Nebraska, New Hampshire, Colorado and Montana are considering a variety of abolition bills.


Amnesty International's report disclosed that executions are also a regional phenomenon at the international level, as the vast majority of executions in 2008 occurred in Asia and the Middle East. Europe and Central Asia are now virtually free of the death penalty -- with the exception of Belarus. The United States is the only country in the Americas that consistently executes. In December of 2008, St. Kitts and Nevis carried out the first execution in the Americas outside the United States since 2003. There were only two recorded executions in sub-Saharan Africa in 2008, though at least 362 people were sentenced to death.


The report found that between January and December 2008, at least 2,390 people were executed around the world with at least 8,864 sentenced to death in 52 countries. China remained the world's leading executioner by a wide margin, accounting for at least 1,718 executions -- near three-quarters of all executions -- although the figure is believed to be much higher as statistics on death sentences and executions remain state secrets. As in previous years, the United States was also one of the world's top executing nations, behind only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Together, the five countries accounted for 93% of all documented executions worldwide.


"While it is rewarding to see the United States progressing toward death penalty abolition, the United States should be at the forefront of this movement, not bringing up the rear," said Gunawardena-Vaughn.


The report addresses the discriminatory manner with which the death penalty was often applied in 2008, with a disproportionate number of sentences handed down to the poor, and to members of racial, ethnic or religious minority communities in countries such as Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. It also discusses the continuing risk of executing the innocent, as highlighted by the four prisoners released from death rows in the United States on grounds of innocence. The four were Kennedy Brewer (Mississippi), Glen Edward Chapman (North Carolina), Levon "Bo" James (North Carolina) and Michael Blair (Texas).


Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.



NOTE TO EDITORS:

A copy of Amnesty International's report, Death Sentences and Executions
in 2008, will be available from March 24, 2009, 00:01 GMT on www.amnesty.org.

Also available are a number of case studies of people who were executed
during 2008 or who are currently on death row.

A copy of Amnesty International's report, Ending executions in Europe:
Towards abolition of the death penalty in Belarus, calling on the Belarusian
authorities to abolish the death penalty will also be available from March 24,
2009, 00:01 GMT on http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR49/001/2009/en.
First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:


Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081014/AILOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.co
Source: Amnesty International

CONTACT: AIUSA media office, +1-202-544-0200 ext. 302, lspann@aiusa.org,
or Brian Evans, +1-202-544-0200 ext. 496, +1-646-853-9623 (cell),
bevans@aiusa.org, both of Amnesty International


Web Site: http://www.amnesty.org/


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Two UK Citizens Charged by United States with Bribing Nigerian Government Officials to Obtain Lucrative Contracts as Part of KBR Joint Venture Scheme

5 Mar 2009 19:53 Africa/Lagos

Two UK Citizens Charged by United States with Bribing Nigerian Government Officials to Obtain Lucrative Contracts as Part of KBR Joint Venture Scheme

WASHINGTON, March 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Two citizens of the United Kingdom have been charged in an indictment unsealed today in the United States for their alleged participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts, Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division announced. The EPC contracts to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria, were valued at more than $6 billion.


Jeffrey Tesler, 60, of London, England, and Wojciech Chodan, 71, of Maidenhead, England, were indicted on Feb. 17, 2009, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The defendants are each charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and ten counts of violating the FCPA. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of more than $130 million from the defendants. At the request of the United States, Tesler was arrested by the London Metropolitan Police today. There is an outstanding arrest warrant in the United States for Chodan. The Justice Department is seeking the defendants' extradition from the United Kingdom to the United States to stand trial.


According to the indictment, Tesler was hired in 1995 as an agent of a four-company joint venture that was awarded four EPC contracts by Nigeria LNG Ltd., (NLNG) between 1995 and 2004 to build LNG facilities on Bonny Island. The government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was the largest shareholder of NLNG, owning 49 percent of the company. Chodan was a former salesperson and consultant of a United Kingdom subsidiary of Kellogg, Brown & Root Inc. (KBR), one of the four joint venture companies. At so-called "cultural meetings," Chodan and other co-conspirators allegedly discussed the use of Tesler and other agents to pay bribes to Nigerian government officials to secure the officials' support for awarding the EPC contracts to the joint venture.


According to the indictment, the joint venture hired Tesler to bribe high-level Nigerian government officials, including top-level executive branch officials, and another agent to bribe lower level Nigerian government officials, including employees of NLNG. At crucial junctures before the award of the EPC contracts, KBR's former CEO, Albert "Jack" Stanley, and others allegedly met with three successive former holders of a top-level office in the executive branch of the Nigerian government to ask the office holder to designate a representative with whom the joint venture should negotiate the bribes. Stanley and others allegedly negotiated bribe amounts with the office holders' representatives and agreed to hire Tesler and the other agent to pay the bribes. The joint venture entered into a series of consulting contracts with a Gibraltar corporation allegedly controlled by Tesler to which the joint venture paid approximately $132 million for Tesler to use to bribe Nigerian government officials. On behalf of the joint venture and the four joint venture companies, Tesler allegedly wire transferred bribe payments to or for the benefit of various Nigerian government officials, including officials of the executive branch, NNPC, NLNG, and for the benefit of a political party in Nigeria.


If convicted on all charges, each defendant faces a maximum prison sentence of 55 years.


An indictment is merely a charge and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.


In a related criminal case, KBR's successor company, Kellogg Brown & Root LLC, pleaded guilty in February 2009 to charges related to the FCPA for its participation in the scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials. Kellogg Brown & Root LLC was ordered to pay a $402 million fine and to retain an independent compliance monitor for a three-year period to review the design and implementation of its compliance program as well as make reports to the company and the Department of Justice.


Stanley pleaded guilty in September 2008 to conspiring to violate the FCPA for his participation in the bribery scheme. Stanley's sentencing is currently scheduled for Aug. 27, 2009.


The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorneys William J. Stuckwisch and Patrick F. Stokes of the Criminal Division's Fraud Section, with investigative assistance from the FBI and IRS-Criminal Investigation in Houston. The Criminal Division's Office of International Affairs provided substantial assistance. Significant assistance was provided by the SEC's Division of Enforcement and by the authorities in France, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, including in particular the Serious Fraud Office's Anti-Corruption Unit, the London Metropolitan Police and the City of London Police.


Source: U.S. Department of Justice

CONTACT: U.S. Department of Justice, +1-202-514-2007, TDD
+1-202-514-1888


Web Site: http://www.usdoj.gov/

Dreams Do Come True

17 Jan 2009 00:10 Africa/Lagos

Dreams Do Come True

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is a statement by Benjamin Ola. Akande, Dean of Webster University School of Business & Technology:


As a child growing up in Nigeria, I was a dreamer. My parents never dismissed my dreams. They were always encouraging. No matter how outright unbelievable my dreams were, they would assure me that dreams do come true. Dreams provide a glimpse of what the future will look like. I wish I could have recorded all those dreams.


Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was recorded. It was a dream that was played out in front of thousands of people and like most dreams, no one really knew how it would play out. As the dream was recalled over the years, it became clear that this was a significant and compelling vision of the future. Martin's dream was in the form of a remarkable prose on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Most of us can hear him recite this dream in our subconscious. "I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." It is a dream that visualizes a future where all those things that seemed impossible and improbable will happen despite overwhelming obstacles.


Barack Obama

The election of Barack Obama was a manifestation of Martin's dream. I would like to believe that Martin Luther King's dream highlighted how difficult it is to make change happen. Martin spoke about how mountains and hills (obstacles) shall be made lower and rough places (institutional changes) will be made straight. The recognition was that monumental changes of this magnitude take considerable time. Indeed, it takes the force of nature to break through the harsh reality of status quo and history.


Dreaming enables us to transcend the present and position us on the balcony for a better view of the future. And, because dreaming offers no restrictions, the greatest dreamers are often characterized as crazy and out of touch with reality. What history has shown us is that you may vilify them, you can criticize them, and you may even assassinate them. But, you can't kill a dreamer's dream. MLK's dream took a long time to come to fruition, with small significant steps and some big setbacks along the way. But on Nov. 4, 2008, the full realization of the great civil rights leader's dream came to pass with the election of a junior senator from Illinois as the first African American President of The United States of America..


Martin Luther King taught us that adversity is a lot easier to overcome than success. And that is the power of dreams. He knew it would happen. He even foresaw that his own demise may keep him from seeing his dream come true. "I've seen the promised land," he said. "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land." Forty-five years later, his vision is still unfolding. But one thing is crystal clear. Dreams do come true.


Source: Webster University School of Business and Technology

CONTACT: Susan Kerth of Webster University, +1-314-246-8232


Web Site: http://www.webster.edu/