Metro

Former Miss France charged over $752,000 gift from late Gabon President Omar Bongo

Published

2 years ago

June 3, 2022

A former Miss France Beauty Pageant winner, Sonia Rolland, has been charged with accepting a $752,000 gift from Gabon’s former dictator, the late Omar Bongo, who is subject to a long-running inquiry over alleged ill-gotten wealth, alongside several of his children, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Rolland who is originally from Rwanda, is being charged with “receipt of embezzled public funds for accepting from Bongo an apartment worth 800,000 euros ($752,000) in the chic 16th Arrondissement of Paris in 2003,” a report said.

French prosecutors also charged four of Omar Bongo’s children with “embezzlement and corruption on suspicion that they knowingly benefited from a fraudulently-acquired empire of real estate and other assets worth at least €85 million.”

“The real estate and assets included
apartments and buildings in Paris and the Mediterranean city of Nice as well as luxury cars, several of which have been seized by French authorities,” the report said.

According to authoritive French daily Liberation, Rolland who was the first African to win the Miss France pageant and I’d now an actress, told investigators last year that the apartment was a gift for her patronage of beauty contests in Africa.

Her lawyer, Charles Morel, who spoke to newsmen on the charges, said Ms
Rolland who was 22 at the time, had “obviously recognised that she was naive but contests any wrongdoing.”

“My client was 22 years old, she was coming out of a period in which she had been thrown into a world she knew nothing about, neither its codes nor its sordidness.

“At no point did she know the source of the funds nor the financial arrangements,” Morel said.

Omar Bongo who ruled Gabon with an iron fist for 42 years, died of cardiac arrest while being treated for intestinal cancer in 2009. He became president of the Central African country in 1967, seven years after Gabon gained independence from France.

Omar Bongo’s four decades reign over Gabon was mired by allegations of corruption including his family members and close associates.

At his death, his son Ali Bongo swiftly took over from him, further accentuating the Bongo dynasty.

Related Topics:corruption Featured Gabon Omar Bongo

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Metro

All my tough policy decisions are in Nigerians’ interest— Tinubu

Published

1 hour ago

April 26, 2024

Akanimoh Etim

President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria has insisted that all his tough policy decisions and reforms have been taken with the interest of Nigerians at heart.

Tinubu, who made the assertion in Hague, The Netherlands, during the business session of the bilateral meeting with the Dutch team led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, insisted that though some of the policies had brought hardship on Nigerian masses, he was not afraid to implement more of such policies as they would yield positive results in the end.

“I am a determined leader of my people. I am ever ready to take tough decisions in the best interest of the people, even if with initial pains,” Tinubu said.

“I have and will continue to take the difficult decisions that will benefit our people, even if there is short-term pain.

“We have gone through the worst of the storms. I am unafraid of the consequences once I know that my actions are in the best long-term interests of all Nigerians.

“The Nigerian naira is one of the world’s best-performing currencies today.

“We took the necessary risk, and all resilient Nigerians kept faith with us.

“They will be rewarded, and the reward will only be greater as we partner effectively with you on new opportunities for development.

“As leaders, we must make decisions for the benefit of our nations, and we cannot shy away from that.”

The President also noted that symbiotic economic ties remain the best long-term path to sustainable and mutual prosperity rather than one-sided relationships in which bilateral trade is skewed too much in one direction.

Metro

Nigeria govt cancels 924 dormant mining licences

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Nigeria’s minister of mines said on Wednesday that 924 expired mining licences had been cancelled immediately.

The country now wants investors to apply for the affected permits, which will be given out on a “first come, first served” basis.

In a statement, Mines Minister Dele Alake said that 528 exploration licenses, 20 mining leases, 101 quarry licenses, and 273 small-scale mining licenses would be impacted.

As part of major changes in the mining industry, more than 1,600 mining titles were taken away in November for not paying the required fees.

Alake said that the action was taken to stop “licence racketeering,” which is when people or businesses buy titles to minerals that are worth a lot of money and then sell the licenses to the highest price.

“By creating a secondary, black market to pawn mineral licences, the unsuspecting and unwary investor is misled into believing that he can only obtain licence by patronising the black market. This discourages investment,” Alake said.

“It is our belief that this decision will sanitise the licensing system by penalising those who have commercialized the opportunities offered by the sector into a bazaar, he added.

Nigeria wants to attract investors to a mining industry that hasn’t been developed much in the past. To do this, they are giving incentives like not having to pay taxes on profits and sending them back to Nigeria in full.

Nigeria has had trouble getting value from its huge mineral riches because it didn’t invest in or take care of them.

After making it harder for foreign companies to get mining licenses last year, Africa’s biggest oil provider will only give them to companies that process their minerals in the country itself. The country is also rich in lithium, gold, and limestone.