Emmanuel Egbogah, who serves as President Umaru Yar’Adua’s oil adviser, said Tuesday the auction will include both land and water leases. The Nigerian government has yet to decide what leases will be offered in the auction, but Egbogah said he expected the nation’s petroleum minister to make an announcement in the coming months.

The lands include those relinquished by the oil companies already working fields in Nigeria, Egbogah said. He expects China will be among those bidding to enter the nation’s oil market. The Chinese have been in negotiations with Nigeria for months and reportedly have offered $50 billion for 6 billion barrels of oil.

Egbogah declined to offer any specifics about the ongoing negotiations.

“I’m sure that if you have a hungry system like China, when the announcement is made, they’ll have an interest,” he said.

The Financial Times first reported news of the auction Tuesday.

If successfully carried out, the oil auction could propel Nigeria back to Africa’s top oil producer. Militant violence and oil thefts have cut Nigeria’s oil production by about 1 million barrels a day, allowing Angola to surge ahead. Still, Nigeria’s oil remains popular in U.S. as it is easier to refine. It is the third largest oil exporter to the U.S., behind Canada and Mexico.

With Nigeria’s position in the U.S. market, attacks, kidnappings and pipeline breaks in the Niger Delta have greatly swayed global oil prices since 2006. Militants there demand that the federal government send more oil-industry funds to Nigeria’s southern region, which remains poor despite five decades of oil production.

A presidential amnesty program brought a calm to the Delta. However, the program appears to have stalled as Yar’Adua has been in Saudi Arabia for more than two months to receive medical treatment for what his doctor described a heart condition.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the largest militant group in the region, announced Saturday it had abandoned the cease-fire agreement. Meanwhile, a Royal Dutch Shell PLC ruptured after the military says thieves tried to steal crude oil from it.

Egbogah dismissed the idea that the Delta remained a dangerous place for foreign oil workers and their companies.

“Some minor incidents can be used to say that the security situation is as bad as it was in the past,” he said. “I think the situation is cooling off.”

Oil workers also complain government approvals for their leases have stalled in Yar’Adua’s absence. While ExxonMobil Corp. already had its Nigerian oil field licenses renewed, Shell and Chevron Corp. still are in negotiations with the government. Shell also has announced its desire to sell off its rights to three oil fields.

It remains unclear what effect Yar’Adua’s absence may have on the proposed auction.

The deadly attempt by 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up Northwest Airline Flight 253 carrying 278 passengers over the Detroit skies with an explosive device sent shock waves to Nigerians in the Diaspora.

The story of Abdulmutallab, a staunch Muslim who was schooled in Britain and other places and the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker and politician, is not the kind of story Nigerians say their nation needs at this critical time.

“This is very reprehensible and I join all concerned Nigerians at home and abroad in condemning it. I think it is an image holocaust that could affect the country’s trade, tourism, foreign investments and economic growth,” said Nigerian-born author C. Paschal Eze whose new book, “For Blacks (And Others) Who Really Care,” discusses smart ways Americans can make their mark on the African continent from afar. “I also think it has the possibility of making life hell for law-abiding Nigerians abroad who may come under intense scrutiny, suspicion and isolation wherever they go.”

Abdulmutallab, who is being tried by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan before U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman, faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Bernard Onwuemelie, president of the Nigerian Foundation of Michigan, issued a statement Monday evening condemning the Christmas attack in Detroit.

“The Nigerian Foundation of Michigan condemns this act of terrorism, and disassociates the Nigerian community in Michigan from all acts of terrorism and wanton destruction of life and property,” Onwuemelie said. “We call on the Nigerian government, the United States of America and all well-meaning people of the world to investigate this act in all its ramifications in order to forestall such occurrences in the future.”

Onwuemelie said the group pledges its support “against terrorism and calls on all people to support efforts towards this endeavor.”

The Christmas Day incident has reignited a spirited debate on the war on terror and what policies ought to be adopted for international and domestic airlines.

But at the center of the debate is the question of why Abdulmutallab’s U.S. visa was not revoked after his own father alerted the U.S. embassy in Abuja Nigeria on Nov. 19, five weeks before the attack about his extreme religious views and possible links to terrorist groups.

Abdulmutallab boarded the inbound flight to Detroit from Amsterdam in the Netherlands and was trying to detonate the explosive as the jet approached Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

Questions are also being raised about airport security in the Netherlands and why Amsterdam and Nigeria did not detect the explosives on Abdulmutallab.

Tosin Banwo, a Nigerian MBA student at Wayne State University said he received calls from his colleagues following the incident that “Nigerians have done it again.”

“This incident shows the power of how one person can damage the image of a whole country,” Banwo said. “Considering the challenges and problems we have it is going to take a while before we can redeem our image.”

For a young man like Abdulmutallab, who came from a privileged background, Banwo said he doesn’t understand what could be the motivation for the terror suspect’s actions.

Meanwhile an Al-Queda group in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the airliner attack, saying it was in retaliation for a U.S. military offensive against the group in Yemen where Abdulmutallab is said to have lived sometime in 2005.

Profiling is back in the spotlight with some analysts suggesting that individuals with Muslim, ethnic or foreign sounding names should be thoroughly questioned during travels, something that would be met with stiff resistance from the civil liberty community including the American Civil Liberties Union.

“We have to be vigilant and work harder to portray the good image of Nigeria,” Banwo said. “No one should label all of us as terrorists.”

In a nation where northern states like Kano are governed by Sharia Law, many fear religious extremists might be seeking sanctuary in Nigeria.

That is why Eze said the Nigerian government failed to respond appropriately to news of the Detroit incident. He said his nation dropped the ball in tackling this latest public relations disaster on the world stage.

“Silence and delay are never golden in an image crisis,” Eze said. “Imagine what could have happened if the Nigerian government had held a truly international press conference within 24 hours of the dastardly incident, condemning the wicked act in the strongest possible terms, pledging full and active cooperation with U.S. security agencies, and harping that such a wicked act is not reflective of overwhelming majority of Nigerians who are peace loving in their core.”

The relations between Washington and Nigeria, the world’s eleventh largest oil producing nation and fifth largest supplier to the U.S., is unlikely to be severed by the terrorist incident.

In responding to the crisis, President Barack Obama was determined to instill confidence in the public that the nation will utilize all of its power to fight terrorism.

Naming Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia as places the U.S. will tackle terror, as well as anyplace else, Obama never mentioned Nigeria in his speech in which he called for more airport security.

Yet, according to Eze, “Despite its poor image, the Nigerian nation has been a force for good in the world with its active participation in UN and African Union peacekeeping missions and Technical Aid Corps Scheme that has benefited many Third World nations, among others.”

Courtesy of New America Media