LAGOS, Nigeria — One of Africa’s richest men and Nigeria’s only billionaire, Aliko Dangote, said Thursday that a list of debtors published by the Central Bank that cited him as owing millions of dollars to two banks was inaccurate, and he chastised the Central Bank for not alerting the affected parties before the list was made public.

“I don’t think they understand the consequences of what they’ve done,” Dangote said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires Thursday evening. “The Central Bank should have at least checked with people before going to press.”

In the list of debtors published Wednesday, Dangote Industries Ltd. was cited as owing bailed-out Oceanic Bank International (Nigeria) Ltd. (NIG.LA) 2.5 billion naira ($16 million). The list also cited a company called Dansa Oil & Gas Ltd., of which it said Dangote was a stakeholder, as owing bailed-out Intercontinental Bank NGN8.8 billion ($56 million).

“For [the Oceanic Bank] debt we’ve sent a check to the bank, and they’ve collected it and given us a receipt that they have it,” Dangote said. “For a group like ours, two and a half billion naira, that is actually just about 10% of our cement turnover per month. We’re a well-diversified organization.”

A Dangote official said later that Dangote Industries Ltd. had recently paid Oceanic Bank NGN 3.1 billion for its debt and other fees.  They did not say when they had paid off the debt.

An official at Oceanic Bank declined to comment, saying the bank didn’t discuss customers’ accounts.

A senior government official affiliated with the Central Bank admitted that there may have been mistakes in the debtors list released Wednesday, and that since it was for debts not paid through the end of May, some debtors may have settled their loans in the interim.

Nation’s Elite Are Among Those Facing a One-Week Deadline to Repay Loans, or Risk Arrest, Freezing of Assets

LAGOS, Nigeria — Nigeria’s rich and powerful, long accustomed to a lifestyle of yachts, fancy cars, and businesses fueled by unchecked credit lines, have been put on notice.

Nigeria’s central bank on Wednesday made the unprecedented move of publishing a list of what it says are the major debtors to five banks rescued in a $2.6 billion bailout, among them some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in Nigeria. Hours later, the country’s top anticorruption unit, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said the debtors had one week to repay their loans or risk arrest and seizure of their assets.

The list of more than 200 companies, individuals and government bodies includes Nigeria’s only two billionaires; Nigerian Stock Exchange officials; energy and hospitality conglomerate Transnational Corporation of Nigeria PLC; the former governor of Nigeria’s richest state; and the Ministry of Finance.

The Ministry of Finance, among others, couldn’t be reached to comment.

“It has become necessary to use this medium to request the following defaulting customers of the affected banks to pay without further delay their indebtedness, failing which the banks will take all appropriate legal actions to ensure repayment,” the central bank said in a statement on its Web site.

“They have just one week to bring in their checks or drafts to us or we begin their arrest and prosecution as well as confiscation of their assets because they are people of enormous means,” EFCC head Farida Waziri said in a statement.

LAGOS, Nigeria (Dow Jones)–Four of the five Nigerian bank executives dismissed from their posts last week by the Central Bank were questioned Tuesday by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on suspicion of various crimes, including fraud and insider trading, a senior government official told Dow Jones Newswires.

“Four out of the five executives were picked up for questioning last night and early this morning,” the official said, requesting anonymity due to the continuing investigation.

The four executives were from Oceanic Bank International (Nigeria) Ltd. (NIG.LA), Afribank Nigeria PLC (AFRIBANK.LA), FinBank and Union Bank of Nigeria PLC (UBN.LA).

The managing director of the fifth bank, Intercontinental Bank, isn’t in the country and wasn’t questioned, according to the official.

“There will definitely be charges against them, and their cronies and accomplices will also be charged,” the official said.

The charges that could be filed include fraud, insider trading, share price manipulation, and illegal withdrawal of shareholder funds, among others, according to the official.

LAGOS, Nigeria — The Central Bank of Nigeria pledged to inject nearly $2.6 billion into five troubled banks and dismissed the institutions’ top executives, a dramatic move aimed at rescuing the firms from what the government said was chronic mismanagement.

Nigeria is a big petroleum exporter and Sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest economy, behind South Africa. Rising oil prices in recent years triggered a borrowing and investment bonanza in the country. Amid the boom, banks lent heavily, including to speculators in the stock market, which was on a tear.

That left many banks overexposed when commodities prices turned around, the world sank into its current economic slump and Nigerian shares fell. The Nigerian Stock Market has declined roughly 60% from its highs early last year.

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ABUJA, Nigeria — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned Nigeria’s electoral process and high levels of corruption, while pledging U.S. assistance in efforts to bring peace to the volatile and oil-rich Delta region.

During a town-hall meeting in the capital city on Wednesday marked by clapping and hooting, Mrs. Clinton urged Nigeria to fix its “flawed electoral system.” The meeting, which was by invitation, included democracy activists, several state governors and business leaders, including the country directors of U.S. oil companies Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp.

Mrs. Clinton said that Nigeria had the potential to be a member of the Group of 20 countries, “but — a big but — the corruption reputation … it is a problem.”

While chiding Nigerian elections, Mrs. Clinton said, to a big laugh from the audience, “I know a little bit about running in elections, and I have won some elections and I have lost some elections. And in a democracy there have to be winners and losers.”

“Our democracy is still evolving,” she added. “You know we’ve had all kinds of problems in some of our past elections, as you might remember. In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for president was the governor of the state, so we have our problems, too.”

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By Will Connors

ABUJA, Nigeria — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will arrive Tuesday evening in Nigeria, where she will hold talks with political and business leaders and address, among other issues, the shoddy electoral process, weak investment climate and rampant corruption in Africa’s second-largest economy.

Entering the backstretch of her seven-nation African tour, Mrs. Clinton is expected to echo the theme of gently reproaching African countries laid out during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Ghana last month.

“Nigeria is probably the most important country in sub-Saharan Africa,” Johnnie Carson, the State Department’s top official for Africa, told reporters on the eve of Mrs. Clinton’s tour. “It is also a major source of petroleum imports. …U.S. investment in Nigeria in the oil production and service industry is well in excess of $15 billion.” Nigeria is the fifth-largest supplier of oil to the U.S., and its “light sweet” crude oil is prized for the ease with which it is converted into gasoline.

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By Will Connors and Spencer Swartz

LAGOS, Nigeria — A high-profile government amnesty program aimed at stopping militants in Nigeria’s oil-rich delta region from bombing pipelines is coming under fire for not seeking permanent solutions to the area’s underlying problems.

The amnesty program, scheduled to begin Thursday and run two months, is the biggest public effort yet by President Umaru Yar’Adua to ease the unrest in the Niger Delta that has cost the country billions of dollars in lost oil revenue.

But Nigerian state governors, analysts, and the militants themselves have criticized the plan because it does little to address the core causes of the militancy and criminality that have plagued the Niger Delta for decades, such as the lack of education, jobs and basic services.

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As Death Toll Passes 800, Questions Raised About Whether Group, Boko Haram, Poses Broader Threat

By WILL CONNORS

LAGOS, Nigeria — A week of brutal violence in northern Nigeria has spurred questions over whether an obscure homegrown religious fundamentalist group represents a broader threat to national security in Africa’s most populous nation.

More than 800 people were killed last week during fighting between an Islamic fundamentalist group calling itself Boko Haram, and Nigerian security forces. The clashes spread across several northern states.

A Red Cross worker in the northern city of Maiduguri, where most of the fighting occurred, said that 780 bodies had been collected in the past few days, and that at least 3,600 Maiduguri residents had been displaced. Officials in Bauchi, where the violence began, had earlier confirmed more than 50 deaths.

Rights groups say many civilians were among those killed, though exact figures remain unknown. Police say most of the dead were militants.

More than 10,000 people have been killed in sectarian violence in Nigeria since 1999, often in the so-called Middle Belt, where the predominantly Muslim north meets the Christian south.

But Boko Haram’s targeting of its own government, attacking police stations and other official buildings, surprised many observers. Some northern Nigerians, who were aware of previous incidents involving the group, say the government should have seen this coming.

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