|
Cash Smugling Scandal: Yes, Andy Uba is Innocent Indeed By Senior Fyneface
WHEN the cash smuggling and currency racketeering scandal involving the Special Assistant to the President on Domestic Affairs Mr Andy Uba was exposed, it would have been dismissed as trivial but for the detailed revelations including an affidavit from both the secret service investigator and the law court that handled the case.
From the details provided in the attached affidavit, Uba shipped cash in US dollars to the United States without declaring them to the immigration authorities. He was able to beat the U.S authourities because the money was smuggled into New York using Nigeria’s presidential jet which is exempted from security and immigration checks. The smuggled cash was used to buy a Mercedes Benz and unspecified number of tractors which he shipped to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Ota Farms. The case rather than being described as money laundering could aptly be said to be strictly within the bounds of cash smuggling and currency trafficking which is merely a criminal case.
A careful look at the entire scandal would clearly show that the only substance in the case against Andy Uba was that “funds (in U.S dollars) of no known origin” were used to buy tractors for the president of Nigeria and some for luxurious pleasure cars through a lady who claimed to be Andy’s fiancée.
The issue of Where Uba got such amount of cash in U.S dollars wouldn’t have been a problem if all the drama took place in Lagos, Abuja, Kano or Port Harcourt international airports? Nigerian authourities would have immediately known the source of the money without any serious investigation or even prosecution in a law court.
Any competent legal expert would agree that though the President’s aide on domestic affairs was duly tried and convicted or rather opted to settle out of court with the balance of the money forfeited, he is innocent and was innocently convicted. Yes Andy Uba is innocent- innocent indeed.
Pathetically, the innocent man at the centre of the cash smuggling and currency racketeering scandal also in his innocence has gone ahead to blame all his woes on Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the Sahara Reporters and many other media outfits. What a pitiable state or rather an innocent state.
In a matter- of -fact response to the baseless allegations in some sections of the Nigerian media that Vice President Abubakar instigated media reports on the scandal involving the use of Nigeria’s Presidential jet “to smuggle bulk cash” into the United States of America, the Vice President has warned that he should be left out of “this mess and national embarrassment in which President Obasanjo and his handlers have found themselves.”
The question here is: was it Atiku that detailed the Defense Counsel to the President’s Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs, Emmanuel Nnamdi “Andy” Uba who is at the centre of the scandal and the U.S. government Prosecutor in the case to agree and confirm the facts of the case.
The counsel was quoted to have confirmed that “a US court has found the accused liable in a case of “cash smuggling” / “money laundering” on Presidential aircraft; that “Uba failed to provide any documentation showing that the source of the $170,000 was legitimate”; that the money was credited to some accounts and a part used to buy farm equipment shipped to Obasanjo farms but that while some of the cash was forfeited to the US government, out-of-court settlement was reached in respect of the Mercedes Benz 2003 S-class purchased with the funds.”
So where does Atiku come into all this? Did Atiku assist anyone to use our national symbol – Nigeria 001 – to smuggle $170,000 into the United States? Was it him who shielded the felons to evade security and customs officials at the point of entry in the United States? Was Atiku the one who asked the felons to admit their guilt before the American court? Was Atiku the one who assisted the felons to buy farm equipment for Obasanjo farms with the laundered money?
Every right thinking Nigerian would have thought that this is an individual’s problem and Andy Uba should be held accountable for his actions rather than the accused attacking Atiku as being responsible for exposing this sordid and shameful scandal.
The innocent Andy Uba should look for more effective damage limitation or repairs strategy rather than accuse everybody who is currently not in very good terms with the president. And the best approach for now, if Uba is a wise man, is just to shut up his mouth because the more he talks about this shameful affair, the more he will draw dirtier attention or rather generate dirtier interests in the scandal. After all, on Sunday November 12 the same Uba in a media interview accepted that he was tried and convicted “though it was not a criminal case but fell under the category of civil litigation: All those ones na grammar. If he has technically accepted his misbehaviour and the subsequent judgment by a competent U.S law court as the crime was committed in the U.S, so why look for who to blame? Is Andy Uba guilty or not guilty? Guilty as declared by a U.S competent court of law.
SENIOR FYNEFACE WRITES FROM PORT HARCOURT |