-Amb Adefuye’s Testimony Exposes Possible Connivance between Lawmakers and Fraudsters
NIGERIA’s ambassador to the United States of America, Professor Ade Adefuye, has denied allegations by a faceless group known as Transform Nigeria Citizen Initiative, led by a London-based Nigerian known as Daniel Elombah, that he was involved in the unauthorized spending of proceeds totaling $23.5 million realized from the sale of properties belonging to the government of the federal republic of Nigeria.
The Nigerian Senate committee on Foreign Affairs had invited Professor Adefuye, who had waged a lone, weary battle for the recovery of the funds from the properties said to have been sold between 2004 and 2007. The money was said to have been realized from the sale of three homes belonging to the Nigerian Embassy in Washington D.C.
Testifying before the Senator Mathew Nwagwu-led committee in the Federal Capital Territory city of Abuja last week, Ambassador Adefuye said that he knew about the said misappropriations, despite the fact that he had not been appointed nor posted as the time of the said sales to head the mission in Washington, D.C.
However, Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Olugbenga Ashiru, said that although Adefuye was not the head of the embassy in Washington DC from 2004 to 2007, former President Olusegun Obasanjo “duly authorized the sales.”
Mr. Ashiru’s position tallied with that of Nigeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Professor Joy Ogwu, who said that the sales and the spending of the monies realized from such transactions could only occur if the federal executive council approved same.
Present at the committee hearing held on Thursday and Friday last week were Dr George Obiozor, who was Nigeria’s ambassador to the USA between 2004 and 2006; Prof. Joy Ogwu and the incumbent ambassador, Mr. Ade Adefuye, who assumed duty in March 2010.
Sources present at the closed-door hearing of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee said that the session was motivated by narrow ethnic commonalities between the key players in the stealing of the $1.5 million and the sharing of the proceeds of the sales, an event which happened long before Adefuye was appointed as ambassador by late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
Adefuye reportedly expressed surprise at the fact that the committee granted audience in a case where a competent court of law in the United States had already adjudicated on the matter and awarded judgment against, Mr. Emeka Ugwonye, a Maryland-based lawyer who is the sponsor and financier of Daniel Elombah’s blackmail.
The ambassador reportedly told the committee members that not only did the US court establish the fact that the character behind Elombah campaign was guilty of theft, the same man, Emeka Ugwonye, had also been declared wanted in the past by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Ambassador Adefuye also allegedly informed the committee of the fact that the same group that has raised the hoax of embezzlement against him also planted a secessionist Biafran flag in front of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
According to detailed reports of the encounter between Professor Adefuye and the senate committee, the ambassador pointed out that the claims of him spending $23.5 million was exaggerated, as what he met in the account when he resumed office as ambassador was $10 million.
The ambassador also said that operations in Washington D.C. were poorly funded as it was only receiving about $200,000 of its monthly entitlement of $600,000. He explained that in order to meet the financial obligations, he got presidential authorizations to make up for the shortfall from the $10 million in its accounts.
Adefuye said that it was ungodly and wicked to be vilified for his patriotism after the fraudulent clique that stole the country’s money remain free from official scrutiny.
The committee chairman, Senator Nwagwu, tongue-lashed Daniel Elombah for providing a false address in his petition during the session.
The closed-door hearing also upbraided former Ambassador George Obiozoh up for touching the original monies without proper justification.
Observers with knowledge of the case see it as one in which the senate committee chairman, Senator Nwagu and some of his ranking members, may have gotten themselves caught in the middle of scandalous multi-million dollar rip-off of Nigeria, and its avoidable affiliation with Biafran separatists because of ‘gluttony and ethnic chauvinism’.
Sharpedgenews.com authoritatively learned that an elaborate scheme hatched by Senator Nwagu and some of his committee members who fraudulently claimed to be exercising ‘oversight’ – a veiled attempt at cornering proceeds of sold properties, otherwise belonging to the Nigerian Embassy in the United States of America – may force criminal charges from the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke.
Senator Nwagwu and his committee members were obviously the only ones who were seemingly oblivious of the fact that concerned Nigerians in the United States went to war with a Maryland conman, Mr. Emeka Ugwoye, who connived with the former Nigerian ambassador to the US, Mr. George Obiozor and then-foreign Minister Ojo Madueke to sell properties belonging to Nigeria in the United States.
Tax returns totaling $1.5 million were made by the American Internal Revenue Service because of the diplomatic cover enjoyed by the embassy. However, instead of availing the embassy with the check and fact of the refund, Emeka Ugwonye pocketed the money. To hide his acts, Ugwonye trumped-up ethnic sentiments as a result of which Obiozor’s successor, General Oluwole Rotimi, was blackmailed and relieved of his position by former Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Madueke.
The scheming, thieving attorney, Emeka Ugwonye, determined not to relent, went around some ethnic associations identified with his eastern Nigerian origins and started defaming and slandering the incumbent head of the mission, Ambassador Ade Adefuye.
Observers say Adefuye has so far revealed himself to be a man of impeccable character and strong personality. He reportedly rebuffed attempts to be bribed and co-opted into the scheme of fraud spearheaded by Ugwonye.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, having had enough of the scam perpetrated by the lawyer Ugwonye, declared him wanted and had him briefly detained during a visit to Nigeria.
Ugwonye, who is seeking an easy route out of his self-inflicted plight, came back to the United States and organized a lose group of urchings, chief among whom was the publisher of the separatist website, republic.com, who himself is rumored to suffer some form of psychotic disorder. It was Ugwonye who also co-opted the shady London-based scandal-blogger, Daniel Elombah. They were able to use the remnant of what Ugwonye stole to co-opt some journalists in and outside Nigeria to twist the facts of the fraud.
Publisher of the New York-based activist news website saharareporters.com, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, had also openly told Mr. Uwonye in a US court that based on the proof the monumental $1.5 million theft, Ugwonye ought to be in jail.
“The elements worked on the greed and weakness of Senator Nwagwu to hold a public hearing on alleged unauthorized spending of the $35 million proceeds of the embassy’s properties sales last Thursday and Friday in Abuja” said an official in the know of this issue, but who requested anonymity because of its sensitivity.
“The senate ended up placing itself on trial,” he said, adding that “the august body’s demonstration of ignorance in this matter has sparked a ferocious resistance to a campaign of blackmail and brazen fabrications by Adefuye and his suppor
ters.”
Ugwonye was never a lawyer to the Nigerian embassy. He only came into the picture as a personal defense attorney to former military leader, General Abdulsalami Abubakar in the landmark human rights violations matter for which a US court ordered massive compensation to late Chief Anthony Enahoro, Abiola and others.
Interestingly, how a personal lawyer of an unelected military leader later emerged as property speculator is one question that the hapless senate committee did not get the trio of Ugwonye, Obiozor and Madueke to answer.
Observers are now wondering why the senate committee chose to put Professor Adefuye on trial, while it ignores the dealings of Emeka Ugwonye, who contracted Daniel Elombah to file the frivolous petition in the name of a non existing integrity.
“The comatose senate committee on Foreign Affairs and its chairman were the only Nigerians who went to sleep instead of keeping the watch,” said the aforementioned public official resident in the state of Maryland.
“If Nwagui, and his cohorts were not thinking more of how to help themselves to the crumbs of the proceeds of the property sakes, they would know that more questions still linger for Ugwonye, Elombah, Obiozor and Madueke to answer,” he added.
“There is a current confusion in respect of documents for the official residence of a Nigerian ambassador in the United States. Those cannot be found anywhere. What did these individuals do with the vital papers as titles and such?” he asked.
“Does this same clowning committee know that these same individuals spurned a major security breach against current and subsequent ambassadors of the country by selling the upper floors of the official residence of the envoy to some unknown persons who erected structures on top of the building?” the official asked.
“They should ask the sponsor of Daniel Elombah’s mischievous petition – that is, Emeka Ugwonye, why he did not disclose that a United States court has ruled that his conduct in failing to remit to the embassy its $1.5 million tax refund was a criminal breach.”
The informed source also believes that failed attempts at co-opting the Ambassador Adefuye to indulge in the shady patronage business with the conmen is the main reason behind current efforts to tarnish him with trumped-up allegations.
According to him, Daniel Elombah contacted Ambassador Adefuye through a third-party at least once, seeking the ambassador to introduce him to some blue-chip Nigerian corporations and banks for advert patronage; a move the ambassador rebuffed on the suspicion that he was being set-up for future blackmail.