Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed
hehehehe......... Immediate
past Nigeria's minister of environment, Amina Mohammed who is now
Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations has opened up on her
alleged involvement in a $300 million scandal.
Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, has
strongly denied claims that she was involved in the illegal export of
African rosewood from Nigeria to China in a trade deal estimated to be
worth $300 million.
It would be recalled that the Environmental Investigation Agency
(EIA), in a documentary video obtained claimed that Mohammed might have
derived personal benefits from signing thousands of allegedly backdated
permits in January 2017 which it said were used to clear illegal
rosewood exports to China.
Denying the allegations, Mohammed told TheCable that she spent her
time at the ministry working to eliminate the illegal export of the
tropical hardwood used for rosewood furniture in China and could not
have done what she was accused of.
“No permits were backdated or illegally signed by me. We are
therefore appalled if any legally obtained or forged certificates were
used by unscrupulous rosewood traders to circumvent exportation
procedures,” she said.
“Not only do I decry fraud and corruption, we also
categorically reject any allegations of corruption or coercion in our
effort to better address illegal logging and exportation.”
“I categorically deny receiving any bribe. It has never been in
my character. I never demanded neither did I collect any bribe, either
cash or material,” she added.
Mohammed said when she was appointed minister of environment in November 2015, “one
of the first issues I had to deal with was deforestation. It was a huge
concern as Nigeria was losing its forest cover at an alarming rate… For
me, protecting the environment is sacrosanct. When I was minister, one
of my first acts was to tackle illegal logging. What I found on ground
was alarming”.
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