Date Published: 01/21/10

Sir,

Re: The Lebanese in possession of $300,000 cash at Nigerian Airport

        It is good that the NDLEA and the Airport Security authorities are doing their job appreciably now, one supposes. In the media recently it was reported that a 35-year old Lebanese, Mr. Fareed Berro, was intercepted at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport at Abuja while attempting to smuggle out $300,000 suspected to be illegal money that could be traced to drug proceeds. The NDLEA was quoted in the Daily Sund of Wednesday December 30, 2009 as saying that its preliminary investigation is giving out a lead that the fund could be from drug as the Fareed was recorded to have come into the country from Beirut not quite a week before he was apprehended on his way out.

        But what the public is saying is that this case should not be like some past cases where after announcing that such a catch was made; it becomes the last it would be heard about. In which case, it would be assumed that the security agencies involved would have ‘died’ the matter after having been ‘settled’. It will do the NDLEA all the good if it ensured that as the case progresses, the public is made to know; at least this would give them the much needed credibility to shore up its image. Not quite recently, the airport authorities intercepted $3,100,000 in cash being ferried from Lagos Airport to Abuja and which Bank PHB seems to now try to claim paternity of the money after keeping quiet for upward of one month. Yet there is no way the Bank would convince the public that its claim was not an afterthought based on threat that may bother on possible withdrawal of accounts of Akwa Ibom State government.

        The federal government should equip the various security agencies especially those at the ports of entries and exists within Nigeria (internally and externally). The case of suicide bomber Muttallab is a sore case that should make the federal government to sit up in ensuring that more security apparatuses are engaged to help out security agencies.

Nnamdi Okafor

80 Omoba Road

Aba.