{"id":49267,"date":"2016-05-16T13:03:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T12:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=49267"},"modified":"2016-05-17T22:07:58","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T21:07:58","slug":"n1billion-scam-rocks-trade-investment-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/n1billion-scam-rocks-trade-investment-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"N1billion Scam Rocks Trade, Investment Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over 17,000 applications for trademarks and patents were left unattended<br \/>\nto since 2009 in the Ministry of Industry,\u00a0 Trade and Investment\u00a0 in spite<br \/>\nof payments made for the processing of such documents by the applicants,<br \/>\nPointblanknews.com\u00a0 investigation has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>The two ministers in the ministry, Okechukwu Enilama and Aisha\u00a0 Abubakar,<br \/>\nappear helpless in tackling the situation despite several presentations of<br \/>\nthe matter at various management meetings held in the ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Several petitions are also before the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, by<br \/>\napplicants based in Europe and America, who were scammed by some<br \/>\nunscrupulous officials of the Department of Commercial Law of the<br \/>\nministry.<\/p>\n<p>Osinbajo supervises the ministry as coordinator of\u00a0 federal government&#8217;s<br \/>\neconomic\u00a0 and investment policies.<\/p>\n<p>The development is affecting Nigeria&#8217;s position in World Bank&#8217;s Ease of<br \/>\nDoing Business Ranking where Nigeria is ranked 169 out of 189 countries.<\/p>\n<p>The culprit in the scam is the Ministry&#8217;s Department of Commercial Law<br \/>\nheaded by Barrister Amugi Williams Keftin, whose &#8220;boys&#8221; (staff) are neck<br \/>\ndeep in scamming unsuspecting Nigerians and have made it a huge business<br \/>\nventure. Keftin&#8217;s predecessors were also involved in the scam .<\/p>\n<p>Pointblanknews.com has\u00a0 learned that applicants mostly businessmen are<br \/>\nmade to part with between N500,000.00 to N1,000.000.00 after which<br \/>\nofficials of the ministry adopt a stonewalling approach. A Nigerian<br \/>\nbusinessman based in Germany recently paid N1 million to officials of the<br \/>\ndepartment, who later went below the radar prompting him to petition the<br \/>\nministry and the Vice President. His petition is presently receiving<br \/>\nattention.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This scam has been\u00a0 going on since 2009. About 17,000 applications have<br \/>\nnot been attended to but most of the applicants have paid for them. Some<br \/>\nwho have paid and gone with some preliminary approvals go away thinking<br \/>\nthey have their trademarks and patents intact but they don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every new\u00a0 director that comes to the department\u00a0 inherits that scam and<br \/>\ncontinues from where his or her predecessor stopped. Since 2009, over N1<br \/>\nbillion have been taken off applicants without any complete job done. The<br \/>\nwebsite, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.iponnigeria.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?hl=en&amp;q=http:\/\/www.iponnigeria.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1463485780355000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHXhYTco4W3r9m3TKcLhZb2gk_EOA\">www.iponnigeria.com<\/a> is also a website designed to fleece<br \/>\nunsuspecting Nigerians and foreigners alike&#8221;, a reliable source told<br \/>\nPointblanknews.com.<\/p>\n<p>Further investigations showed that when confronted by the management,<br \/>\nBarrister Keftin, who is in the habit of signing applications at a snail<br \/>\npace, claimed that he had signed 2000 applications out of the pending<br \/>\n17,000\u00a0 but the applications\u00a0 remained in his custody.<\/p>\n<p>He further claimed that he had shortage of staff prompting the Ministry of<br \/>\nJustice to deploy 50 lawyers to the ministry.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The unfortunate thing&#8221;, another source said &#8220;is that there is no<br \/>\naccommodation for the lawyers so they loiter around and get mixed up in<br \/>\nthe fraudulent scheme&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The two ministers in the ministry appear unable to tackle the challenge in<br \/>\nspite of having received reports and briefings on the matter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The are not up to the task\u00a0 on this issue. It is either they are helpless<br \/>\nor they lack the knowledge of how the scheme affects business because no<br \/>\nsingle action has been taken against the culprits who are staff of the<br \/>\nministry and their outside collaborators&#8221;, a concerned stakeholder said.<\/p>\n<p>Efforts made to reach media managers of the ministry was unsuccessful as<br \/>\nthey were said to be away for a programme in Lagos.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 17,000 applications for trademarks and patents were left unattended to since 2009 in the Ministry of Industry,\u00a0 Trade and Investment\u00a0 in spite of payments made for the processing of&hellip;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - 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