{"id":60134,"date":"2017-11-10T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T23:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=60134"},"modified":"2017-11-10T00:01:03","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T23:01:03","slug":"buharis-former-minister-now-u-n-secretary-general-300million-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/buharis-former-minister-now-u-n-secretary-general-300million-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Buhari’s Former Minister, Now U.N Under Secretary General In $300million Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

An environmental advocacy group says in a report released\u00a0Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0that
\nover 1.4 million rosewood logs from Nigeria worth $300 million were
\nillegally sent to China after the then-Environment Minister Amina Mohamed
\nsigned thousands of retroactive permits.<\/p>\n

The Washington-based Environmental Investigation Agency, known as EIA,
\nsaid in the report that multiple sources told its undercover investigators
\nthat over $1 million was paid to top\u00a0 government officials in Nigeria to
\nrelease wood stopped by Chinese authorities because there were no CITES
\ncertificates.<\/p>\n

CITES\u00a0Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0released a 40-page report alleging that Mohammed\u2019s approval
\nof the kosso exports violated the CITES agreement.<\/p>\n

According to report in the United State\u00a0Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Amina Mohammed who is now
\nthe U.N. deputy secretary-general, spent her final days as Nigeria\u2019s
\nenvironment minister doing something that has outraged activists. Despite
\na ban then in force on the export of rosewood, an endangered resource, she
\nsigned thousands of certificates authorizing the shipment of vast
\nquantities of the wood.<\/p>\n

The certificates \u201ccame in bags, and I just signed them because that is
\nwhat I had to do,\u201d she recalled in an interview last month in her
\nsprawling 38th-floor U.N. headquarters office in Manhattan overlooking the
\nEast River. \u201cI don\u2019t remember how many, she admitted.<\/p>\n

EIA said rosewood is coveted in China for furniture and over the past five
\nyears \u201cexploding Chinese demand\u201d has depleted forests across West Africa.
\nAs supplies in Gambia and Benin dwindled, it said Chinese traders moved to
\nNigeria, which had the largest untapped resource.<\/p>\n

Since 2013, the advocacy group said, Nigeria has been transformed from a
\nnet importer to the world\u2019s largest exporter of rosewood logs, which is
\ncausing desertification, threatening national parks and imperiling the
\nlivelihoods of millions of people.<\/p>\n

Mohammed\u2019s 11th-hour decision to approve the kosso shipments was first
\ndocumented by a Washington-based environmental group and is now part of an
\ninquiry by the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in
\nEndangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which Nigeria is a
\nsignatory.<\/p>\n

In a letter to Nigerian authorities in August 2017, John Scanlon, CITES\u2019s
\nsecretary-general, raised concern about information his agency had
\nreceived indicating that as many as 10,000 containers of Nigerian rosewood
\nhad been stopped by Chinese authorities between May and December 2016,
\nbecause they were not accompanied by the proper CITES documentation,
\naccording to Michael Osakuade, the acting director of Nigeria\u2019s Department
\nof Forestry. On Dec. 31, 2016, Mohammed herself imposed a three-month ban
\non the trade in rosewood. Yet following Mohammed\u2019s mass signings, more
\nthan two weeks after the ban went into force, the trade quickly resumed:
\nChinese trade data show that between then and April, as many as 12,000
\ncontainers of kosso logs were cleared to enter the country.<\/p>\n

EIA estimates that Mohammed\u2019s approval of certificates in January 2017
\nallowed the delivery of more than 1.4 million kosso logs that had been
\nillegally exported between May and December 2016 and were detained in
\nChinese ports. EIA furnished FP with six copies of certificates signed by
\nMohammed and dated\u00a0Jan. 16<\/span><\/span>, a little more than two weeks after she ordered
\nthe temporary three-month ban on the export of Nigerian kosso wood. A
\nsenior Nigerian forestry official confirmed the authenticity of the
\ncertificates but denied that they were issued for rosewood that had
\nalready left for China.<\/p>\n

The thousands of \u201chand-signed permits violate both Nigeria\u2019s export ban\u201d
\nand provisions of the endangered species treaty, Alexander von Bismarck,
\nthe executive director of EIA, claimed in an interview with FP. \u201cMore
\nimportantly, the laundering of Nigerian rosewood decimates millions of
\nhectares of fragile forest and imperils the lives of millions of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question of who bears the ultimate responsibility for Nigeria\u2019s
\nshrinking forests remains hotly contested. Rebecca S. Manasseh, the
\nenvironment commissioner for\u00a0 \u00a0Tarawa state, where most of the rosewood
\nexports originate, placed the blame on Asia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the Chinese,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were the ones who brought the idea
\nof cutting down the wood. Before it was not like this \u2013 it was when they
\ncame into the country that it became so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Manasseh also pointed fingers at the central government. \u201cOur governor
\nwrote to the federal government, pleading with the government to stop the
\nexportation of that wood,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When confronted with Manasseh\u2019s accusation, the second federal forestry
\nofficial interviewed by FP fired back: \u201cWhy are you complaining to us when
\nyou are the ones issuing approval for the exporters to go and harvest and
\nyou are taking the money as revenue for your state?\u201d<\/p>\n

For Mohammed, the rosewood issue was one of trying to strike a balance
\nbetween the legitimate economic interests of Nigerians involved in the
\ntimber trade and preserving the country\u2019s forests. She said the series of
\ndecisions she made, from issuing a temporary suspension to signing the
\nthousands of certificates, was part of trying to find a strategy for
\nsustainable development.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were doing this for the right reasons,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Foreign Policy reported\u00a0Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0that CITES \u201chas shown no indication that
\nit is satisfied by Mohamed\u2019s account \u2026 and it intends to address Nigeria\u2019s
\nconduct during a meeting of treaty signatories in Geneva from Nov. 27 to
\nDec. 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

Per Seconds News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An environmental advocacy group says in a report released\u00a0Thursday\u00a0that over 1.4 million rosewood logs from Nigeria worth $300 million were illegally sent to China after the then-Environment Minister Amina Mohamed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\nBuhari's Former Minister, Now U.N Under Secretary General In $300million Scandal - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/buharis-former-minister-now-u-n-secretary-general-300million-scandal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Buhari's Former Minister, Now U.N Under Secretary General In $300million Scandal - 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