I am behind Amina legally over alleged illegal timber deal, says UN boss
I am behind Amina legally over alleged illegal timber deal, says UN boss
Illegal timber trade: I’m behind Amina Mohammed, says UN boss
Mrs. Amina Mohammed
The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has thrown his weight behind his deputy and former Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, following allegations that she was involved in illegal trade of timber in Nigeria.

The Environmental Investigation Agency had claimed in its latest report that the former minister might have been a beneficiary of illegal rosewood exports to China.

The agency stated, “Most shockingly, EIA’s investigation has revealed that thousands of documents from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora have been used in contravention of the core objectives of the convention. It appears that Mrs. Amina J. Mohammed, former Nigerian Minister of Environment, signed the CITES documents during her last days in office, just before she became the United Nations Deputy Secretary General.

“The retrospective issuance of thousands of CITES permits is reportedly the result of a grand corruption scheme that involves over a million dollars paid by influential Chinese and Nigerian businessmen to senior Nigerian officials, some of the transaction facilitated by Chinese diplomats.”

However, in an email correspondence with SUNDAY PUNCH, the spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said, “The UN secretary-general was informed by the deputy secretary general about the reports and he reiterates his full support and confidence in her. The deputy secretary general categorically rejected any allegations of fraud. She welcomes the effort to shine more light on the issue of illegal rosewood logging and exportation that she fought hard to address during her tenure in the Nigerian Government.”

Dujarric added, “She said that her actions as the Nigerian environment minister were intended to deal with the serious issue of illegal wood exportation. As a result, she instituted a ban and set up a high-level panel to find policy solutions to the crisis of deforestation in Nigeria.

“Ms. Mohammed said the legal signing of export permits for rosewood was delayed due to her insistence that stringent due process was followed. She said she signed the export certificates requested before the ban only after due process was followed and better security watermarked certificates became available.”

Meanwhile,  the incument Minister of the Environment, Usman Jibril, has said Mohammed is not being probed for an alleged illegal export of rosewood logs to China.

Reacting in a statement on Saturday, Jibril said while in office, Mohammed acted within the country’s law and protocols of international environmental conventions.

EIA’s report said over 1.4 million illegal rosewood logs from Nigeria, worth $300 million, were detained at the ports in China in 2016.

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