...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................
You need Java to see this applet.
Haiti 125x125
African Examiner online
Newspapers
Online media
Custom Search
*Your name:
*Your email address:
*Location:
Subject
Pls. do not change the displayed subject's text, it
will help us to quickly post your comment
*Comments:
*Mandatory
Please use the form below to send in your comment about this story. Make
it clean. Our Editors will remove  all vulgar and abusive languages
(Note: valid e-mail is required but will not be published)
Join us on
Cartoon
Our Contents
Book Review
Short Story
Séance: “The Tree of Life”
Azure sky romanced sweet soothing
Atlantic sea breeze whispering and
distilling through dancing palm and/
Speaking
For The
Generati
ons - An
Anthology
of
Contempor
ary African/
Join us on
Copyrights 2007  All Rights Reserved African Examiner Online (www.africanexaminer.com.)
P. O. Box 11582 Baltimore, MD, 21229, USA
More on African Examiner
Int'l organisations
Media Network
ONETRAVEL.COM New Year 468x60
Oludare Sunday Fase
Oludare Sunday Fase
Publisher/Editor-in-chief
editor@africanexaminer.com
443-904-1239
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The African Examiner.com
African Examiner
Photo Gallery
Get our free Newsletter
*Email Address
August 08, 2010 (African Examiner)
Activists accuse environment minister of
threatening their lives over report - 'Minister did
not threaten anyone' - Aide

An activist group, Niger Delta Budget Monitoring Group
(NDEBUMOG) has accused Nigeria’s Minister of environment, Mr
John Odey of threatening their life over a recent report released by
the pro-public accountability group.

The Legal Adviser of the group, Mr. Frank Nabena, in an on-line
statement to AkanimoReports on Saturday, claimed that the minister
threatened the life of  one of the key functionaries of the group, and
promised to ''treat our leadership not as human beings.''

According to Mr. Nabena, ''on Wednesday, our Monitoring and
Evaluation Officer I, Emanuel Jackson informed us that the Minister
of Environment, Mr. John Odey had called our office and requested
to speak with the Executive Director, (Mr. George-Hill Anthony) who
was not in the office’’

The statement continued, ''the minister then dropped his mobile
number and requested our staff to inform the Executive Director to
return his call. Upon receipt of the information, the call was returned
accordingly, a few minutes after 12pm on 4th August 2010, and
lasted for over 30 minutes at the cost of NDEBUMOG.

''In the process, Mr, John Odey spoke about being a “gentleman and
a South-South brother” and actually agreed that there was need for
a reconciliation between his Ministry and that of the Niger Delta. He
however said, his discomfort was the headline used by NDEBUMOG
that “his Ministry is deceiving Nigerians.''


However, the group said the second time the Minister called their
office on August 5  his tone was no longer ‘gentle’ by the details of
the conversation.

Again the group narrated the conversation as follows:

‘’On the 5th of August 2010, at about 11am, Mr. John Odey called
and requested to speak with the Executive Director once again. He
spoke for some minutes with one of our staff before requesting that
the ED be requested to call him. This, the ED did exactly by 11.06
am. The call went into call waiting, with he (Minister) returning the
call just immediately. Upon realizing the call was from NDEBUMOG’s
leadership, he barked out why the number used was not the same
as the one we used to speak with
yesterday.

‘’We told the minister that the MTN number he was referring to was
not in use that morning, and that we used our other GLO line, which
is also the ED’s official line. At that point, Mr. Odey began to bark at
our ED, George-Hill Anthony, asking why there he  had not done  a
retraction of the Public Statement, as “his people and friends are still
getting back to him” following the wide circulation of the statement by
a section of the media.

''He went further to say that our Public Statement must have been
influenced by the state of origin of NDEBUMOG leadership, since he
was not from Cross River State. According to him, he said majority of
the projects NDEBUMOG mentioned are in Cross River State. He
was fuming when he said, he was coming to Port Harcourt and would
report us to the Governors of Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Rivers
State; that, he would treat our leadership not as a human beings...”
and many other unprintable statements, which is not to be expected
from a state commissioner, much less from a minister of the Federal
Republic.

''We can make evidence of the minister’s statement available.
NDEBUMOG leadership is not afraid of death, provided the world
knows where it is coming from.’’

In a swift reaction to the allegations of the group, the minister's
Special Adviser (media)  Mr Rotimi Ajayi said in a statement  sent to
African Examiner that the allegations were baseless and ''only exist
in the realm of the imagination as there is no truth whatsoever to it.''

The statement partly reads;

''Anyone that has known the person of Mr Odey would realise that he
is a perfect gentleman, who would not threaten anyone over any
issue at all. Thankfully, the Group’s legal adviser, Mr Frank Nabena
admitted this in his online statement.

''It is therefore a wonder that NDEBUMOG legal officer, in his
statement issued on Saturday, would step out to make a sweeping
allegation against the Minister in such manner especially after the
Executive Director of the Group, Mr George-Hill Anthony had
personally called the Minister and apologised to him for the indicting
and misleading statement sent to the public. In addition, one of our
sisters, Alice Ukoko from London communicated with the Minister
and apologised on behalf of Goerge-Hill and for the wrong
impression given by the Group’s statement. The Minister has in any
case forgiven him after his apologies and the intervention from Alice
Ukoko in London.

''We are of the belief that the Group has as members, men and
women of impeccable characters and sound educational
background, who would have known the fundamental process of
budgeting and budget implementation in Nigeria. They should know
how budget is generated, processed and harmonized. They should
know the role of the National Assembly in budget processing and
passage.

''We therefore urge the group to refrain from making biased
allegations against the Minister.''
Nigerian  Minister of environment, Mr John Odey