Leadership (Abuja)
Clem Khena-Ogbena
5 November 2009
Abuja — Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Barrister Humphrey Abah, has refuted the statement credited to him that the former administration of president Olusegun Obasanjo squandered N15bn Auto Fund, published in the Daily Trust Newspaper edition of Friday October 30, 2009.
The minister said he was misquoted at a closed door meeting held with members of the House of Representatives Committee on Industry. The minister who made the statement during a press conference the same day, dissociated himself from it, saying, "The press and government are partners in Nigeria, and therefore owe a duty in their responsibility of moving Nigeria forward through dissemination of all information appropriately and accurately."
Abah's response to the allegations by the Chairman of the Committe, Mr. Solomon Agidani, about the missing N15billion from NAC and Sugar Council funds which are two parastatals under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, may have been misrepresented as he explained: "My response to that question was, I have not come across this information before; the two parastatals have never brought a report like this to us. And I immediately directed my Permanent Secretary, Dr. Abubakar Mohammed to write to the CBN, the Sugar Council( SC) and the NAC, to find information about the funds".
The minister, however, pleaded with the media to be painstaking in verifying their information before publication, stating, "why attributing such a statement to my person which i did not say?". He said there was nowhere, and at no given time did he voice that statement.
"At no time did I talk about any amount of money being squandered during the oversight visit by the House of Representative members. I never mentioned that money was missing," the minister said. He contended that he could not have uttered that wreckless statement without making some clarifications from the relevant agencies.
Abah insisted that the editorial board of Daily Trust Newspapers must tender an apology to him, even as he threatened no court action, stating, "I request for a retraction; it is unfair to my person, and the publication is most irresponsible". The minister further said that even though the meeting was behind closed doors, where the author was never present, he had expected the writers to come to him to cross check the veracity of that statement, between Tuesday when the meeting was held and Friday when the paper went to press.
The minister said the statement credited to him was even the more embarrassing and painful when the DG of NAC who was actually not present at the meeting, was indeed, mentioned in the report as being present.
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