The story broke this week that President Obasanjo’s Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs, Mr Andy Uba, was recently named in a money laundering allegation in the United States of America. American security authorities were reported to have accused the presidential aide of smuggling into the United States a sum of $170,000, in cash.
It was further reported that this act of money smuggling was perpetrated on September 22, 2003, using the privileges of Nigeria’s Presidential jet, while Andy Uba accompanied President Obasanjo on a visit to New York. But in a swift reaction to the story, Presidential Special Adviser on Political Affairs, Chief Akin Oshuntokun, said that the allegation lacked substance, because the story was broken by THE SUN newspaper, which he described as “a tendentious source”. It was this ‘tendentiousness’ which made the story ‘inadmissible’ for Chief Akin Oshuntokun.
If THE SUN newspaper which broke the story was not an acceptable source, the story seemed to have taken a life of its own, when THE GUARDIAN newspaper of Wednesday, November 8, 2006, did a follow up story which confirmed that the Special Assistant to President Obasanjo, Andy Uba, had infact faced the charges of cash smuggling into the United States of America. The story went further to state that a settlement of the matter was eventually reached at the instance of the accused, Andy Uba, consequent upon which Uba paid a fine and his Mercedes Benz car that was earlier seized, was released to him.
Predictably, the story has generated a lot of interest in media and political circles; it was dubbed ‘ANDYGATE’ by sections of the media, while some political parties have called for a probe, and describing the event as having dealt a blow to the anti-corruption stance of the government. These points are well noted.
However, we feel that there are far more serious issues to be interrogated in this truly sordid affair. The first point to underline is that this act was perpetrated through the abuse of the privilege of access to Nigeria’s Presidential jet; that plane was not President Obasanjo’s personal jet and that raises the question of the levels of security checks that the presidential aircraft passes through before trips, given that a Special Assistant, Andy Uba, got the opportunity to smuggle money, using the aircraft.
Similarly, has it occurred to the Presidency that a far worse scenario could have been on our hands, such as the smuggling of drugs through that kind of abuse of privilege? Does it occur to the minders of our president that it was the reputation of Nigeria that was tarnished by President Obasanjo’s Special Assistant, when he illegally smuggled such a huge amount of money into the United States of America?
It is also important to interrogate the types of individuals that President Obasanjo allows access into the Presidential aircraft, because in his indulgence of individuals close to him, the line between his personal preferences, and the interests of Nigeria become blurred, and individuals such as Andy Uba, his Special Assistant, can and have used their access to the presidential aircraft to commit offences, as the case at hand has clearly underlined.
It is therefore important for the relevant security agencies to carry out a public inquiry into this unacceptable breach of presidential privilege, for the sake of the reputation of Nigeria, which has not been very high in the best of times. An effort must also be made to tighten the screws of security which was obviously breached when Andy Uba used his privileged access to smuggle a huge sum of money illegally into the United States of America.
Nigerians will be very interested in seeing how much zeal will be deployed by the anti-corruption bodies to unravel this truly embarrassing misuse of presidential privilege by one of the special members of the presidential entourage, Andy Uba, President Obasanjo’s Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs.