Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
A clear conscience fears no accusation, a saying goes. But threats, sponsored backlash, a campaign of calumny, falsehood, and deliberate manipulation of truth rain from the office of Abdul Samad Rabiu, owner of BUA Rice Limited. The backlash occurred weeks after SecretReporters conducted an investigative report on how the BUA group siphoned the government’s money.
It can be recalled that SecretReporters while exposing how BUA’s Abdul Samad Rabiu downplayed Nigeria’s populace of N1.3 billion by making the suspended Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele and Ex-Finance Minister to pay him for rice supply despite having no productive milling plant.
Reacting to the investigation, BUA group conspired to “tarnish the image of hardworking investigative journalists, Fejiro Oliver and Desmond Ike-Chima, who called them out.”
On their part, SecretReporter’s Fejiro Oliver and E-Nigeria Newspaper’s Desmond Ike-Chima, in a joint statement, said the reference to BUA’s forex activities published in selected dailies does not represent the entire picture as it was only a smokescreen to obfuscate the matter further.
“Typically, we would have opted to remain mute and not dignify them with a response on this issue since we have solid evidence to back our report; importantly too, the trove of documents within our arsenal wreaks of stench as our subsequent publications would reveal, but these are precarious times when silence is classed as acquiescence; uninteresting times when dogs eat fellow dogs with reckless abandon.
“Consequently, it is pertinent to state that Abdul Samad Rabiu-led BUA Group has failed to address the crux of the matter, and rather than resort to name-calling and blackmail as a way of avoiding the underlining issue raised in our report; we challenge them to come clean as we will never be cowered into silence by any individual(s) or corporations in whatever guise they come”.
Standing by their report, they affirmed that “we make bold to say that we are not interested in trafficking in a conversation to nowhere as the auspicious appointment of Mr. Osayande Obazee-led investigation into the operations of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over the years will reveal a Pandora box of financial sleaze involving BUA and other Corporations that have shortchanged the Nigerian economy.
“And to avoid doubts, we stand by our story.”
