Ladies and Gentlemen: We may be calling on God too often. As intelligent people, there are things we cannot wait even for a minute to understand. We need not call upon God on things so simple to understand such as the new story peddled by TELL Magazine. Consider this:

(1) TELL told that I was convicted of theft. But where, by what court and at what time? Have you ever seen a person convicted of theft who was not sentenced to prison or some punishment? Do you need God to answer that question for you?

(2) TELL told that I am manipulating the National Assembly. Do you believe that? Do you need God to know that cannot be true? If I were manipulating the National Assembly, I would have asked their members to impeach a President that could not fight Boko Haram, but instead signed a ceasefire with the sect.

(3) TELL told you that Ambassador Adefuye spent 10 million dollars realized from the sale of the Government properties because the Embassy was short of funds. Do you need God to know that such was unconstitutional and in violation of the appropriation laws of Nigeria? Do you need God for that?

(4) By TELL’s own miserable story, Ambassador Adefuye is a self-confessed criminal in respect of the 10 million dollars he admitted he met and spent at the Embassy. TELL did not even understand the implications of its admission. But in the corrupt agenda of the old Nigeria, of which TELL is a dying remnant, it does not matter that Adefuye might have embezzled at least 10 million dollars, as long as he pays money to TELL. What TELL admitted on behalf of the Ambassador is the classic definition of misappropriation, which is a crime. What due process did the Ambassador follow to spend the 10 million dollars? Was that not what put Bode George in jail? How come that TELL suddenly seems unable to tell that?

(5) TELL should tell Nigerians who authorized the Ambassador to spend 10 millions outside the appropriation process. TELL must be accessory to the crime. TELL should tell Nigerians how it happened. A crime was committed of which TELL admits being aware but failed to report to the law enforcement authorities. That is the meaning of accessory to crime. The author of the desperate article, Mr. Adekunle Yusuf, really knows a lot more about this crime of misappropriation, which could be known only to a participant in the crime.

(6) One thing that is definitely true that TELL is not telling is the fact that I am Ambassador Adefuye’s nightmare. I am a nightmare to those who stole Government money and tried to shut me up about it. They basically stole it. And when I raised alarm, they decided to use the Nigerian government power to suppress me. Adefuye and the ministers who conspired to fleeter away millions of dollars of Nigerian people’s money have murdered sleep and they shall not sleep either. They used the EFCC against me. They used Sahara Reporters. They used many other on-line news websites. And they now use TELL. A friend asked me today if I face stress on account of the blatant assault by TELL magazine and I said: “Hell no!” I love the fact that TELL has played its hands and showed itself in such a miserable light.

(7) For anyone surprised that TELL could join in such a hatchet job, it shouldn’t be a surprise at all. It is just the power of money. It is only logical. When a country is corrupt, it is not only one sector that gets corrupted. It is not only the politicians that get corrupt. Every aspect of the society is affected. Universities, lecturers and professors are affected. The police are affected. The lawyers are affected. The hospitals are affected. The fuel station attendant is affected. So, why do you think that the journalists would not be affected? Do you think that the Nigerian journalists live in Mars? They are Nigerians and they live through all the challenges that face the country today. While some journalists are trying to uphold the ethics of their profession, you have those like what we are seeing in TELL trying to survive corruptly in a decadent country. Nigerians should not be surprised at TELL at all.

(8) The funniest things also, which many may have not noted is that throughout the story, TELL did not indicate why it made no attempt to contact the man whose picture they used to tell the story. Am I so little in the story that no effort was ever made by TELL to contact me? I thought it was largely a story about me. Yet, not an email. Not an inbox. Not a phone call. Nothing, nothing! No effort to hear my view or whether I had any response to the things that have been said about me. And yet, TELL owed its readers a duty to explain why it never tried to contact me, even though I have been openly available. Smart readers would be shocked and wonder. Is that how journalism goes now? You tell a story about a man and you do everything to avoid looking in that man's direction. It doesn’t need rocket science to understand that TELL had been paid to tell a story.

There are other lies that TELL told, which you could not verify immediately. But at least the above are fundamentally serious and enough for you to dismiss TELL magazine as a bigot. You don’t need God to answer these questions. TELL understands what awaits the Ambassador in these hearings that are on-going. TELL is just trying to preempt the hearings as a co-conspirator.

TELL magazine is known to have been doing extremely badly lately financially, in face of many online news websites all over the country. It should be a little surprise that the Ambassador would spend a bit of that money on an ailing magazine that so desperately needs it to stay afloat.

•Being text of a statement issued yesterday afternoon by Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire (shown in photo), reacting to TELL magazine’s article on him and Ambassador Adefuye. Ugwuonye is a key witness at the Senate Hearing on the $27 million allegedly misappropriated by some officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Washington, USA.

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