Dr. Bashir Jamoh, DG NIMASA left and Mr. Ibrahim Hamza Jamo right.
Story by Dili Utomi.
The allegation of the dumping of large amounts of money into different bank accounts belonging to the Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administrative and Safety Agency by one Mr. Jackson Ude, a US based journalist has been described as outright fabrication.
It was widely reported over the weekend following Mr. Ude’s tweet and his subsequent publication on his online pointblanknews site that the sums of #1.5 trillion in a Fidelity Bank account and another $9 million in an Access bank account have both been found to belong to Dr. Bashir Jamoh. Following the media buzz created by this weighty allegation of money laundry, Journalists had put in a call to the mobile telephone number listed as attached to the accounts only to be answered by another man whose name is Hamza Ibrahim Jamo who said that he is the owner of the listed account numbers.
Mr. Jamo who is a retired employee of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation also clarified that the Fidelity Bank account had never had a balance higher than #100 million Naira, he also said that the allegation against Dr. Bashir Jamoh is an outright fabrication.
The clarification made by Mr. Jamo therefore agitates one’s mind as to whether the report by the pointblanknews was a honest mistake or a deliberate attempt at blackmailing the NIMASA DG or again whether there is a sinister move towards tarnishing the man’s image in order to get him fired from his job.
Whichever reason Mr. Ude may have had, it leaves a very big intended or unintended scar on the image of the DG and a clear the air follow up is required from the publishers of the pointblanknews.