Respected businessman cum philanthropist, Captain Hosa Okunbor, has again issued a statement dissociating him from the controversial oil swap deal involving former Minister of Petroleum, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke. An unverified news report currently being circulated among Whatsapp users, which listed some Nigerian businessmen as beneficiaries of the said fraud, is a rehash of a report published in 2015 by an international news portal, which it had since retracted as Okunbor was never listed among the perpetrators.
A statement released by the media team of Captain Okunbor reads, “As widely known, Captain Okunbor is neither under any probe nor facing any litigation over oil scam. The current administration, which has made anti-corruption its mantra and made giant strides in that respect, has not found Captain Okunbor or any of his businesses questionable or culpable of any underhand dealings. It is therefore horrifyingly unprofessional that some people, who perhaps saved the earlier report for hideous purposes apparently, have made it a habit to rehash and circulate it on a periodical basis on social media platforms especially on Whatsapp to unsuspecting contacts who in turn send it as broadcast messages.”
The statement reads further, “We, therefore, urge the public to disregard the report, which as far as we are concerned, is a product of the puerile imagination of blackmailers masquerading as bloggers, and fifth columnists who have clearly demonstrated that they have an axe to grind with the widely respected businessman.”
“It bears reiterating that Captain Okunbor has nothing to do with the controversial offshore processing agreements, OPAs, known as oil swap, involving the former Minister of Petroleum and others,” the statement concluded.
Captain Okunbor is a seasoned investor in diverse sectors of the economy spanning petroleum, marine, construction engineering and agriculture. His Hosa Wells Greenhouse Farm Limited, the first indigenously owned commercial greenhouse farm in Nigeria, launched its first fruits harvest last month, thus, blazing the trail with its all-year-round farming, which has been appraised as a novel initiative.
