In the last 24 hours, the media ecosphere has been awash with rehashed and regurgitated falsehoods on the person of Engr. Enyinnaya Nwafor by sponsored columnists and agents of politicians who trade on propaganda and falsehoods.
The latest of this redundant trope and worn-on stories of looting of Abia treasury is the targeted inundation of the media space with the recycled fiction of “How Enyinnaya Nwafor moved over N2.6B Abia money in 6 months.”
The facts:
Ironically, this same news, same source and same sponsors had mentioned N5.5b as the amount looted by Engr. Enyinnaya Nwafor in their previous publication on the same subject in January 2022.
However, these political jobbers, sensing the increasing prospects of Engr. Enyinnaya Nwafor becoming the next Governor of Abia state despite these allegations, had contrived and thought in their narrow minds that the only way to diminish these prospects will be by tinkering with this worn-out and threadbare falsehood and republishing it, which they did on October 31, 2022 – only that this time they changed the figures to N2.5billon Naira with other actors, names and the events remaining the same. In their confused state, they did not remember to change the dates within which the transactions occurred.
In the interest of those who value the truth and out of respect for Engr. Nwafor’s teeming fans and prospective voters, we wish to restate and reiterate these notorious facts on these issues:
1. Engr. Enyinnaya Nwafor is the Chief Executive Officer of Tunnel End Group, Rock Waters and other subsidiaries that offer a gamut of products and services that cut across the quarry, real estate, hospitality management, agriculture, road construction, manufacturing, haulage, consultancy and merchandising.
2. Tunnel End, the parent company was founded in 2008. Tunnel End is reputed to have large clientele including but not limited to the Ministry of Defence, TETFUND, Julius Berger, INEC, Central Bank of Nigeria, state governments, individuals and other corporate bodies.
3. Tunnel End has existing physical offices/sites at Osisioma, Abia State; Amasiri, Ebonyi State; Lagos, Abuja and Turkey.
4. Tunnel End, like most businesses, depends on registered bureau de change companies to source foreign exchange. This is because most of the parts, tools, machines and trucks used by the Tunnel End Group are sourced from overseas companies through legitimate channels. A company that wants to “loot” would be stupid to use official, legitimate and known BDC to wire money.
5. Those who are peddling these rumours also demonstrate their large-scale ignorance. Otherwise, they ought to know that SINOSTAR, SMT and others mentioned in their report are mostly “engaged in the importing and marketing of heavy-duty equipment and trucks with the direct support of topnotch companies overseas.” Tunnel End imports through these companies. So, what is looting about a company that gets paid for jobs done deploying same funds to purchase equipment and replacing parts?
6. That the company receives payments for the services it renders to its numerous clients and the payments are always invoiced and receipted. As far as the mode of payment is legal, the company receives and receipts every payment. The company is hardly in a position to determine its clients’ mode or frequency of payments to its account, whether it comes in tranches or lump sums.
7. On this same subject matter as alleged by this noisome publisher, the company and its subsidiaries, in the last four years have been investigated by the anti-graft agency which resulted in the issuance of a clean bill status. The conclusion of these investigations and verification of the executed jobs and services have been to declare these petitions as false, spurious and the handiwork of mischief makers.
Having provided this basic clarification, we vehemently deny every allegation of looting or collaboration with any entity to loot Abia State’s funds or resources.
Tunnel End is an ethically constrained company that has been the subject of an investigation by the EFCC in Uyo, Port Harcourt, Lagos and Abuja in three years on the same regurgitated allegations and has been issued a clean bill of health.
We, therefore, find this latest onslaught on the same subject matter as a ploy to distract the gubernatorial candidate of the YPP from his message of RESTORATION to the good people of Abia.
To this end, Engr. Enyinnaya Nwafor wishes to not attach any more relevance and importance to these political jobbers as he is rather focused on the job of becoming the next governor of Abia State.
As such, he will not be distracted by these baseless, inane accusations.
Ben Udechukwu
09.11. 22
