The Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed, has denied she was involved in the illegal export of African rosewood from Nigeria to China in a trade deal estimated to be worth $300m.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), in a documentary video claimed that Mohammed might have derived personal benefits from signing thousands of allegedly backdated permits in January 2017 which it said were used to clear illegal rosewood exports to China.
However, Mohammed in an interview with TheCable, sternly denied the allegations, stressing that she spent her time at the ministry working to eliminate the illegal export of the tropical hardwood used for rosewood furniture in China.
“No permits were backdated or illegally signed by me. We are therefore appalled if any legally obtained or forged certificates were used by unscrupulous rosewood traders to circumvent exportation procedures,” she said.
“Not only do I decry fraud and corruption, we also categorically reject any allegations of corruption or coercion in our effort to better address illegal logging and exportation.”
“I categorically deny receiving any bribe. It has never been in my character. I never demanded neither did I collect any bribe, either cash or material,” she further told TheCable.
Mohammed said when she was appointed minister of environment in November 2015, “one of the first issues I had to deal with was deforestation. It was a huge concern as Nigeria was losing its forest cover at an alarming rate… For me, protecting the environment is sacrosanct. When I was minister, one of my first acts was to tackle illegal logging. What I found on ground was alarming”.