I won’t succumb to cheap blackmail by some faceless CSO individuals – Mohammed Bello Koko, Managing Director NPA

The Nigeria Port Authority (NPA) managing director, Mohammed Bello Koko, has disclosed that he will not succumb to the blackmail of “some faceless individuals” hiding under the cloak of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).

NPA’s managing director, in a statement on Saturday, revealed that for the past two years, certain CSO individuals have been using a section of online media as an instrument to push forward false reports in a desperate bid to defame and extort him.

“In the past two years, in a desperate bid to defame and extort me, some faceless individuals under the cloak of unknown Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have resorted to blackmail, using the instrumentality of a section of online media to push through their mischief and blackmail,” Koko said.

He noted that the unidentified individuals have recently resorted to a very cruel campaign of false allegations against him and his family by writing to the UK government, seeking visa cancellation and forfeiture of assets belonging to him and his wife in desperation to dent his integrity.

Koko stated that these unnamed individuals have deceitfully claimed in a report that UK/Ireland Investigators were the ones that had written to the UK government.

He added the purportedly unearthed alleged criminal acts against him, bordering on money laundering activities, fraud, forgery, and tax evasion are baseless figments of malicious intent.

According to him, the particulars cited in the report were the regurgitated allegations that they had sponsored and which had been doing the rounds in the media from the outset, adding that the latest attempt is as spurious as their first attempt ever.

He also noted that he does not have the opportunity to seek redress in court on the grounds of rehashed and rehearsed lies because the individuals are “faceless”.

“Their claim that UK/Ireland Investigators, and not Metropolitan Police or Scotland Yard, are investigating me falls flat on its face and gives out the sponsors of the report- which is a piece of cheap blackmail-as desperate hustlers who are not civil and neither working in the interest of the society,” he said

According to Koko, if the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had been on the matter as indicated in the report, it is then unfair to suggest or claim that some questionable UK/Ireland Investigators are now pushing for an exclusion order to ban him from ever entering the United Kingdom.
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“All the supposed assertions and innuendos in the report are nothing but spurious and malicious concoctions intended to cause predetermined damage,” he added.

He also disclosed that the UK property that was mentioned in the report was declared with the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and purchased before he was appointed into public office, noting that the property was purchased on a 15-year mortgage payment plan.

Koko reinstated that the NPA under his leadership is not aware or beneficiary of any secret foreign accounts adding that he runs an open administration that gives a premium to due process in the execution of the agency’s core mandates.

“I cannot afford to be distracted by the deliberate shenanigans of blackmailers and vested interests who are desperate to upset the applecart of my sharply-focused leadership that is committed to emplacing and bequeathing to the nation’s transparent and accountable management of the NPA now and in the years ahead,” he stated.