RIGHT OF REPLY: Finance Minister's Brother Upset with Report.

Written by Chi-Chi Okonjo

Friday, 14 October 2005

Hello Jonathan, Good day. I write on behalf of my sister, Dr. Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. I am her Chi-Chi Okonjo brother. While I commend you for your efforts at exposing corruption, I take serious exception to something you and a colleague of yours did in writing an article about houses in Potomac, Maryland. What I find objectionable is that you published the address of my sister's house. In your zeal to show that you have unearthed documents, you forgot that my sister is in Nigeria working for the Federal Government and her family resides in the house which you wrote about. This shows that in your excitement, you gave little thought to the safety of my sister's family. Because of this irresponsible behaviour, a newspaper in Nigeria has published the address of my sister's house in the papers. To you this may not be a big deal. But in doing such investigative work, one must exercise caution and apply a modicum of decency. I am sure if you perused the documents in your possession, you would have realised that Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala moved into her house with her family in 1994. I fail to understand the objective of publishing her house address with others knowing that she lives in the U.S. and her family still resides in that house. This is a thoughtless, wicked and evil act. Not only have you now exposed her to a new barrage of 419ers, you are also putting her family at risk because of the kind of work she is doing here. She has received several death threats including threats at harming her family by highly placed individuals. What were you thinking by doing this? We now have the Nigeria Secret Service contacting the US service because of this. As a Nigerian, I am shocked at this. Had you exercised some caution and intelligence you would have quickly realised that she didn't purchase the house during this dispensation. Please immediately withdraw the address of her house and please desist from acting in such an irresponsible manner. Mr. Chi-Chi Okonjo is brother of Nigeria's Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Publisher's Note: It was not our intention to put the Minister's family and her at risk. However, we stand by our story. Jonathan Elendu Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Last Updated ( Sunday, 16 October 2005 )

 

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