THREE Nigerian newspapers, Business Day, Leadership and The Nation, published a story (archived here, here and here) suggesting that the embattled Chief Executive of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, was exonerated of fraud allegations by the District Court in Atlanta.
This follows new charges filed by the US Attorney’s Office against Onyema this month adding to previous allegations of fraud and money laundering dating back to 2019.
However, reactions to the stories titled, “US court acquits Air Peace boss, slams Mayfield $4000 fine”, “US Court Clears Air Peace CEO Onyema, Slams $4,000 Fine On Springfield Aviation Ex-Staff” and “US court acquits Air Peace boss, fines Mayfield $4000” respectively, indicate widespread misinformation, with many interpreting it as a confirmation of Onyema’s innocence.
READ : Is United Nations creating a new country out of Nigeria, Cameroon?
CLAIM
US court acquits Air Peace boss of business fraud.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the story is FALSE and misleading.
The US government on 11 October charged Allen Onyema, CEO of Nigerian carrier Air Peace, with obstruction of justice, stacking up further criminal charges against the Nigerian businessman, who has continued to elude the US courts since 2019.
The US Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Georgia, accused Onyema of submitting false documents to the government to end an investigation into him on charges of bank fraud and money laundering.
The U.S. government had accused Ebony Mayfield, an American woman, of signing and submitting fabricated documents between 2016 and 2018 to help Onyema move $20 million from Nigeria to the U.S. in an alleged money laundering scheme.
Reactions and reposts of the stores from the media houses show that the report has been largely misconstrued to mean the businessman has been vindicated. It was not clear whether this is a deliberate attempt to mislead or sway public opinion by the mediums.
For instance, an X user, @Mindset_post posted the story with a caption : “The District Court in Atlanta, Georgia has exonerated Allen Onyema, the Chief Executive of Air Peace, of any business fraud.”
The post has generated over 500 reposts as of 10:54 am, October 22 when it was archived.
The FactCheckHub ran a keyword search using the story’s headline and found that it was copied verbatim from a news report published in October 2022.
According to the report, the U.S. court purportedly acquitted the Air Peace chief of $20,000 in fraud and any business fraud.
An earlier version of the story was published by The Guardian and Street Journal respectively on October 30, 2022.
A look at the three stories showed that the story originated from a statement released by the legal firm of the organisation and was not obtained from any court judgment.
READ ALSO : No! Court did not order VeryDarkMan to pay N500m fine over defamation
Further search showed that the news was misleading. A correct version of the report by Premium Times within the same period showed that while Mayfield’s case was closed, Onyema remains wanted in the U.S.
According to Premium Times, Onyema and Air Peace Limited’s Head of Administration and Finance, Ejiroghene Eghagha, still had 36 charges of fraud and money laundering pending against them since 2019 at the same court. Prosecutors said Onyema engaged, Mayfield, a bartender and nightclub dancer, as a manager for his Atlanta, Gerogia-based Springfield Aviation Company LLC in 2016.
The U.S. government claims that Onyema engaged Mayfield to enter contracts on behalf of Springfield, despite her lack of qualifications, and that they submitted fake documents to secure a $20 million credit disbursement from Nigeria for the purchase of Boeing 737 planes. Prosecutors alleged the planes were already owned by Air Peace, and Springfield was used to transfer $15 million into Onyema’s account. Charges include bank fraud, credit application fraud, and money laundering related to 27 suspicious transactions.
Another major red flag is the fact that three media platforms reported the same story verbatim which signals the possibility of an Influence Operation which is an organised attempt to skew how people see an issue or in this case, a personality.
On October 13, 2024, PREMIUM TIMES reported that in addition to the earlier $20 million bank fraud case against Allen Onyema, the United States government has piled more charges against him as he continues to elude trial in an American court in the last five years. This showed that there was never a point he was exonerated in the case before.
THE VERDICT
The claim that the U.S. court has acquitted Air Peace boss Allen Onyema of business fraud is FALSE. Findings show that this is a misleading rehash of an old story, and Onyema still faces multiple charges, with no evidence of exoneration.
The post Three legacy media mislead public with false story of Air Peace’s boss exoneration appeared first on FactCheckHub.
FactCheckHub
