Obi Cubana Liberia visit resurfaces as the Cubana Group rejects any link between its 2021 trade mission and drug allegations against Jewel Howard-Taylor.
The Cubana Group has come out swinging against any suggestion that links its Chairman, Obi Cubana, and a 2021 business trip to Liberia with the recent drug trafficking allegations trailing former Liberian Vice-President Jewel Howard-Taylor.
As far as the group is concerned, that visit was a genuine, openly reported trade and investment mission — and it has absolutely nothing to do with claims popping up almost five years down the line.
The Cubana Group is not about to let this one slide, and it has made that much crystal clear.
The company says its attention was pulled toward a recent media report that went back and dug up a 2021 trade and investment visit to Liberia — a trip that featured a delegation of Nigerian business leaders alongside the Cubana Group Chairman, Chief (Dr.) Obinna Iyiegbu, the man everyone knows as Obi Cubana.
And according to the group, the way that story was timed and packaged looked very much like an attempt to link a completely legitimate business trip to fresh allegations now trailing former Liberian Vice-President Jewel Howard-Taylor. That, they argue, is both misleading and deeply unfair.
Obi Cubana Liberia
The group wants one thing understood without any ambiguity — the Obi Cubana Liberia visit was clean from beginning to end. The way they tell it, the October 2021 trip was a transparent trade and investment mission, all about seeking out business opportunities and firming up trade ties.
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The delegation went there to weigh possible investments across sectors like tourism, hospitality, real estate, agriculture, and youth development — the very same kind of cross-border conversations that go on in business circles every day of the week.
And here is the twist that the Cubana Group is quick to point out. The report in question actually admits all of this itself. It acknowledges that the Nigerian delegation touched down in Monrovia in October 2021 as part of a trade mission, and that meetings were arranged with members of Liberia’s business community to talk over possible investments. So the basic facts of the trip were never really up for debate in the first place. Obi Cubana Liberia
Now to the part the group really wants people to pause on. At the time of that visit, Jewel Howard-Taylor was the sitting Vice-President of Liberia. Meeting a serving Vice-President during an official trade and investment trip is nothing strange and nothing secretive — it is simply how these things are done. Obi Cubana Liberia
And nobody tried to hide any of it. Photographs from the meeting were shared openly. The purpose of the visit was discussed in public. The business goals of the delegation were reported by the media at the time. The group even recalls that Howard-Taylor herself later explained that Obi Cubana had come to Liberia as part of a trade mission chasing business opportunities, particularly in tourism, and that her own role had been to showcase Liberia’s investment potential and help connect legitimate partnerships.
This is where the Cubana Group draws a hard line in the sand. There is, they argue, a world of difference between legitimately engaging a public officeholder and being dragged into allegations made against that same person years later. Nobody in that 2021 delegation, the group insists, could have possibly seen into the future and predicted claims that would only emerge against a former official in 2026.
And more importantly, they say nothing in the report actually establishes any genuine link between the company, its Chairman, the trade mission, and the current allegations facing Howard-Taylor.
Two people meeting in the course of legitimate business does not, on its own, make one answerable for whatever the other person does afterward. Using photos of a publicly known business meeting to hint otherwise, the group warns, simply trades facts for insinuation and guilt by association.
The Obi Cubana Liberia trip, they add, was hardly some one-off adventure. Over the years, the Chairman has taken part in business meetings, investment missions, and economic engagements involving political leaders, government representatives, and investors across a number of countries.
He has sat down with stakeholders in other African nations too, including the Republic of Benin, all in the pursuit of opportunities and stronger cross-border business relationships. More recently, the group notes, he returned from business and trade engagements in Canada and the United Kingdom, where he met with government representatives, investors, and private-sector leaders across sectors that matter to Cubana’s interests. The point they are driving home is simple — none of these engagements were ever kept secret, because there was never anything shady about them to begin with.
The company closed out its statement with a straightforward appeal to fairness. It says it fully respects the media’s job to report on matters of public interest, but that same job, in its view, demands proper context and a clean separation between established fact and lazy speculation.
On that footing, the group flatly rejects any attempt — spoken outright or merely implied — to connect Obi Cubana, the Cubana Group, or the 2021 Nigerian trade delegation with the allegations now hanging over Howard-Taylor, purely because members of that delegation once met her while she held one of the highest offices in Liberia.
If the proper authorities eventually prove wrongdoing against anybody, the group says, then let that be settled through evidence and due process — not by casting a shadow over businesspeople, investors, or diplomats who legitimately dealt with that person in an official capacity years earlier. Obi Cubana Liberia
The statement, signed off by the Management of Cubana Group, ended by restating the company’s dedication to legitimate enterprise, responsible investment, job creation, youth development, and helping African business grow across international markets.
Its Chairman, it added, will keep engaging governments, investors, and institutions wherever honest opportunities exist to push investment, expand enterprise, and move African economic development forward. Obi Cubana Liberia
What’s your take on this one — is it fair to drag up a five-year-old business trip because of new allegations, or is the Cubana Group right to push back hard? Drop your honest thoughts in the comments and share this with someone following the story.
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