Chairman of Cubana Group Obi Iyiegbu, aka Obi Cubana, has defended the spraying of naira notes at the funeral of his mother Ezinne Uche Iyiegbu last week in Oba, Anambra State.
The funeral which soon turned into a carnival has been the talk of the town over the show of affluence throughout the ceremony.
Obi Cubana told BBC Pidgin in an interview published on Tuesday that he could not dictate for his guests how they would spend their money.
“Why would I plan to make people lavish their money, to bathe with it? They own their money and decide how to spend it.
“Those people are not people I can tell ‘do this or do this’…but I feel that they just wanted to show me love,” he said.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act makes it illegal to spray naira notes as it is considered to be ‘abuse and defacing’. Violators risk “imprisonment for term not less than six months or fine not less than N50,000 or both”.
Meanwhile, Obi Cubana and his crew left Anambra for Abuja earlier in the day after successfully completing the funeral rites.
The 46-year-old owns a chain of restaurants, hotels, nightclubs and other entertainment houses.
