| detained leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, Mr. Henry Okah |
South African police authorities on Wednesday said it had proof that the detained leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, Mr. Henry Okah, was constantly making phone calls from his cell to abuse and threaten President Goodluck Jonathan and other senior officials of government in Nigeria.
The police who raided Okah’s B-Max cell said they caught the detainee with eight phones from which they believed he was calling to verbally abuse and threaten the president with plans to further launch terror attacks in the country.
A map and other documents believed to constitute security threats were also found in Okah’s cell.
“In these phone calls, which we believe he made from the prepaid cell phones we seized, he is alleged to have verbally abused several senior Nigerian government officials, including the president.
“He is also believed to have told the president and his minister about further terror attacks MEND is believed to have been planning on carrying out,” Pretoria News quoted a senior official of the Department of Correctional Services to have said on Thursday.
Officials of the correctional services department raided Okah’s cell on Tuesday night.
But spokesman for Jonathan, Mr. Ima Niboro, on Thursday denied that Okah was calling to abuse and threaten the President.
“He did not call the President, and could not have reached him if he even tried. Please ignore the tale. It is just that, a tale!” Niboro wrote in a text to our correspondent who asked for the presidency’s response.
However, the correctional services official further said, “It is clear this man is powerful and extremely dangerous. Information in our possession indicates that he allegedly made several threatening phone calls to the Nigerian president.
“Also among the items seized was a detailed map of what is thought to be the court where he is to appear in April. We believe that this was to be used to aid him in a possible escape,”
The Nigerian Senate last week passed the Anti-Terror Act which prescribes death sentence for offenders.
Okah is currently in detention in South Africa where he is standing trial for terror attacks in Nigeria. He is believed to be the mastermind of the Independence Day twin bombings in the Federal Capital Territory.
About 12 people died in the attacks while members of MEND claimed responsibility.
The South African correctional services officers, after the raid, said they believed that Okah, whom they described as “powerful”, was still at the head of MEND and that he coordinated the activities of the organisation from his cell.
The spokesman for the South African police, McIntosh Polela, was quoted to have confirmed the raids on Okah’s cell and the shocking discoveries made.
Apart from the cell phones and the map, the other documents seized from Okah were said to contain phone numbers of Jonathan and his cabinet ministers.
Consequent upon the discoveries, there are indications on Thursday that the South African police are initiating the relocation of the MEND leader from the B-Max section of the prison, where he is currently held, to the A-Max, being the maximum security section of the prison.
Okah was arrested in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Saturday, October 2, 2010, and charged to the court for terror activities. But he continued to deny links with the October 1 bombings in Abuja, few meters to the Eagle Square where Jonathan was hosting international guests to the celebration of Nigeria’s 50th independence anniversary.
While he has been battling for bail, Okah also continue to maintain that his ordeal is political and that it is because he has refuse to give his blessing for the 2011 presidential ambition of a fellow Ijaw man, Jonathan.
He once said, “As an Ijaw man, they believed I should support an Ijaw man automatically but I said no. This is a struggle and the struggle is not about me, it’s about millions of people.”
Okah, 43, was born in Ikorodu, Lagos State. He is an indigene of Bayelsa State. He holds a BSc in Marine Engineering. He is a licenced door-to-door gun salesman. He moved to South Africa, 2003; arrested in Angola, September 2007; deported to Nigeria, detained and charged with 62 counts including treason, terrorism and gun-running, offences carrying the death penalty.
The administration of late President Umaru Yar’Adua released him July 13, 2009 as part of the government’s amnesty programme.
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