The “Reform and Rebrand Alamieyeseigha” project is well and truly on. To achieve that, the ghost of Nigeria’s late former president, Umaru Musa Yaradua has been summoned.

The former Bayelsa governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, whose pardon last month by the National Council of State has continued to generate uproar and disgust by most Nigerians, gave his first interview since his pardon to the London based NewsAfrica magazine.

In the interview, which was published in the April edition of the magazine, Alamieyeseigha said something which has never come up since the conversation on his pardon began, not even by the presidential spokesmen. he said that the state pardon recently granted him by President Goodluck Jonathan was part of the plea bargain deal between him and the Federal Government, then headed by Umaru Yar’Adua.

That would come as a shock to most Nigerians. Many would have assumed that if Alamieyeseigha’s assertion is really true, then the president, through his handlers would have brought it up, especially as President Jonathan allegedly was aware of the agreement.

Alamieyeseigha said: “This pardon did not start from Goodluck (President Jonathan). It was part of the agreement with the government. Because Goodluck knows the story from the beginning, he was just carrying out part of an existing agreement.”

READ: No Comments Today; But Here’s What Okonjo-Iweala Said About The Alams Saga In 2007 (Video)

So what was Alamieyeseigha bringing to the table? Peace in the Niger Delta, he says.

“My own part was to deliver on peace in the Niger Delta by convincing the militants to accept the Federal Government’s amnesty programme. I convinced the militants to accept the FG’s amnesty and I have not stopped ever since. The country owes the peace in the Niger Delta partly to my efforts. Till today, every day, I get one report or the other and I intervene because they all see me as their father, leader and governor general.”

If that’s the case, then Alamieyeseigha’s phone lines would currently be ringing non-stop, following the renewal of hostilities in the Niger Delta by terrorists. MEND claimed on Sunday that it was responsible for the killing of 14 policemen a day before.

Just like in 2010, when their claim of responsibility for the October 1 bombing was hastily dismissed by the president as untrue, the police has also faulted MEND’s claims of being responsible for the murder of the officers.

READ: MEND Claims Responsibility For Killing Of 15 Policemen

Alamieyeseigha insisted in his interview that he was innocent of the charges against him, and was prepared to fight the corruption charges against him to the end but accepted the plea bargain for three reasons (which he had also said in the court then before the judge passed the sentence): His age and deteriorating health; the escalating violence in the Niger Delta and the loss of the lives of the youth protesting for his release; and because he saw Yar”adua as a man of integrity.

Alamieyeseigha said he was in Dubai on medical treatment when Nuhu Ribadu, the then chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) generated a letter purportedly from the government that he ’was persona non grata and planned to overthrow the government of Nigeria”. The allegation came about after his five of his former colleagues and Atiku Abubakar, the former Vice President, visited him at the hospital. The Federal Government then sent security men to whisk him back to Nigeria and straight to the EFCC cell, although he was in the middle of his medical treatment.

“I could not even walk because I had a metal implant in my groin’. He said: “Ribadu said he did not care if he died there. The following night, Ibrahim Lamorde, (the present EFCC boss) brought a phone to me and said it was President Yar’Adua who wanted to speak to me. He (Yar’Adua) said ‘Ginuwa (his traditional title in Katsina), I cannot be President and see you die because they will kill you. I am the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria not Olusegun Obasanjo (anymore). The information available to me suggests that they will kill you. So come out. Do not contest anything’. Asked by the magazine who he thought the ‘they’ were, he responded ‘forces in government’.

According to Alamieyeseigha, Yar’Adua, promised him that ‘you are not going to spend one day in prison. I will give you pardon. Come out and help solve the Niger Delta problem. But I know how stubborn and difficult you are when you believe in something. So, I am going to send your younger brother (Goodluck Jonathan) the Vice President to you: to speak to you and to convey my decision’.

The former governor said the Vice President came following day and was shocked to see his state of health: ‘He (Jonathan) made a statement, “This is the man in this state that wants to overthrow the government of Nigeria? He conveyed Yar’Adua message. I slept over what the President and the Vice President said and I felt they were making sense’. On why Yar’Adua did not give him the pardon before he died, Alamieyeseigha said the then President had asked him to apply but the political forces against him then generated a security report that he was paired with Atiku to contest the 2011 election against Yar’Adua and Jonathan. “They advised him to step it down till the duo got their nominations from the PDP.

“I laughed because there was no way under the heaven that I could contest election against my younger brother, Goodluck Jonathan.”

In comments that may reveal one of the reasons Yar’Adua removed Ribadu from office, he said he had gone to Abuja to thank the President for freeing him when Yar’Adua asked “when I will be ready to take up ministerial office to help him solve the Niger Delta problem. I told him I had a metal implant in my groin and needed to go and remove it.”

http://www.thescoopng.com/late-president-yaradua-wanted-to-appoint-me-as-minister-ex-convict-alamieyeseigha-reveals/?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter

“I could not even walk because I had a metal implant in my groin’. He said: “Ribadu said he did not care if he died there. The following night, Ibrahim Lamorde, (the present EFCC boss) brought a phone to me and said it was President Yar’Adua who wanted to speak to me. He (Yar’Adua) said ‘Ginuwa (his traditional title in Katsina), I cannot be President and see you die because they will kill you. I am the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria not Olusegun Obasanjo (anymore). The information available to me suggests that they will kill you. So come out. Do not contest anything’. Asked by the magazine who he thought the ‘they’ were, he responded ‘forces in government’.

According to Alamieyeseigha, Yar’Adua, promised him that ‘you are not going to spend one day in prison. I will give you pardon. Come out and help solve the Niger Delta problem. But I know how stubborn and difficult you are when you believe in something. So, I am going to send your younger brother (Goodluck Jonathan) the Vice President to you: to speak to you and to convey my decision’.

While the choice words used by Yar'Adua and reported here somehow does not ring true, one only needs to recall his long period of fraternization with James Ibori to see why this account of events largely believable.

eGuerrilla:

While the choice words used by Yar'Adua and reported here somehow does not ring true, one only needs to recall his long period of fraternization with James Ibori to see why this account of events largely believable.

I also don't doubt any bit of the story!

Yes! Minister For Amnesty Affairs!! Nigeria my country where Politicians are the S.I unit of Corruption .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6920561.stm

** Nigeria ex-governor freed early

Alamieyeseigha was the first ex-governor convicted of corruption

A former governor of Nigeria's Bayelsa state has been released from prison two days after receiving a two-year sentence for money laundering.

Diepreye Alamaieyeseigha's early release is reported to be the result of a PLEA BARGAIN. On Thursday he pleaded guilty to six corruption charges.

He was arrested in Britain in 2005 but fled to Nigeria where he was arrested later that year and sacked as governor.
He was ordered to hand over property, stocks and cash.

He had been in custody since being re-arrested in Nigeria in December 2005, so he had served most of his two-year sentence.

Officials said Alamieyeseigha left the UK disguised in women's clothing, a claim he has consistently denied.

He is the first ex-governor to be convicted for corruption.

Many mansions
Despite the short jail term and the early release, analysts say his conviction is a sign that President Umaru Yar'Adua is serious about continuing Olusegun Obasanjo's anti-corruption drive.
He succeeded Mr Obasanjo at the end of May.

Alamieyeseigha was accused of owning multi-million dollar mansions in Nigeria and abroad and pleaded guilty to embezzlement and money laundering.

Five other former governors are currently facing charges of corruption, theft and money laundering in courts in Abuja and Lagos.
Two of the ex-governors were released on bail on Friday but the court set stringent conditions to stop them fleeing.

Patient! Your boy (Jona) will soon fulfill it Ovoko