Charles Okah, a suspected member of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), blamed for the 2010 Independence Day bomb that killed at least 10 people with many more injured, has written to the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, saying he was pressured by government to implicate leading opposition figures in the incident.

“At the SSS Headquarters Abuja where we were flown to, blindfolded with our legs and hands bound, my ‘cooperation’ was solicited for something completely different to my surprise,” Mr. Okah, whose younger brother is being tried in South Africa over the same allegation, said in his November 19, 2012 letter from the Kuje Prison in Abuja. “My captors threw me a lifeline; offering me our freedom and a lucrative contract in exchange for false testimony against my younger brother Henry, who is resident in South Africa.

“I was to write a false statement claiming to have been told by Henry about the bomb plot and naming the following persons as his conspirators: Former Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, Mallam Nasir El Rufai, Chief Timipre Sylva, and Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan. I bluntly refused.”

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