Okah: Jonathan behind bombings in
2010 - It’s not true – Presidency

A senior Niger Delta militant
undergoing trial in South Africa is
alleging that President Jonathan was
behind two bombings in 2010—one in
Abuja on Independence Day and the
other
in Delta State seven months earlier.
Henry Okah, leader of the Movement for the
Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), who is
standing trial over the deadly October 1 bombing
near the Eagle Square, is making the claims against
Jonathan in a sworn affidavit to be filed next
week.
Details of the affidavit were published by Premium
Times website yesterday, in which Okah said the
president and those working for him engineered
the blasts as a desperate political strategy.
He said while the Abuja bomb was meant to
galvanise opposition against northern leaders
ahead of the 2011 election, the bombing in Delta
was to create an atmosphere of insecurity so as to
upstage Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan and
replace him with Godsay Orubebe.
“It is my belief that President Goodluck Jonathan’s
government working with a faction of MEND
planned and executed the bombings of 14 March
2010 and 1 October 2010,” Okah said in the
affidavit, according to the website.
But the Presidency yesterday denied Okah’s
claims.
“The attention of the Presidency has been drawn
to reports in the media of allegations made
against President Goodluck Jonathan in an affidavit
said to have been sworn to by Mr. Henry Okah
who is facing trial in South Africa for his
involvement in terrorist acts against the Federal
Republic of Nigeria,” Jonathan’s spokesman
Reuben Abati said in a statement.
“The Presidency categorically affirms that these
allegations are false in their entirety and without
any factual foundation. As the case of Mr. Okah’s
involvement in the plotting and execution of
terrorist attacks in Nigeria is already before a court
of competent jurisdiction in South Africa, the
Presidency does not intend to say anymore on the
matter for now and will, in accordance with due
process and international law, make a full
representation on the matter to the court when
the trial opens.
“The Presidency also advises the Nigerian media to
respect the sanctity of the legal and judicial
processes in this matter and avoid becoming
willing tools in the hands of Mr. Okah and his
agents in an entirely diversionary trial by the
media aimed only at falsely impugning the
character and integrity of the President and
officials of his administration.”
Okah was arrested in October 2010 in the wake of
the Independence Day bombing. He had lost his
bail bid, which he now wants to renew through
the affidavit.
His trial is set to start on October 1, exactly two
years since the incident that occurred close to the
Eagle Square in Abuja where President Jonathan
was attending Nigeria’s 50th anniversary
celebrations.
MEND had claimed responsibility for the attack,
but Okah has denied membership of the group
and plotting the attacks.
In his affidavit, Okah said Jonathan and his aides
organised the attacks to demonise political
opponents and win popular sympathy ahead of
the 2011 elections.
“The bombing on 1 October 2010 was a platform
for the elimination of political opposition from the
North in the form of General Ibrahim Babangida.
The bombing of 1 October 2010 was also
intended by the President Goodluck Jonathan
Government to create anti-North sentiments
nationwide in order to galvanise support from
other sections of Nigeria against other northern
candidates in the Presidential elections,” Okah said
in a 194-page affidavit.
“The purpose of the 14 March 2010 bombing in
my opinion was to create an atmosphere of
insecurity in the Niger Delta where President
Goodluck Jonathan at that time was fighting to
oust the governor Mr. Emmanuel Uduaghan
whom President Goodluck Jonathan intended to
replace with his Minister for Niger Delta, Mr
Godsday Orubebe,” he said.
He said he was in touch with the president’s close
aides when the October 1, 2010 bomb went off,
and had no inkling his arrest was being planned.
Okah first made allegations linking the
Independence Day bomb with Jonathan’s aides in
an interview with Al Jazeera television weeks after
the blast. In the interview, he claimed he was
arrested for refusing to influence MEND to retract
its claim of responsibility.
Since then, Okah has been denied bail at least
twice, with one at the South Gauteng High court,
Johannesburg where he is filing a new application
for bail based on “new facts.”
Okah said he had a long-standing relationship with
Jonathan which started in 1999 while he was
deputy governor of Bayelsa state.
He claimed he was close to Jonathan such that
Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, then a minister of
Mines and Steel, sought for his support for the
President to pick her as petroleum minister.
“The last call I received from Ms Madueke was at
6:41:35 on 4 April 2010 during which she
thanked me for my contribution in influencing her
appointment as Minister of Petroleum,” he said