The
Nigerian presidency has ordered a discreet investigation of former president,
Goodluck Jonathan, and his wife, Patience, over the spate of bombings of oil
and gas facilities in the Niger Delta,
PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.
A top
government source, quoting intelligence reports, told this newspaper that it
had now been established that some of the oil installations bombed in the Niger
Delta had actually been mined while President Jonathan was in power, just
before the 2015 election, by some of the militants and operatives known to be
very close to him.
“The
mining was meant to be a “Plan B should they be removed from Aso Rock,” said
the official, who requested not to be named because of the sensitive nature of
the matter.
“The plan
then was to cause confusion if the 2015 presidential election did not go as
expected, in favour of the then incumbent.”
“However,
when the former president surprisingly conceded the election to President
Mohammadu Buhari, according to the source, there was both disappointment and
confusion in the camp of those who had designed the plan, causing a suspension
of the whole agenda.
“But by
February this year, it was learnt, the plan was reopened as several of the
backers were getting investigated on different corruption cases.
“Mr.
Jonathan himself himself was concerned that himself and his wife could be
prosecuted, including on money-laundering charges where investigators said
evidence against the wife has already been amassed.
“It was
at that point that the bombing activities under the banner of the Niger Delta
Avengers started.
“Even the former President himself had been reported while on
a foreign trip as saying he knew he was under probe. This was after the plan to
start the bombing had become fully operational according to intelligence
reports.”
Last June, during a live interview on Bloomberg Television,
Mr. Jonathan said he was aware that anti-graft agencies were investigating him.
“I am being investigated, yes, investigations are going on,”
Mr. Jonathan had said after delivering a speech on his five-year presidency in
London.
Mr. Jonathan’s comments came at the same time the Niger Delta
governors were reportedly prevailing on President Buhari to drop corruption
charges against some highly placed persons from the region.
“After the Plan B was restored, the ‘militant operatives’ who
mined the oil and gas installations only had to arrange for how they would be
detonated at a distance at the wish and timing of the NDA, their backers and
sponsors said to include the former president, his wife, Government Tompolo,
Mr. Kinglsey Kuku and Olisa Metuh among others.
“The mining was done by some of the militants that the
previous government had trained under the amnesty programme, and those who
acquired the needed expertise, besides their knowledge of the Niger Delta
creeks and terrain.
“Experts working with the federal government are now said to
be working to determine how to discover if there are still many more oil and
gas installations that have been mined and explore the best means of demining
them.”
In addition to the mined installations, intelligence reports,
according to the official, also stated that the NDA and their backers and
operatives also had the capacity to dive in and out of water to damage and bomb
the installations, adding that the federal government had drawn up the full
list of all those that were trained and equipped in those skills under the
Amnesty Programme.
Our source further disclosed that “the game plan of Mr.
Jonathan and his associates backing the NDA was to cause enough economic damage
in order to force the Buhari administration to pursue a political solution to
the corruption cases on which investigations were already advancing against
them.
“This is to avoid prosecution and the attendant unprecedented
shame of having a former president go to jail.”
According to another presidency source, “one of the reasons
Mr. Jonathan visited Aso Rock earlier this month was because he was afraid for
himself, but more readily for his wife against whom silent investigations had
already advanced significantly.”
Some MEND members had recently alleged that former President
Jonathan came up with the name Niger Delta Avengers himself, a claim he has
since denied.
But the intelligence reports, a presidency official said,
confirmed that it was the intervention of the former president that actually
stopped the militants from the symbolic announcement to declare a republic
earlier this month.
Mr. Jonathan could not be reached on Thursday morning to
comment for this story. He did not answer or return calls.
So also was Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to the
President on media and publicity.
He did not answer or return the calls made to him on
Wednesday night.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity,
Femi Adesina, could not be reached.
However, another presidency spokesperson, ‘Laolu Akande, said
he was aware Nigerian security agencies were “massively investigating the Niger
Delta bombings”.
“But security or intelligence reports are usually
confidential. You can’t expect me or anyone else to disclose their contents.
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