PRESIDENCY: HENRY OKAH'S ALLEGATIONS ARE FALSE IN ITS ENTIRETY

Detained leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND,Mr Henry Okah has insisted that President Goodluck Jonathan's agents sponsored the March 15,2010 and October 1,2010 bombings in Warri and Abuja respectively for political considerations.

Okah made the allegations in a 194-paragraph affividat deposed to in South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg,South Africa.Okah claims President Jonathan government's is working with a faction of MEND and the government had wanted to blame the October 1 attack on northern elements

but MEND claimed responsibility and President Jonathan wanted him to get MEND to retract its claim of responsibility,recalling that his refusal to co-operate in this scheme resulted in President Jonathan placing a call to President Jacob Zuma of South Africa to have him arrested.Okah also claimed to have influenced Jonathan's appointment of Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke as minister of Petroleum Resources at the prompting of a Jonathan aide.Okah provided telephone numbers used by Jonathan's aide and Allison-Madueke in reaching him.

The presidency has however,described Okah's allegations as false.In a statement by Presidential spokesman,Dr Reuben Abati,the presidency said the allegations were without any factual foundation and promised that government would be fully represented in court once the trial commences on October 1,2012,exactly two years after the October 1,2010 bombing in Abuja.