The department of State Security Service, on Monday, paraded a 29-year-old graduate of Mechanical Engineering, Mr Adelola Olaore, over alleged plot to defraud the Chairman, Senate Committee on Establishment, Public Service, State and Local Government Affairs Senator Aloysius Etok.
The secret service, while parading the suspect who graduated from Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port-Harcourt, claimed that the suspect had called Senator Etok claiming he had been contracted by Governor Godswill Akpabio’s loyalists to assassinate him.
The SSS said that immediately the Senator alerted them on the development, he was asked to play along until he was arrested on April 28.
The SSS Deputy Director, Public Relations, Ms Marilyn Ogar, who paraded the suspect, said that he would be charged to court as soon as investigation was concluded.
She added that the suspect hatched the phantom assassination plot to fraudulently extort money from Senator Aloysius Etok by exploiting the perceived rift between him and Governor Godswill Akpabio.
To achieve this, the SSS spokesperson said that the suspect introduced himself as “General Africa, an ex-militant from Bayelsa State. He then told the lawmaker that he had been contracted by three of Governor Akpabio’s loyalists to assassinate him.”
According to her, “in order to convince the Senator, he offered to furnish him with details of the Governor’s purported Bank Account and energy company in South Africa. But he confessed that he had never met Governor Akpabio, the Commissioner for Environment, or Kenneth Okon, also known as Wayas, the Chairman of Etinan Local Government Council.
“He said he hatched the plot to defraud Senator Etok, using information he obtained from open media about a rift between the senator and the governor, which the senator accepted. He then requested for transport fare to Akwa-Ibom where he intended to initiate the peace meeting between both parties.”
While confessing to the crime, the suspect, who broke down in tears intermittently, claimed that he had gone to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) office in Port-Harcourt to submit a mail where he saw a mail bearing Senator Etok’s complementary card, from where he obtained the Senator’s number.