Missing $4.6 million saga in Bayelsa : Dickson behind my ordeal, says detained civil servant

Missing $4.6 million saga in Bayelsa : Dickson behind my ordeal, says detained civil servant

Mr. Jonah Okah, who was recently arrested and arraigned for defamation for raising alarm over missing $4.6 million, has accused Governor Seriake Dickson of being behind his ordeal.

 Okah made the allegation in a press statement issued from his prison cell in Yenagoa on Monday.

Okah who is a civil servant in the state was arrested in Yenagoa on August 31 by the police for allegedly defaming the Government House Accountant, Mr. Richard Etonye.

Police had raided the Yenagoa residence of Etonye regarding a purported missing $4.6 million said to belong to Dickson.

Okah had reportedly alleged that Etonye had absconded with the $4.6 million handed over to him by the governor for safekeeping.

However, the accountant had in a  statement to newsmen said that the raid at his residence was illegal and that no money was missing

The Dickson government has imputed political motives to Okah’s alarm and news reports on the alleged missing money.

The Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Jonathan Obuebite, said in a statement reacting to the allegation that Bayelsa government was behind Okha’s ordeal that the claims were  false.

Obuebite said that Okah was not being prosecuted by the Bayelsa state government, and the government was not an interested party in the case.

Okah accused Dickson of direct involvement in the matter to punish him for loyalty to former Gov Timipre Sylva in the December 2015 governorship polls.

 Okah dismissed state government’s denial, saying the government’s attitude to the defamation case supposedly involving civil servants confirm that the governor is the one sponsoring the trial.

“In a case of misdemeanor between two civil servants, what is the state government’s interest in clamping down on me with a contingent of armed security personnel?

“In a case of defamation involving two civil servants, what is government’s interest in directing a non-civil servant,  and Solicitor-General/Permanent Secretary to write a petition against me.

“The petition to the Bayelsa Commissioner of Police, claimed that I defamed one Richard Etonye? Whose interest was my illegal arrest meant to serve?” Okah stated,

Okah also queried the involvement of state counsels in a private case between civil servants and accused the governor of conspiring with the magistrate to detain him without “adequate time and facilities” for his defence.