TheCable

Gordon Obua, former chief security officer to former president, Goodluck Jonathan, has denied involvement in a deal for the construction of $6.9 million mobile stages, branding the claims against him “cheap blackmail”.

Obua, who was reported to have initiated a memo for the construction of three 40-foot mobile stages, said the accusation was just an attempt to unjustifiably harass the innocent.

Speaking through his lawyer, Andrew Itsekiri, he said there was no single evidence to validate the claims making rounds in his “media trial”.

“Our client did not know anything about the purported transactions. He did not initiate any memo to the then presidency. It is a mere cheap blackmail,” Itsekiri said.

“The authorities have a duty to dispel claims that the whole idea is to hurriedly charge him to court with no single shred of evidence to convict, with the expectation that his innocence can only be established years later, after his reputation would have been irredeemably dented before an unsuspecting public.”

Itsekiri urged President Muhammadu Buhari to desist from “setting a dangerous precedent by deliberately subjecting innocent people to media trial, knowing clearly that the cases are seriously bereft of facts and evidence, linking such persons to the crimes advertised”.

The allegations against Obua, as earlier reported by TheCable, named Jonathan and the former minister of petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke as complicit in the deal.

Earlier in July, Obua was interrogated and detained by the department of state services (DSS), leading to speculations that he had died in DSS custody. But he later addressed the media, saying he was in good health and he trusted the service, being a “responsible organisation”, not to do anything “adverse” to him.