TheCable

The police say they have arrested the person who threatened to kill former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and his family.

Abubakar had raised the alarm and subsequently petitoned President Muhammadu Buhari over the matter.

In a statement on Wednesday, Jimoh Moshood, police spokesman, gave the name of the suspect as Augustus Akpan from Akwa Ibom state.

Moshood said Akpan was caught in Lagos while trying to escape arrest.

“On the receipt of complaint of threat and intimidation from former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, GCON, the 43 years old Augustus Akpan (From Edemaya village, Ikot Abasi LGA, Akwa Ibom State) was trailed and eventually arrested by the IGP Intelligence Response Team,” the statement read.

“The suspect, Augustus Akpan was arrested at toll-gate along Lagos-Ibadan express way, Lagos state, while on the run to escape arrest. During interrogation, he confessed to the crime and admitted that he resorted to the threat and intimidation when all efforts to extort money from the former vice president were unsuccessful.

“The suspect, Augustus Akpan also admitted in his confessional statement that he is a professional fraudster and not working for any political party, that his mention that ‘Let Buhari run against your against your PDP members’ in his threat message to the former vice president was merely to divert attention.

“The suspect is fluent in English, Ibibio, Russian and Portuguese languages respectively. The phone and the SIM card he used for the threat and intimidation were recovered from him and were discovered to have been robbed by him from a lady (name withheld) who identified him as the person that robbed her few months back.

“The suspect, Augustus Akpan further confessed that he had threatened, defrauded and extorted huge sum of money in Naira and foreign currency from so many prominent personalities and their family members while posing as an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent.”

Moshood added the suspect would be arraigned in court upon completion of investigation.