Posted by By Tony Amokeodo on
THE Metropolitan Police in the United Kingdom have faulted a claim by a former Bayelsa State Governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.....
THE Metropolitan Police in the United Kingdom have faulted a claim by a former Bayelsa State Governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, that they gave him $3,000 to escape from London.
The Met police, in the EFCC‘s counter-affidavit in opposition to Alamieyeseigha‘s application for bail, tendered before Justice Mohammed Shuaibu of the Federal High Court, in Lagos on Tuesday, said they did not give him any money.
The ex-governor had in his counter-affidavit of July 12 that was deposed to by Mr. Vincent Obianyi from the law firm of Okoye & Okoye & Co, claimed that the "Metropolitan Police gave the applicant (Alamieyeseigha) $ 3,000 at the airport at Cote d‘Ivoire before they left, to help him get home.
" That it was the British police, aided by Nigerian operatives, that forced the applicant to come back to Nigeria, so as to avert crises in the Niger Delta oil region. As such, the applicant did not jump bail having not returned on his own volition but due to his expulsion by the British police," he added.
But the British police, in an e-mail of July 24 that was faxed to the EFCC by Bob Ingram, in response to Alamieyeseigha‘s claim, said, "The accusation in the affidavit is completely untrue. No police officers were armed. He was not driven to Nigeria..., this is a fabrication. He was not taken to an airstrip and forcibly removed from the country."
Meanwhile, Justice Mohammed Shuaibu of the Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday fixed July 31 for his ruling on the bail application of a former Bayelsa State Governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.
The development followed the conclusion of arguments by the lawyer to Alamieyeseigha, Prof. Alfred Kasumu (SAN), the firms linked with the ex-governor, Messrs Mike Ozekhome and Mike Okoye, and that of the EFCC, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs.
In his argument for his client‘s application for bail, Kasumu had urged the court to admit Alamieyeseigha to bail on the grounds that the parties had agreed that the accused was sick and needed specialised treatment .
He also argued that the his client‘s present ailment was cardiac in nature and that the medical treatment being sought could only be obtained outside the country.
Opposing the application, Jacobs said the accused did not place sufficient material facts before the court to warrant his being granted bail.