Former Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Hon. Kingsley Kuku, has said his purported probe by the Department of State Services (DSS) is a ruse.
Kuku, in a statement in response to media reports on Tuesday, said the unsigned statement purportedly issued by a ‘confidential source’ in the DSS was an attempt to pit two agencies of government against each other.
The former chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), who is in the United States of America, insisted that he is not a fugitive and that he had never been invited by the DSS over any allegation bordering on terrorism, economic sabotage or pipeline vandalism as claimed in the reports.
He explained that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which earlier invited him, was only obeying the order of two different courts and that when the matter is concluded he will definitely honour the anti-graft agency’s invitation.
Kuku maintained that no security or investigative agency had declared him wanted neither had he been convicted by a court to warrant him becoming a fugitive.
The former presidential aide accused a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Chibudom Nwuche, of being the mastermind of his purported DSS probe report and the allegation against the EFCC.
“It is very curious for an agency like the DSS to issue an unsigned statement over such a weighty allegation against another security and investigative agency of government. The purported probe is a mere speculation triggered by Hon. Chibudom Nwuche using the imprimatur of DSS as cover-up.
“There are two reasons Nwuche has become desperate. He received over N2 billion for an offshore contract he failed to execute when I was the PAP chairman. Now he has been asked by the EFCC to account for the money, which he diverted into a failed governorship and later senatorial election bid as well as on a vessel he bought. He thought that by joining the APC the anti-graft agency will let him off the hook.
“The other reason is because of an unholy alliance he went into with a Senior Advocate from Delta State to rip-off some former militant leaders in Edo State. The two of them had mounted pressure on these leaders to pay them fifty percent of the pipeline security contract awarded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. They claimed the money was meant for some top NNPC officials otherwise they will not be paid. But I advised the leaders not to yield to their fraudulent blackmail hence the fresh campaign of calumny against me,” Kuku said.
