Jonathan’s Aide Not Arrested —Presidency

Contrary to rumours that the Chief of Staff to President Goodluck Jonathan, Mike  Ogiadhome, has been arrested in connection with the bomb blasts in Abuja on independence  day, P.M.NEWS gathered from presidency sources this morning that nothing like that  happened.

Sources at the presidency said the rumour is the handiwork of President Jonathan’s  detractors and his political opponents who had embarked on a campaign of calumny against  him.

There was an unconfirmed report in an online news portal this morning that Ogiadhome had  been arrested and detained for allegedly being the person at the Presidency who spoke  with Henry Okah, the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta,  MEND, asking him to implicate Northerners in the Abuja bomb blasts.

Okah, who is currently in detention in South Africa following his arrest and ongoing  trial over the bomb blasts, had claimed in his telephone interview with Al Jazeera on  Monday that a “very close associate of President Jonathan” had called him and asked him  to say that MEND did not plant the bombs that killed people and injured at least 30  others.

P.M.NEWS gathered that the Presidency will issue a statement on the purported arrest of  Ogiadhome today.