SPECIAL Assistant to Rivers State Governor Chibuike Amaechi on Students Affairs, Dike Princewill, has been arrested by the State Security Services (SSS) for purportedly threatening to kill the governor.

The Assistant Director, Operations and Intelligence, Mr. Kunle Ajanaku, disclosed yesterday that Amaechi’s aide was arrested at the weekend for sending death threats through short message services (SMS) to his boss to make him reverse his stance on the industrial action by teachers of the state-owned University of Science and Technology (RSUST).

Ajanaku, who represented the State Director, Mr. Douglas Dogo, told journalists that shortly after the RSUST branch of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on a strike last October, the governor started receiving death threats from two female students of the University of Port Harcourt.

He explained that the governor had initially ignored the death threats but when they became persistent, he had to notify the SSS, which immediately started investigation aimed at unravelling those behind them.

Ajanaka said in the course of investigation, the SSS was able to discover through the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers of the SMSs that the suspect had clearly and consistently used handsets belonging to his girlfriends.

And with the assistance of the service providers, he said the SSS tracked down the owners of the two cell phones and arrested them. According to him, it was in the process of interrogation that the girls disclosed that the governor’s aide had occasionally used their phones to send SMSs.

“The girls were not aware of the content of the messages he was sending out. He merely used their handsets to send the death threats. It took prolong interrogation for one of the girls to confess he (Princewill), who works in State House Port Harcourt, used her phone to send SMSs,” he said.

Following the confession of the girls, the SSS arrested Princewill somewhere around Old Government Reservation Area (GRA) at the residence of a top politician in the state. But the two girls have been released.

Ajanaku revealed that the suspect admitted to sending the SMS to the governor with the intention of blackmailing him to change his hard stance against the teachers who have been on strike since October.

The governor had shortly after the teachers went on strike threatened to mobilise students of the institution for a one million-man match against them for embarking on strike over the non-implementation of the 2009 Federal Government /ASUU agreement.

The SSS chief said the governor was shocked when it was discovered that Princewill was the main culprit sending the SMS.

In his reaction, the Acting Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Blessing Wikina, told The Guardian that the state government would not interfere with the work of the security operatives involved in the matter.
He charged the SSS to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter and let the law take its course. According to him, the incident would serve as a deterrent to other persons across the country that are involved in such an obnoxious act.

“We will not obstruct or interrupt in any kind of investigation being carried out on this matter by security agents, particularly as it borders on serious crime as this. We are not known to have romance with criminality,” he said

Posted by admin on Feb 1 2011. Filed under Rivers, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry