By Amos Okioma,
Yenagoa
A Yenagoa Chief Magistrate Court, presided over by Magistrate Mirin Johnson, on Tuesday remanded in prison custody two suspected whistle blowers, who fed the Inspector-General of Police monitoring team with false information on Moses Oruaze Dickson, the younger brother of the Governor of Bayelsa State.
The suspects, Francis Babatunde, 30 years; John James, 32; and Obiene Matthew, now at large, were arraigned before the Court on a two-count charge of conspiracy and misinformation about the personality of Mr. Moses Oruaze Dickson.
The trio had on September 14, 2017 in the Yenagoa Magistrate District unlawfully conspired to misinform the Police that Mr. Moses Oruaze was unlawfully in possession of firearms.
“So, on Wednesday, last week, the Police, which had undertaken a search of the residence of Mr. Oruaze in Yenagoa found no firearms. Consequently the police went after the whistle blowers and got them arrested for allegedly misinforming the Police,” the police stated.
According to the charge sheet marked YMC/667c/2017, the suspects had on the same date and place in the aforesaid Magisterial District given “the Inspector General of Police, a person employed in the public service of the Nigeria Police Force information, which you knew or believed to be false by stating that Mr. Moses Oruaze is in possession of firearms with intention of causing the said IGP to use his lawful power as a person employed in the Nigeria Police Force to the injury or annoyance of Moses Oruaze by causing him to be arrested and questioned.”
The two suspects pleaded guilty to the charges, which are punishable under sections 100 (1), (b) and 99 (1), (4) of the criminal code cap 14, laws of Bayelsa State 2006.
The Chief Magistrate, Mary Johnson, thereby ordered the suspects to be remanded in prison, while fixing judgement for October 24, 2017.
Oruaze is not the first person close to the Governor to be blackmailed in the name of whistle-blowing, as the police had also raided the Yenagoa home of Mr. Ritchie Etonye, the Government House Accountant on false tips given by the whistle blowers, only to discover that the information was false, as they found nothing incriminating in his house.
Also acting on the strength of tips that turned out to be false, the police raided and ransacked the home of Comrade Walton Liverpool, an inlaw of the governor.
These raids, observers believe, were actually targeted at the Governor to embarrass him.
