By Vivian Okejeme Abuja
Officials of the Department of State Services (DSS) Thursday in Abuja arrested one Kennedy Tabukoi, for allegedly leading an unregistered Non Governmental Organization (NGO), Niger Delta Development Initiative (NDDI) to blackmail certain high profile officials of government.
According to security sources, when such government officials fail to meet Tabukoi’s demands, he would resort to organizing other unsuspecting groups to lead protest marches against government officials.
One of such protest marches held Thursday morning at the National Assembly gate, where Tabukoi led several groups to protest against what he claimed were moves by the federal lawmakers to stall a probe of the petroleum sector.
The sources confirmed that, unknown to Tabukoi, security operatives had been on his trail after certain officials of government reported the several attempts he made to allegedly blackmail them into parting with huge sums of money and contracts, “or risk being embarrassed.”
Said a security source, “That man Tabukoi had been boasting to friends and members of his syndicate that, as a Niger Deltan activist, he would use his NGO to deal with any government official who didn’t do his bidding.
“Unknown to him, it was the same people he had been intimidating with claims of how much he would make from top government officials in Abuja that tipped off the DSS that he had no NGO, and that he was merely using impersonation to blackmail such government officials.”
The source added, “When we invited Tabukoi, he didn’t waste time in corroborating the claims of his so-called friends. He said he was aware that several Niger Deltans made money from activism, which is the reason he was in the process of raising money to register his own NGO.”