LAGOS—FORMER leader of the Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta, Mr. Henry Okah, who is in prison custody in Johannesburg for his alleged involvement in October 1 twin bomb blasts in Abuja has applied to the South African Prison authorities to be held separately from other prisoners until his bail application is heard on October 14. Okah’s counsel, Mr. Rudi Krause, told the trial judge that “the prosecution has indicated they plan to oppose his release on bail, but I am confident our application will be successful,” noting that Okah should be separated from the general prison population for his safety.

Meanwhile indications emerged, yesterday, of doubts over the authenticity of Tuesday’s celebrated interview with Okah by Al jazeera, an Arab cable news network accusing President Goodluck Jonathan of attempts to implicate northern politicians, over the bomb blasts.

Vanguard investigations within the security services in Nigeria and South Africa revealed that the interview with Mr. Okah, may have been faked to deceive the network as South Africa and Nigerian secret services maintain that there is a great deal of doubt about the authenticity of the telephone contact between the media organisation and the embattled militant leader.

It was learnt that the controversial telephone interview, which was said to have been granted by  Okah from his South Africa jail, where he is currently facing  terrorism charges, is believed to have been faked, as the South African security services are said to have confirmed to their Nigerian counterparts that, “at no time did we allow Okah to make such telephone contact.”

A highly placed presidency source said “following suspicion raised about the authenticity of the interview, we contacted South Africa to confirm its validity but were shocked to find out that at no time did such interview take place”.

In fact, our contact wondered why it took us so long to cross check this information because they did not want to interfere since the issues did not concern their government directly “they have been waiting for such security inquiries from their Nigerian counterpart before revealing the veracity of the interview since the content does not concern them directly”.

These findings, Vanguard was told, have further raised questions as to whether the purported interview with MEND members, in crispy military uniforms, forty eight hours before the bomb blast, was also true or not.

Already, the Joint Task Force (JTF), for the Niger Delta has debunked the veracity of the interview insisting that after an aerial surveillance of the region there were no militant camps anywhere, as claimed by Al jazeera.

It will be recalled that the same Al jaazera, during the Yar’Adua saga also staged a similar interview with the late president’s cousin  claiming that “the sick man was healthy, playing withhis children and climbing 13-story building”.

The Cable News Network (CNN), had a couple of years ago sacked one of its African correspondents, following a similar faked interview purportedly granted by Niger Delta militants

Said our source  “The psychological warfare that has been waged against the presidency in the past week has been ratcheted up with deliberate falsehood and outright lies being served up in the media.

On Tuesday, a television station announced the sack of the Chief of Staff to the President, Chief Mike Oghiadomhe. Today, an online medium reported that the same chief of staff had been arrested for complicity in the October 1 bombings.

“Two days ago, it was a voice alleging to be accused bomber Henry Okah. We have found that this was contrived and sold to Aljazeera as a dummy. These all have the discredited military style written all over them, and we are watching the situation very closely”, our source disclosed.