Nigeria's secret service detained an aide to one of President Goodluck Jonathan's election rivals on
Monday over bomb attacks in the capital Abuja, raising the political temperature in the run-up to next year's polls.
The head of former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida's campaign team, Raymond Dokpesi, was called in for questioning in the wake of Friday's car bombs near a parade to mark Nigeria's 50th anniversary of independence.
Responsibility for the bombs, which killed at least 10 people, was claimed by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), the main militant group in the southern oil region, which has rarely staged attacks outside its home area.
State television said Dokpesi, who is managing Babangida's campaign for 2011 presidential elections, had been held for questioning over text messages found on the phone of a main suspect in the bombings which referred to a monetary payment.
Babangida's campaign team said Dokpesi had complied with an invitation for questioning from the State Security Service (SSS) early on Monday but had since been denied access to his lawyers and family. It said no reason had been given for his detention.
"The campaign organisation hereby condemns in the strongest terms the detention of its director general and calls for his immediate release," it said in a statement.
Prosecutors in Johannesburg earlier charged Henry Okah, a senior figure in MEND who now lives in South Africa, with conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and the detonation of explosive devices in Abuja. His lawyer denied his involvement.
President Jonathan has said a "small terrorist group that resides outside Nigeria" - an apparent reference to Okah - carried out the attacks but that it was sponsored by "unpatriotic elements within the country".
Nigeria's secret service said it had detained nine suspects with direct links to Okah.
The security services have admitted there were intelligence lapses in the run-up to Friday's car bombings but Jonathan has vowed to hunt down the perpetrators.
He named a new national security adviser on Monday, former chief of defence staff Andrew Azazi, a fellow member of the Ijaw ethnic group, the largest in the southern Niger Delta.
Azazi's appointment follows the resignation last month of Aliyu Gusau, a northerner who stepped aside to challenge Jonathan at the ruling party primaries..
Larger plot
MEND's claim of responsibility was an embarrassment for Jonathan, one of the main architects of an amnesty agreed last year with rebels in the Niger Delta and who is the first Nigerian leader to come from the vast wetlands region.
He has said the perpetrators "used the name of MEND to camouflage criminality and terrorism" and that the attacks had nothing to do with the Niger Delta.
The secret service said it had foiled a larger plot to detonate at least six car bombs in the "three-arm zone" in Abuja made up of the presidential villa, parliament and the Supreme Court just days before last Friday's attacks.
"The despicable act of terrorism which eventually took place on Oct. 1 was planned for Wednesday Sept. 29 but was foiled as soon as information was received during the early hours of Sept. 28," SSS spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar told a news conference.
"The over-riding objective of the group was to scare foreign visitors from attending the 50th anniversary celebrations."
A MEND statement signed Jomo Gbomo - the pseudonym used by the group to claim responsibility for previous attacks on Nigeria's oil industry - was emailed to media warning the area should be evacuated, an hour before the Abuja bombs went off.
Although MEND has used car bombs in the past, its targets have been almost exclusively oil facilities and it has struck outside the Niger Delta only twice, once on an offshore oil platform, and once at an oil dock in the commercial hub Lagos.
Jonathan's assertion that the attacks had nothing to do with the Niger Delta has drawn criticism from his opponents.
"For whatever purpose it serves to fulfil, it is unpresidential for Mr President to quickly exonerate MEND, which had earlier claimed responsibility," Babangida's spokesman said in a statement issued before Dokpesi's detention.
"Issues of security of individuals and of the nation require more than just a passing glance," the statement said.
Jonathan's detractors have started to use MEND's claim of responsibility to undermine his credentials for the elections.
"If his own people can disown him and disgrace him how can you trust him? Reject GEJ, he can't be trusted," said one text message circulated to mobile phones.
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