Henry Okah, denied bail Friday over accusations he masterminded independence day twin car bombings, was a marine engineer who became the alleged leader of Nigeria’s most notorious militant group.
Okah, 45, was arrested in South Africa, where he lives, a day after the October 1 bombings and has been held in custody ever since.
It was by no means his first time in a jail cell. During a previous incarceration in Nigeria, he complained to his lawyers of attempts by authorities to kill him, alleging poisonous snakes were released into his cell.
Prosecutors say Okah is the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the Nigerian militant organisation that has claimed scores of kidnappings and attacks on oil installations in recent years.
The October 1 bombings in Abuja that killed at least 12 people was the first such attack in the capital.
MEND claims to be fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenue, but it has also been seen as an umbrella organisation for criminal gangs.
The fourth of nine children of a senior navy officer, Okah turned to militant action following the 1995 execution of rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who pushed for justice for the Niger Delta region.
Despite being the centre of the one of the world’s largest oil industries, the Niger Delta remains deeply impoverished. Oil spills have also left the region badly polluted.
Okah is said to have first witnessed the squalid conditions under which villagers lived in the creeks of the Niger Delta in his late teens, when he visited the area his family was from.
He was arrested in Angola in September 2007 for arms and explosives trafficking along with a colleague. He was extradited to Nigeria in February 2008.
Police identified him as “an international gun-runner and a major oil bunkerer (thief) in the Niger Delta.”
With Okah said to have a kidney ailment, MEND militants eventually made his release one of their key demands, saying his health was deteriorating behind bars.
Okah, who is married and has four children, was set free last year as part of a government amnesty deal offered to Niger Delta militants.