IMPROBABLE as it sounds, revelations are emerging about how Mr. Nnaji Obed Asiegbu, aide to T.A. Orji, governor of Abia State in South-Eastern Nigeria, works with a ring of fellow fraudsters for the governor and a “first son” of
the governor to carry out smear attacks on persons perceived as critical of the governor and the state government.
Everyone from media personalities to ordinary citizens have not been spared in the sundry dirty jobs that Asiegbu executes in his position as Special Adviser on e-Governance and Strategy to Governor Orji.
As head of the circle of henchmen is Chinedu Orji, who goes by the curious title “first son”, to whom Mr. Asiegbu and others report. The trail of their attacks includes notable personalities as former Abia Deputy Governor Chris Akomas and mother to former Governor Uzor Orji Kalu, Eunice Orji Kalu, who was alleged by these same aides of the current governor to be dying of AIDS.
Asiegbu is a graduate of St. Finbar’s College in Lagos, Nigeria, and the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
Weeks of diligent investigative journalism by a sister publication, pointblanknews.com, revealed that the barrage of notorious blogs and e-mails all came from the same source: the personal computers and the Static Internet Protocol (SIP) traced to addresses in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, belonging to Asiegbu and the Abia State Government.
Employing top-shelf security software, journalists went to work and revealed the following static IP addresses and phony e-mails: 41.71.143.40, 41.219.195.155. 41.71.163.137 and 41.71.167.247; nnajiobed_1982@yahoo.com, nnajiobed@hotmail.com, jeans@live.com, nnajiobed@nairaland.com, chrisakomas@yahoo.com, amongst others.
Other blogs suspected to be funded by the Abia State government include www.ninejaconnect.com, juristlaw.blogspot.com, and 9jaconnect.blogspot.com.
Pseudonyms used by Asiegbu and his henchmen include Chuks Madu, Chris Akomas, C. Akomas, Ossy, Tolu, Chidi Ike, Tunde Phillips and Diokpa Jude.
All the e-mails addresses were traced to the same computers used by Asiegbu, who scouts the internet for articles critical of his boss or his administration and thereafter goes after the author of these articles with malicious and false accusations.
Other activities identified with Nnaji Asiegbu include liaising with professional fraudsters operating in Lagos and elsewhere, to whom he offers ‘consultancy service’ for a fee. This he does by using different I.P addresses to create phony blogs, false e-mail addresses of agencies like the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and banks including the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), Zenith Bank and GT bank.
A former deputy-governor with whom Asiegbu’s boss, Governor T.A. Orji, fell out of favor had his e-mail address cloned before e-mails that were not authored by him were sent out to the former deputy governor’s supporters to embarrass him.
Our sister publication, pointblanknews.com, along with its publisher and editor-in-chief have been victims of Asiegbu’s dubious practices in the past, no doubt for the publication’s critical revelations concerning the T.A. Orji Administration in Abia. Govenor Orji’s henchmen alleged amongst other things that the editor-in-chief, who is currently on a study leave in Canada, is in the custody of the State Security Serivce (SSS) for money laundering.
The government in Abia State is facing mounting criticism over its performance in managing the affairs of Abians.