Soludo not aware of  arrested Twitter user’s offence – Aide

Christian Aburime, the Press Secretary to the Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has said his principal does not have any specific information about any allegation or basis for the arrest of a Twitter user in the state, Nnamdi Chude.

Details of the arrest of the Twitter user have been sketchy since he raised the alarm on Saturday in a tweet on his Twitter handle about alleged ballot box snatching during the state assembly election on Saturday.

But Soludo, who reacted through a statement by his Press Secretary, on Sunday, confirmed that Chude was arrested on Saturday in the state by the Cyber Crime Unit of the Interpol and taken to Abuja.

Chude had through his Twitter handle, on Saturday, claimed that thugs suspected to be working for the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance in the state invaded some polling units in the state and allegedly snatched ballot boxes.

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The tweep, who expressed disappointment over the incident, said the thugs disrupted the voting process in order to prevent their party from losing the state assembly election to a rival party.

In the tweet, Chude said, “I can’t remember the last time I heard of ballot box snatching in Anambra, this is the height of it, CCSoludo has taken us back to Mbadinuju’s era.”

Our correspondent gathered that the Twitter user was subsequently picked up by police operatives from Onitsha and moved to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Awka, the state capital, where he was allegedly detained on cybercrime charge.

But reacting to the development, Aburime insisted that the state government had no specific information concerning the tweep’s arrest.

The two-paragraph statement with the caption, ‘Re: Arrest of one Mr Chude by the police,’  explained, “The Commissioner of Police, Anambra State Police Command has confirmed to the Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, that one Mr Nnamdi Chude was arrested yesterday (March 18, 2023) in Anambra by the Cyber Crime Unit of Interpol and taken to Abuja, today (March 19, 2023).

“Anambra State Government has no information about any specific allegations or basis of his arrest,” Aburime said.