Andrew Wynne, the Briton, wanted by the Nigeria Police for allegedly plotting to overthrow President Bola Tinubu’s administration has denied the allegation.
Wynne, who spoke on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today from his base in the United Kingdom, said he was not aware he had been labelled a fugitive.
The rebuttal comes a few hours after the Nigeria Police placed a N20m bounty on him along with a Nigerian, Lucky Obiyan, who has been described as an accomplice.
Addressing journalists on Monday, the Force Spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, accused the Briton of building a network of sleeper cells to topple the government and plunge the nation into chaos.
But Wynee declared that he couldn’t have been scheming to destabilise the leadership of a country that accommodated him for 25 years.
He said, “I am not aware that I am a fugitive. I am not aware that I am running away from the law. I have been visiting Nigeria for 25 years and have had a bookshop in the NLC office right in the centre of Abuja for seven years. All that time, of course, the security forces have paid no interest in me.
“I have always had one nationality. The name on my passport is Andrew Wynne and I operate with a nickname. I think it really started as differentiating in the sense of the broad political education work that I do with the bookshop.
“I am more than happy to talk to the police and have a discussion on WhatsApp or Zoom. I am more than happy to go to London and meet with officials from the Nigerian High Commission. If they want to start a conversation, then I think that is more than adequate.”
Wynne’s wife (names withheld), who also spoke on the programme, distanced her husband from the alleged terror act, saying the allegation was deliberately concocted to witch-hunt him.