Former Information Minister, John Nwodo, was on Tuesday arrested in Enugu by the State Security Service (SSS) for allegedly making comments likely to incite the military to overthrow the government.

He has been moved to Abuja.

He allegedly made the comments at the Army 82 Division summit on security, held last Thursday in the coal city.

Nwodo was later invited for interrogation by SSS State Director, Funke Amos, and was immediately detained on orders from above.

But for his lawyer, Tony Mogboh, no one was allowed to see him, including relatives and journalists.

The jeep with a Rivers State plate number he drove to the SSS office was parked in front of Amos' office. She declined to speak with reporters on Tuesday.

Nwodo, who was unable to take his breakfast before going to the SSS office, refused the food offered him by SSS officers, fearing he might be poisoned.

Nwodo, who is battling an undisclosed ailment, requested that his relatives should bring him food to enable him take his medication, but the request was turned down.

Governor Sullivan Chime's Media Adviser, Martin Iloh explained to journalists that Nwodo is to be interrogated at the SSS headquarters in Abuja.

Iloh, who is Secretary of Enugu Centenary Committee headed by Nwodo, said Amos told him that it was not an arrest per se but that he was being taken to Abuja on invitation.

At about 3 p.m., under heavy security, Nwodo was moved out of the SSS office in a convoy to Akanu Ibiam Airport Enugu, from where he was flown to Abuja on a 3.20 p.m. flight.

Mogboh said there is no cause for alarm, assuring he would return to Enugu by today.

As speaker after speaker at the summit had spoken on kidnappings and armed robberies in the South East, Nwodo remarked that the situation has gone beyond crime and borders on the marginalisation of the zone.

He recalled that when he was the youngest Minister in the Shehu Shagari administration (1979 to 1983), at a point, Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon walked into Shagari's office and told him that if certain things were not done, they could no longer guarantee security.

(Buhari later overthrew Shagari in a military coup on December 31, 1983, and became Head of State. Idiagbon became his Deputy).

"The fact that you are in uniform does not insulate you from the politics of your country. In fact, it gives you more responsibility because when everything fails it rests on your shoulder to defend the territorial integrity of the country," Nwodo said.