Leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, said at the weekend that the current insecurity and tension in the country would be a child’s play if President Goodluck Jonathan fails to win a second term in 2015. He said that Niger Delta will ensure the nation does not know peace if Jonathan is prevented from returning to office after the 2015 general elections.
Asari-Dokubo told reporters in Abuja that peace will take a flight in Rivers State if Governor Rotimi Amaechi continues his romance with the northern leaders who are plotting against the President, even as he lashed out at former Head of State, Maj-Gen. Muhammad Buhari, saying he is unfit to rule the country again. He said: “Recently, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Mr. Kingsely Kuku, made a statement in the United States of America that the peace being enjoyed in the Niger Delta will not be guaranteed if President Goodluck Jonathan is not returned in 2015.
This statement has been supported by several groups from the region.” According to Dokubo-Asari,” the statement has been attacked from several quarters, expectedly from the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and others. I want to go on to say that, there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if Goodluck Jonathan is not president again, by 2015, except God takes his life, which we don’t pray for. “Jonathan has uninterrupted eight years of two terms to be president, according to the Nigerian Constitution.
We must have our uninterrupted eight years of two tenures I am not in support of any amendment of the Constitution that will reduce the eight years of two tenures that Goodluck Jonathan is expected to be President of Nigeria. “For a very long time, our resources from the Niger Delta had been used to feed and fund Nigeria, and some people are still feeling that Nigeria is their personal property, and they can manage it the way they like, but those days are gone forever, it can never come back again.
The days when we will elect a president and some people will annul our mandate, and place the winner of that mandate in their dungeon and murder him, such days are over and they will never come back again.” Asked if he was aware of claims that the President has not lived up to expectations, he dismissed such views as the handiwork of those he called greedy politicians. He said: “A lot of people will say that Goodluck has not performed as President. We from the Niger Delta have been fair. We criticize our own, but that does not change what I have always said that “monkey no fine, but him mama like am”.
We will continue to support and stand by Goodluck. “Our colonial operators left functional railways system and roads that were motor able, education and energy sectors that worked. But from Yakubu Gowon, to Murtala Mohammed, Olusegun Obasanjo, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo again, these infrastructure built by the colonial operators were totally destroyed. We are all aware of it and nobody can deceive us.
“But today, the story has changed, I made five hours from Benin to Lagos by road. Electricity supply is relatively constant now than what it was before Jonathan came in as President. The Abuja-Lokoja Road that was neglected is almost completed and several other roads across the country. People have started using the rail system again. This shows that Jonathan is silently moving the country at the direction to satisfy these in-searchable people, while we from the Niger Delta are not being satisfied.
“Before now, we have had university lecturers going on strike for over six months, people go to universities to study courses of four or five years, but end up staying five and six years because the lecturers were always going on strike, but that is not the case as at today because the government is handling the issue. Even at that, this is the most maligned government because some people think, and they have been made to believe that they are born to rule, and so many people who are very timid to challenge them have accepted it.”
On Buhari , Asari-Dokubo said: “They talk about Buhari, and I asked them what has Buhari got to show in all the years he had been in government. He was a governor in the North, later he became Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources, he was Head of State, and he also headed the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), in all of these positions, he held, what are his achievements? “When we go to Dubai and other former Third World countries, we see the achievements of their leaders, if Buhari is so good, let him show us one thing that he achieved when he was in the positions he held before.
Let him show us one monument in the former North-Eastern that can be attributed to him when he was governor there. He has nothing to show. They’re saying he is not corrupt, and we were told how $2.8 billion got missing. “Group Captain Usman Jubril, a Muslim and former governor in the North, accused Buhari of corruption, that his cronies were given contracts in the Afri Project, Buhari’s cronies controlled PTF, we all saw it. But because some people love slavery, and they will say the master is coming with koboko, he will flog me if I don’t fall in line. President Jonathan is not using the hammer that IBB and Buhari used when they were in power. Jonathan is not using the retroactive laws that Buhari used to murder people that is why they see him as clueless.
They want him to start behaving like IBB, Buhari and Obasanjo, then he becomes a president that is strong”. On the rift between Amaechi and the Presidency, Asari-Dokubo lambasted the governor, accusing him of acting like a traitor. He accused the Rivers State governor of not respecting President Jonathan and creating an impression that Governors’ Forum was bigger than the Presidency. He said, “There is this war that is going on, instigated by Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi. The law does not know the Nigerian Constitution, and as a body, Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) as an association that is unknown, it has no legal power. Where the governors’ forum wants to usurp the constitutional powers of the president elected by the people, is something that will not be acceptable to anybody.
“They didn’t do it under Babangida, they also didn’t do it under Obasanjo, they didn’t do it under Yar’Adua, for Chibuike to arrogate this power to himself, he has been looking for trouble. Now he is saying that failure to provide security is an impeachable offence, that is what Chibuike is telling the President. Chibuike has been making statement, disparaging the person of President Goodluck Jonathan. “He went to Kano State and declared there that he will contest 2015 presidential election as a running mate to a northern aspirant, he is free to do so, but the South-South region will not allow traitors among us. And if Rotimi Amaechi has singled himself out as a traitor, he will be treated as a traitor.
There is nothing anybody can do about it. “Now that we have come out of slavery, nobody can take us back into slavery, it is not possible. Rotimi Amaechi with his background enjoys slavery. He knows his background and everybody knows him. If God has given him a lease of life to be with people who have freedom, he should appreciate what God has given him, but to think he will take us back to slavery, we will not let him do so. There is monumental corruption going in Rivers State under Amaechi. He budgets $3billion every year, and there is nothing to show for such budget in Rivers State, which is a one city state,” Asari-Dokubo alleged
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