Ijaw people have raised an alarm over the life of Rear Admiral Bob-Manuel, former Deputy Commandant of the Command and Staff College Jaji, facing court martial over the missing ship MT African Pride.
In a statment signed by Comrade Joseph Evah on behalf of Ijaw Monitoring Group, the Ijaw alleged that the revelation coming out of the court martial as well as outside the court over economic sabotage in the oil sector shows that Rear Admiral Bob-Manuel was the only person that practically resisted the cabal involved in oil bunkering by setting up a court martial to try and sentence to one year imprisonment Lt Commander Musa Abubakar, the officer in charge of MT African Pride. Abubakar was alleged by Jonathan Ilejiawu a Master Warrant Officer to have supervised the removal of crude oil in the vessel and sea water pumped in as replacement.
According to the Ijaws: "The cabal who are behind oil theft in the Niger Delta are planning to give Bob-Manuel the treatment given the late Mr. Dele Giwa, Chief Bola Ige and Chief Alfred Rewane who during their lifetime worked hard to change Nigeria for the better and our investigation shows that the same cabal is behind Bob-Manuel's trial and threat to his life."
Comrade Evah who was also the former Publicity Secretary of Ijaw National Congress, INC, further alleged that the refusal of the government to arrest all those implicated by Bob-Manuel and the deliberate attempt by the government to cover-up the revelation made by the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Samuel Afolayan during a press briefing on 1 December 2004 that all the oil companies and their outlets operating in the country including NNPC, PPMC and PPPRA have one way or the other short-changed the country confirmed the earlier fear of the Ijaw that the ongoing court martial was meant to mislead the public and embarrass one of Ijaw's finest officers ever produced by the Nigerian Navy."
The Ijaw insisted that the pronouncement of Admiral Afolayan that he directly informed President Obasanjo of the nefarious activities of oil companies, the NNPC, the PPMC and the PPPRA and that the president took no step to stop them clearly shows that the lives of people like Rear Admiral Bob-Manuel is not safe because of government's determination to cover-up its involvement in economic crimes.
"We urge the international community, especially the United Nations and human rights organisations around the world to put pressure on President Obasanjo who is also Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister to resign following his poor handling of issues in the oil sector."
