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Arms
surrender: Dokubo dares Obasanjo on December
deadline
By
Akanimo Sampson
Bureau
Chief, Port
Harcourt
A sharp
disagreement between President Olusegun Obasanjo and the leader of the
Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), a militia group, Mujahid
Dokubo-Asari, over the December 31 deadline for surrender of all illegal
arms has come into the open.
At a stakeholders meeting in Port
Harcourt, Rivers State, convened at the instance of the President on
November 30, Obasanjo gave armed cults and militia groups up to December
ending to surrender all arms and ammunition in their possession or be
prepared for the worse.
But, in a seeming dramatic twist,
Dokubo-Asari claimed that President Obasanjo cannot intimidate or threaten
him with the December ending deadline as according to him, what took place
in Port Harcourt on November 30, was not a stakeholders meeting at all.
Asari
said during an interview that �There was no meeting. I don�t know what they called
stakeholders meeting. The
president came and insulted the people. President Obasanjo in his
characteristic manner came and insulted the people. So, whatever threat he must have
made, that is his business.
Nobody can intimidate me, and nobody can threaten me�.
Continuing,
he claimed: �I don�t have any arms in my possession. When the volunteers agree to
disarm, they will disarm. If
they don�t agree, there is nothing anybody can do about it. Even President Obasanjo cannot do
anything about it. We will
see at the end of January, 2005 whether Obasanjo would be able to carry
out his plans against our people as he did at Odi and other
places.�
According to him, the immediate
cause why he took up arms against the government was the threat to his
life after the Ijaw Youths Council (IYC) had issued a statement condemning
the alleged �stealing� of Ijaw votes in the controversial 2003 general
elections saying: �The government representing the Nigeria state, People�s
Democratic Party (PDP) and the armed security forces, stole our
votes�.
He also
claimed that he did not initiate the armed violence that rocked Rivers
state and disrupted oil production activities. His words, �I never initiated the
crisis. The crisis was
induced by the government in order to muzzle the voice of the progressive
forces.�
President Obasanjo had earlier said
the Rivers crisis was politically motivated. The president who viewed the armed
youths as �rascals�, said they gave reasons for their bloodletting which
he acknowledged were politically induced.
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