THE Niger Delta has always occupied a place of prominence in Nigeria’s public discourse both in a positive as well as negative sense. Positive in the sense that the area accounts for well over 95 per cent of the country’s oil and gas resources. However, the area has remained an enduring reference point for environmental degradation, youth restiveness, crude oil theft and lately armed insurrection.
And as the Nigerian state marked its 44th independence anniversary yesterday, the armed insurrection in the area by the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force led by Alhaji Asari Dokubo is a sad reminder that all is, indeed, not well with the polity. Alhaji Dokubo represents different things to different people within the Nigerian state- crude oil thief, cultist leader, Niger Delta revolutionary, and for some, a beacon of hope, that leadership will rather than dismiss he and his group, take stock of unfolding events within the area and take steps to rectify the inherent ills perpetrated by past administrations. In this interview he granted HECTOR IGBIKIOWUBO, the Assistant Business Editor of the Vanguard, Asari speaks on a wide range of issues, including the Niger Delta struggle, the ultimatum issued to foreign oil workers in the area and on-going peace moves between him and the Federal Government Excerpts:
Alhaji Dokubo, I would like to ask you a few questions and I hope you are well disposed to answering them.
No problems.
What necessitated your earlier threat to deal with foreign oil workers who are found in the Niger Delta after the 1st of October, and what is the situation now?
I want to correct that impression, I never issued a threat, and there was no threat, we issued a communiqué after a general session of the central command of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, attended by 312 commanders from all over Ijaw land. And that decision took more than 24 hours of deliberation. There were pressmen from all over the world who were there because of the meeting. So, we issued a communiqué at the end of the session and the communiqué stated that foreign embassies should be asked to withdraw their nationals from the Niger Delta. And if they refuse to do so, we will not be responsible for any harm that befalls them after the expiration of the date. That was the decision, which was the statement we issued.
So, there was no threat to any oil company or anybody doing business who is a foreigner, whether he is a Yoruba man, an Ibibio man, if he is not an Ijaw-man, he should leave since the government has declared war on our people. That was what we said and that’s what we are doing. The President sent a delegation and he has been sending delegations for the past four months but we have not been listening to them because whenever these delegations come and talk to us, the next week they will attack our positions and then this ding dong affair of attack and retreat. We felt that it’s wrong. If it is going to be an all out thing, let them go all out, if they are going to kill us, let them kill us.
The President finally sent a jet and the jet came and picked us and we have been discussing. I think it is very derogatory for people to just call people up and say it is a threat, I feel very bad about such reporting and such arrogance and insult on people.
I am a little confused here. If a communiqué had been issued asking these embassies to get their nationals out of Ijaw land, so to speak, don’t you see that as a threat? Because if after the expiration of the deadline, you say whatever happens to them, Ijaw people would not be held liable, doesn’t that portend a threat to their lives?
In a situation of war, how can you prevent bullets from touching anybody? If the Nigerian troops open fire or we do, who do you blame when innocent people are killed? The Nigerian government is in a position to say they are not and that we are terrorists, the American government will support them because they are gaining economically from the Nigerian state through the siphoning of our oil. So, if the Nigerian government decides to kill the foreigners and put it on our head, what happens? We have provided a safe way out for them to leave our land so that we can have enough space to confront our common foe.
There was this doubt that you wouldn’t have met President Obasanjo on Wednesday...
I would not like to convince anybody on an issue that I know is true. All of you that are in Lagos refused to publish anything on something that has been going on for one whole year.
Asari, go and read my stories, Vanguard has been...
But then, what do I stand to benefit from trying to convince anybody that I met with the President. I have met Olusegun Obasanjo five times before now. To what benefit will it be to me if I meet him now at the risk of my life? If they said we didn’t meet in order to pacify their ego, I have no problem with that. I will gain nothing by meeting with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
But why did you take the risk to go to Abuja well aware that you could be detained?
Well, I am in Abuja now. I am somewhere in an executive suit, paid for by government. I have another hotel paid for by Ijaw and Rivers people where I stay.
Government gave us a guest house to stay which we refused to take, they got us seven rooms to stay in but we declined because we are not up to seven, we are just six people on this trip.
Did you consider the inherent risk involved or was your safety and that of your men guaranteed?
Maybe you don’t know Ijaw people, how we operate and how we move. That is why you are asking this question. Before we left Port Harcourt, we had prepared our minds.
When we started this struggle, we knew that we may die one day. So, we will not be surprised if they want us dead here now. There is no problem. If they kill Asari, have they killed the struggle? As an Okrika man, I know you are from Okuruama.
When you want to ask questions, the best thing for you to do is to ask straight questions and you would get satisfactory answers. But when you ask questions and then you get somebody angry, you would not get the right answers. The questions you are asking me are making me angry. I have no business meeting with any president. And it is not a big deal meeting with him. That is what I want you to know.
Let’s now look at funding. There has been a lot of misconception. For instance, some people claim that you are getting funds from militant Islamic groups like al Qaeda. What’s the true state?
Nigerians are so gullible. How can an organisation that is more or less traditional be so linked? Ninety nine per cent of Ijaw people believe in Egbesu. Only a fraction, less than one per cent of us believe in Christianity or Islam or even other persuasions. Ninety nine per cent of Ijaw fighters will not go out if they are not carrying Egbesu. So, how can an organisation that supports purity of Islam support any other organisation that propagates
a persuasion other than Islam? I have no contact with any Islamic organisation or radical Islamic body. I only admire and I repeat, I admire Osama bin Laden. My last son is named after him. I admire him because he is confronting Western arrogance.
The same way we are confronting the arrogance of the Nigerian state. So, there is similarity in our struggle.
There are people who say, ‘look my friend, you cannot be an Ijaw man so far as Nigeria is concerned. There are Yorubas, Hausas and Igbos. So, you must be one of these. But we are saying no, we cannot be any of these, we are Ijaw people. God created us as Ijaw.
That is an arrogance that we do not accept. A situation where the constitution of this country will negotiate away your Ijawness. Apart from this similarity, we do not agree on several issues and these include that of killing innocent people. As an Ijaw man, go and study the Ijaws, Egbesu and everything Ijaw. Egbesu will stop protecting any army if they kill an innocent person, whether the person is an adult or not, as far as the person is not armed. Or they kill a woman if the woman is not armed, or you destroy houses or livestock. The laws of Egbesu are very clear on these issues. No Ijaw man will support 9/11 (the terrorist attack which took place in the US, bringing down the World Trade Centre Twin Towers).
When we talk about funding, there are also claims that you get funding from Ijaw nationals both home and abroad as well as …
As I am talking to you, when we got here (Abuja) and the government provided accommodation for us, the Ijaw and Rivers people in Abuja came and said: “Asari, don’t stay in government accommodation.” They took us to another quiet hotel and provided us with vehicles, computers, money and laundry services. They did all that for us on their own. As early as 4 a.m, people had started coming. They brought people to prepare our statement for us, to look at it, to make it strong and advise us. These are Ijaws from all works of life including non-Ijaws. So, we get funding every week that runs into millions of naira from Ijaw people all over the world.
What can you say about claims of linkage or support from the Bayelsa State government?
The Bayelsa State governor (DSP Alamieyeseigha), I am very sorry to say, is the most inconsistent person that has ever come out of Ijaw land. He is a very inconsistent person. He has never given us one kobo. Inconsistent in the sense that today he talks about Ijaw freedom, tomorrow you see him doing something totally contrary to what he had said. We believe that the Bayelsa State government is in league with (Dr. Peter) Odili (Rivers State governor) because he is afraid the way this thing is going it is not a Rivers problem and if it escalates it will also affect him.
So, he is doing everything to truncate the movement. He has been doing that. He has been supplying logistic support to the Rivers State government to track us down. Because majority of our fighters are from Delta and Bayelsa and he is doing everything by telling people to hold us down at villages and campaigning against people allowing their children to volunteer. In fact he is against us.
One is able to discern that you have grievances with the Rivers State government and some politicians in the Niger Delta. At the same time you have bones to pick with the Federal Government. Now this whole issue started out as you having differences with the Rivers State government and Mr. Ateke Tom. So, can you let the Nigerian people and the world know precisely what your motives are?
I don’t think you have been following my activities very well. I was deputy president of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), and I later became president of the Ijaw Youth Council. From 1999 till this year, I have been involved in the activities of the Ijaw Youth Council. The Ijaw Youth Council issued the Kaiama declaration. We have since then re-issued it and they are very clear. These are the issues of self determination, resource control and convocation of a sovereign national conference. And I was a leader of this organisation.
Although I fell out with him, I was close to Odili and I have no apologies whatsoever. I was close to him because he courted my friendship believing that IYC was a nuisance and in order to control the nuisance of IYC, he should get close to those of us from Rivers State who are IYC members so that he can use it to destroy the IYC. But he failed. The IYC told him that he should not rig the election and (we all know what happened during the polls).We issued a statement that there were no elections in Rivers State. Odili said that I should retract the statement. I said I would not and he sent people after me. So, the issue with Odili is a local thing, but we have always had problems with the Federal Government. It is the same problem that led to the destruction of Odi.
Let us also look at approach. Because since we are talking about the liberation and ultimate emancipation of the Ijaw people, how do you intend to accomplish this?
My dear brother, that is not Alhaji Asari’s work to do alone. If you are an Ijaw man, you also have your contribution. I am just playing my part. Somebody else should do it right. Until 17th of October last year I was not affiliated in any way to the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), the organisation has existed since the 80s as just an organisation with membership drawn from Bayelsa, Delta and Ondo states. There were no Rivers people who were members or volunteers of this organisation.
When (they) attacked me, I went round touring Ijaw land and asked Ijaw people if it was right for somebody to attempt to kill their president and they won’t say anything. So many organisations offered help. But it was the NDPVF led by Columbus Bitrus that came out openly and said that they would stand by me and take this fight to the end.
I did not know what their membership strength was back then and I don’t think their membership was more than 100. But today we have over 200,000 volunteers and I have told General Olusegun Obasanjo that he should allow the constitution of Nigeria, no matter how imperfect it is, to operate. Let us hold a rally in Port Harcourt and he would see if more than one million people wouldn’t attend.
Our volunteers include lawyers, professors, engineers and people from all works of life. Do you think CNN, the VOA and every other international news organ that has been calling were organised by Alhaji Asari? There are Ijaws abroad who are paying bills for us, who are going the extra length to ensure that things work out right. Even our coming to Abuja, most of these people are saying, why did you come to Abuja? Why do you want to discuss now? Why don’t you keep this thing on for sometime?
But there are times you have to ask yourself: if they are offering peace because foreign embassies are involved brokering this peace, why not listen to what they have to say? They had sent a delegation to our camp to bring us and they gave us assurance concerning our safety. But that’s not to suggest that we’re afraid. Of course, we are not and we can’t be.
Let me understand something here. Given the prevalent circumstance of peace moves, do we not take it that the October 1 date issued in your communiqué has been set aside? Again, in the event of government not meeting whatever your demands are now, would that date still affect foreign oil workers?
Operation Locust will commence on October 1st all over the Nigerian state, not only in the Niger Delta. We will strike at the infrastructure of government anywhere in Nigeria. That was what was contained in our communiqué and we stand by it if negotiations fail. Even if I am arrested, you will be surprised by tomorrow morning you will hear what would have happened in Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states. We are not the only group operating, several groups are operating. People are so angry about what is happening and the betrayal of the governors of the Niger Delta. A lot of people don’t even know that I am not the leader of the NDPVF. With my position as president of the IYC, they supported me and I stand with them wherever they are.
