The leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujadid Asari Dokubo, has declared that the emerging merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a faction of the All Peoples Grand Alliance (APGA) will spell doom for Yoruba people.
According to him, the current promoters of the merger with Northern establishment have failed to learn from history; of how people who formed alliance with Northern political elite ended up.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Saturday Sun, Asari-Dokubo, who disclosed that Ijaw will stake their lives for an Igbo Presidency in 2019 in return for the support the South East has given President Goodluck Jonathan, said the opposition must work to ensure that Jonathan wins the 2015 Presidential election, if it wants the survival of Nigeria.
Asari-Dokubo said Northerners should stop issuing threats about the 2015 election because Ijaw, whose consciousness is very high now, will not be intimidated.
He described former President Olusegun Obsanjo as a great man who implemented some of the thoughts of the Major Gideon Orkar-led coup to liberate Nigeria from the grip of Northern domination.
Excerpts:
Opposition Merger
Yoruba have been in the forefront to put the North in its proper place. If Yoruba, through its fighters had not stopped Fulani at Oshogbo, they were coming down South to enslave our people. Anybody desperate to form alliance with the North should be checked very well, his Yorubaness is in question. Nobody calling himself progressive would go and align with feudalists. It does not correlate. These are two parallels. Feudalists promoting feudal hegemony and progressives promoting egalitarian society, the two are opposite sides. They have rendered their people poor and send them to the streets as urchins. For all these years that the Gambari have been manipulating political power and seizing the wealth of Nigeria, of what benefit has it been to their people? Yoruba can point to legacies left by Obafemi Awolowo; what legacies can they point to in the North. When names of Awolowo, Azikiwe are being mentioned, they mention Ahmadu Bello. What did he do? Their society is being run in such a way that it promotes primitivism of the crudest form.
President Goodluck Jonathan Presidency has brought a new form of assertiveness. Before they used violence in the name of religion to coerce people into submission, they have threatened but it is not as easy as before. The greatest natural barrier they had was the rain forest; their horses were ineffective, mosquitoes, tsetse fly would kill their houses. They did not come here and they would never come here. Now they are confronting a new set of Ijaw people, who can look them eye-ball to eye-ball and tell them that’s their limit.
Our debt to Igbo
Would the North have been able to fight the Biafra war, if some of our people had not gone to align with them? When I was growing up, my grandmother was a staunch supporter of Biafra; she would have been killed. They called her all names and referring to us as Sabo, corrupt name for saboteur. But today, history has vindicated my family. My granduncle, King Fredrick Amachree 8th, abdicated the throne because of support for Biafra, becoming the first King from Kalabari to die in exile in the 300 history of the Amachree dynasty. People did not realise where we stood. Today we tell people, we saw what people did not see. It would have been better if we had been with Igbo, Efik and others rather than allow Gambaris (Hausa-Fulani) to come here. People have now seen it.
Yes, there were mistakes on both sides; Igbo made mistakes and we also made mistakes. But if we had sat down and supported the cause of liberation, it would have been better. During Jonathan’s election, the Igbo even voted for the South-South. Before, southern minority as we are called, always voted for the North due to divide and rule tactics. Former Midwestern Region would always vote for who the Yoruba voted for. This part of the country was their no man’s land, where they all shop for votes. During Jonathan’s election, Igbo carried it on their head and voted for him. And this is a debt the Ijaws who are second to the Igbo in this part of the world owe them to ensure that 2019, if Nigeria survives, we would stake our lives to make an Igbo President, no matter what it takes.
Boko Haram has failed
Boko Haram tactics is not working. They say they would make the country ungovernable and they are doing that by killing their people. Our people in the North should come back home, let them also go back and we would see who would blink. When trouble comes, they enter their trailers and go back home, but they cannot stay one week there before they come back, because their land is that of destitution, hunger and disease. They are daring and pushing people and a time would come when everybody is waiting for the first man that would throw the stone. Let that man throw the stone then you would see missiles. A time would come when the Federal Government would no longer be able to compel Southern states governors to protect Northerners living there. Some of them say the 2015 election would be settled on the streets; let them try and we would settle it there, we are not afraid
Every time they say Chief E.K Clarke is talking and heating up the polity, but they are doing the worst by shooting people. Ijaw are only talking. Ijaw talks because they, by tradition, do not go into unjust war. The spiritual constitution of Ijaw land, the metaphysical constitution of Ijaw land and spiritual entities would not assist you if you fight an unjust war. So the Ijaw man runs when you look for his trouble. This is why when people say Goodluck Jonathan is clueless; it is because he does not want to fight an unjust war. Ijaw nation is the only nation that is built on warfare. Ijaw nation is built on perpetual warfare among themselves and against others. But immediately there is an external enemy, all Ijaws would come together to confront the enemy. Ijaw doesn’t fight an unjust war and any war an Ijaw man fights he has been pushed to the wall. Ijaw people can be small but we give hope to others. These ones the North is doing, they are pushing Jonathan. No President would accept what they are doing. They should not threaten what they cannot finish.
We say we have terms of eight years uninterrupted. Whatever figure they have cooked up for their registration and population is none of our business. When the election comes in 2015, Goodluck Jonathan has no right to say he is not contesting and he will win. He must win; they must make him win. There are no two ways about it; they must make him win. We are not going to compromise, whether Goodluck Jonathan is a good man or bad man, it is not our business. We have eight years and Jonathan is the person we have brought out. They must make him. APC must make him win because if they don’t make him, then they would know. The final result must read that Jonathan has been elected for another term. If they like, people can call us names; call us bigots, tribal jingoist, we are not concern, as longer as Jonathan wins.
The Ijaw Consciousness
During the end of the late General Sani Abacha regime, the Ijaw consciousness rose and till today it is the most dangerous in the history of Nigeria. They would have foreseen it that Ijaw, by orientation, are very violent people. Check their history, Ijaw never came together as one nation, they are several nations perpetually at war with themselves. You have the Kingdom of Kalabari, Kingdom of Grand Bonny, Kingdom of Nembe, Kingdom of Okirika that were at war with themselves and with others. So Ijaw history is replete with war against everybody and there was no thought of unity. Until people like Joshua Fumudoh, T.K Ogoriba, Tony Igrube, Ghomorai, Fibersima, M.T Akobo, Senator Zuofa, and many other decided to bring Ijaw people not only in Nigeria but in the Cameroons and they gave identity to themselves.
With this Ijaw consciousness, became a religion and it was associated with the rise in the power of potency of the Ijaw war cause. When this happened, Ijaw became bolder. When they were smaller they were fighting bigger nations, not to talk of now when they have become bigger and so everybody became small and tiny and everywhere the Ijaw people were, they were fighting everybody. For the very first time, Ijaw political elite aligned with the Gambari North and the North, being naïve, did not know they were playing with tiger’s tail. They treated the Ijaw people with disdain. Before, Ijaw political elite had believed that Yoruba and the Igbo were the enemy. Ijaw in the West saw Yoruba as an enemy and Ijaw in the East saw Igbo as the enemy and the Gambari North was happy. But all of a sudden, the Asari-Dokubos, Oronto Douglas, Felix Tuodolos, Isaac Osukas, Patterson Ogonas, Kingsley Kukus understood that one gunshot is more important to the Ijaw man than a thousand years of negotiation, dialogue and preaching and that self-determination and resource-control is by any means necessary. That was what revolutionized the Ijaw people.
Every step taken to divide us has strengthened us. Now, Ijaw can look the North in the face and tell them they don’t contribute anything to the Commonwealth and have no business being in Nigeria in the first place. There is confusion now because Yoruba and Igbo are wondering where Ijaw got the boldness to confront the Gambari North.
In the 2011 election, Igbo voted overwhelming for Jonathan for the first time, which in the calculation of the North, would not have been possible because Igbo and Ijaw are sworn enemies. The 2011 election clearly showed that it was a lie. What grievances and problems Igbo had was kept aside in 2011 and they aligned with Ijaw people.
Obasanjo’s place in history
Obasanjo, after late Major Gideon Okah, is the greatest human being I have seen. Before, maybe we did not understand him, but Obasanjo implemented the Orkar’s coup script up to 40 per cent. Without Obasanjo, there would not have been an Azazi as Chief of Army Staff; there would not have been an Alex Ogomudia as Chief of Army Staff. Without Obasanjo, there would not have been Goodluck Jonathan. The political pattern in Nigeria is known; it is either President is North and Vice- President Ibo or President Yoruba, Vice- President Hausa/ Fulani. But Obasanjo changed the political landscape. Yes, he never had a cordial relationship with Ijaw people and people like us detested that, but apart from the corruption issue, Obasanjo empowered people. There was a conscious effort to create a balance in the patronage distribution in Nigeria. He did it very well without anybody blinking.
Olusegun Obasanjo has done the greatest thing. He has done beyond the words expressed by Gideon Okah. He came and saw that some people are practicing internal colonialism. Before now, there are some positions exclusively reserved for the North. Every juicy appointment is for them, but Obasanjo stopped it. Obasanjo’s quarrel with Jonathan is not far from this because Jonathan, as an Ijaw man, has failed to understand this politics and pursue the liberation of the minorities. Obasanjo feels that with the Ijaw consciousness, the minority mentality would die.
Desperation for Power
Powers means a lot to the North. They are sending the signal gradually with some of them saying Nigeria could become Cote d’Ivorie. The implication, if you follow the Cote d’ Ivoire politics, means they might use the military option. They are already sending the message out. Jonathan should not sleep; he should not behave like Aguyi-Ironsi who left his flank open. So we must speak out and tell the Yoruba political elite that the Lion who sacked them from Oyo-Ile is still a Lion. We must tell them, if they don’t remember that there was once Afonja. Obasanjo, without making too much noise, brought us to term with the reality of our history. And it would be wrong for us as a people to sacrifice it. If Jonathan, as person, is not fighting the battle well, we should be able to tell him. Because we are not ready to go to the days when an Ijaw man cannot be an NSA, where Berom man cannot be the GMD of NNPC, where it would be difficult for a Yoruba to become Chief of Army Staff, for Igbo it is even unheard of. If there was no Obasanjo, there wouldn’t have been Ihejerika.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment