Following the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan in the March 28
presidential election, leader of the militia group, Niger Delta People
Salvation Front, Asari Dokubo, has declared that his group is ready to
commence its armed struggle against the Nigerian state.
Mr.
Dokubo on several occasion in the recent past promised to make Nigeria
ungovernable if Mr Jonathan, an Ijaw from the Niger Delta, was
not-re-elected.
Speaking on Sunday at the Annual Major Isaac
Adaka Boro’s Memorial Public Event, the militant said whatever
restraining order the Jonathan’s administration had on the armed
struggle for the self determination of the Niger Delta people has now
been voided with the emergence of the in-coming Muhammadu Buhari’s
administration.
He said a new phase in the struggle will soon be
unveiled, but that militants will wait for the new government to “draw
the first blood.”
“Yes, a new government begins in Nigeria and a next phase of our struggle shall begin also,” he said.
“Jonathan
Goodluck Presidency was like a restraining order now that restraint is
lifted. However, we will watch and wait, let them draw the first blood
and we shall determine our best way forward. Truly Nigeria will never be
the same again the future is pregnant.”
He said the posturing of
the incoming Buhari-led administration suggests that it will extinguish
whatever is left of the Niger Delta struggle. He added he is ready to
die in war or in prison if the in-coming government attempts to trifle
with the struggle for self-determination of the oil-producing region or
treat it as a conquered region.
“Should Buhari whom like pharaoh
has determined in his heart to turn desolate the Niger Delta region,
draw the first blood by undermining certain interest of the region then
begin the systemic arrest, maiming and murder our comrades, continue the
confiscation of our rights to self-determination and treat the region
as a conquered region, then it may be honourable for some of us to die
in prison or in the field of war as nobody is afraid of him,” Mr. Dokubo
said.
Mr. Dokubo took a swipe at other Niger Delta militants
that have declared their readiness to work with in-coming government
describing them as “petty penny merchants” and “field slaves” who have
fled the battlefield before the first good is fired.
He further called on Niger Delta youth to resist any attempt to treat the region as a defeated region.
“Let
it be known that we were not defeated,” Mr. Dokubo said. “It was
Jonathan and his party that lost an election. We as a people, indeed the
Niger Delta region alongside the Igbos were never defeated. We
collectively rejected the born to rule and supremacist agenda which some
of our brothers as field slaves and taskmasters supported yet their
number shows that they are of little consequence, we must however not
take them for granted.”
He also took a swipe at Mr. Jonathan,
saying the president is merely a beneficiary of the Niger Delta struggle
but not a part of the struggle and thus cannot understand the real
intent of the struggle, which, Mr. Dokubo said, is to secede from
Nigeria which he described as “a false and forced colonial union.”
“He,
Jonathan Goodluck, was never in the struggle,” he said. “He was not a
product of the struggle but an establishment beneficiary of our
struggle. Our struggle is not and never about becoming the president. It
was not about being awarded oil licenses and mouth-watering contracts.
It was not about massive infrastructural development of the Niger Delta
Region. It was not about high scale appointments employment and
empowerment. It was never about interventionist programmes and projects.
“Our
struggle indeed is about our collective freedom from a false and forced
colonial union that has remained divided and un-integrated. It is about
our being conferred a slave status and seen as a conquered people who
must exist at the mercy of the overloads and supremacist class using our
own brothers as taskmasters against us in a Nigerian union.
“Our
status in the Nigerian enterprise remains that of a conquered people
living a slave and prisoners status. This is the collective identity we
have as a people. Whether you are rich, poor, high, low, big, mighty or
small, no matter how well dressed, well fed a slave or a prisoner his,
he remains a slave and a prisoner who constantly lives at the mercy and
dictates of others with his contributions and consent of no consequence.
This is why we must now than ever stand up like the Scottish to
determine our going forward for our platforms and reject our
. This will not come easy.”
Mr.
Dokubo amassed wealth from the multi-billion naira pipeline contract
awarded to ex-militants by the Jonathan administration as part of the
amnesty deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment