Having known Mujaheed Dokubo Asari personally, I will confess, I previously credited him with more intelligence than he deserves. Nothing confirms this more than his recent obscene and unintelligent outbursts which shows a serious decline in sophistication in politics. Coming from some hitherto unknown element whose stock in trade is fanning the embers of discord based on regional and ethnic sentimentality, Dokubo’s call was a sad reality of the desperation of the Niger Delta people to use whatever means possible to get what they want, even if it means using thugs and criminals in the mould of Dokubo Asari as guides.
Mujaheed Dokubo Asari, whose only business with politics is being a kinsman of President Goodluck Jonathan, of recent has constituted himself into a one man army attack dog of the President. It is funny the way and manner this former creek small time crook is abusing the sensibility of the generality of the Nigerian public by his weird and utterly senseless tantrums. He seemed so obsessed with the idea of South South retaining the presidency that he has thrown decorum and any sense of decency away in favour of cheap blackmail, outright threats and unconvincing lies. The most recent being his warning to cut the North away from food supply. Amazingly, neither the federal government nor the Niger Delta region seem to have any problem with his tantrums, thereby giving credit to the belief that such tantrums are, afterall, sponsored. In all this, one would be lost as to what kind of democracy people learn in the creeks. Is it democracy by ballot or by bullets?
Apparently, Dokubo was so used to having his way in the creeks that he hallucinates about turning Nigeria into one giant creeky battlefield. Even more amazing, elders of the region, led by Chief Edwin Clark seems to be well disposed to the idea of jettisoning democracy as we know it in favour of the newly conceptualised Dokubo’s model characterised by lies, blackmails and threats of violence.
Chief Edwin Clark, arguably the strongest man in the region by virtue of his close relationship to the president, threw caution to the wind recently when he accused former Presidents Babangida and Buhari with complicity in the current Boko Haram security challenges facing the nation. Clark threw jibes at the North and its elders accusing them of everything under the sun to justify his call for another chance to his political godson to have another shot at the presidency come 2015. In his view, putting the North and its leaders on the defensive is a sure way of taming the raging challenges the president is facing in the face of his poor leadership skills for easy ticket to continuity.
It baffles me how a first republic minister who played, or at least was in the arena with the likes of Chief Nnamdi Azikwe, Pa Awolowo, Sir Tafawa Balewa, late Sardauna Sokoto Sir Ahmadu Bello could allow his thinking to be so pedestrian, dictated and hijacked by the unrefined and utterly abrasive thought process of a thug like Dokubo Asari.
I can easily forgive Dokubo for fighting to protect his pot of soup. He grew up believing the only identity one can establish to ensure success is the identity of violence. Even his claim to Islam is a ruse. Once on a pilgrimage in the holy land, where Muslims are suppose to accept one another as equals, Dokubo had cause to revolt being led in prayer twice by a Northerner, demanding a sort of a “federal character” or “rotation” arrangement between North and South, even when as a Muslim he should know that leading a prayer is a matter of knowledge, not race or creed. It took my intervention and explanation for him to accept the reality that Islam has no place for ethnicity or racism.
In any case, what happen since July, 2011 when Dokubo exonerated the Boko Haram and attested to the peaceful nature of the sect, having known the late leader of the sect Mohammed Yusuf from close proximity by sharing a cell with him as he confessed in a well publicised interview. In the said interview, Dokubo went further to blame the federal government for creating a phantom security situation to take advantage and clamp on the opposition.
Is this “Mujaheed” so cheap that within a year he has been bought to the last ounce of his conscience that he can switch beliefs so easily? By the way, somebody should remind this confused fellow that, the North, producing 85% of all grain produce in Nigeria, as well as producing 95% of livestock produce, never defended on his glorious South for food. Maybe, if he is half as intelligent as the Niger Delta region accords him, he would have known it is the other way round, unless, of course, guns and bullets constitute part of his dietary plans.
Perhaps, Dokubo and his ilk, constrained by intellectual incapacitation, considers lies and mischief not only as a means to an end, but the end itself. Otherwise, they should know, everybody can hazard a guess about the source of weapons being used to create havoc in the country. Dokubo does not need to warn or threaten Nigerians that he and his folks are ready to bring out their weapons. We know they still have them. People are not naïve to believe there was really a mop up of arms in the Niger Delta region using the instrumentality of the amnesty programme. It remains to be seen what the government intend to do about the treasonable confession of Dokubo Asari in regard to this criminality.
Perhaps, it was not a mere coincidence that Dokubo’s outburst came hours apart with the Bayelsa State’s soft declaration of independence by introducing its flag, anthem and even a Constitution days after the Ogoni and Bakassi people of the region declared independence. It remains to be seen for how long the Ijaw and other minority groups in the Niger Delta region would continue to exploit the position of their son as the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to hold the country to ransom while the state stands aside and look, even when it shows little patience to constructive criticism by well meaning Nigerians as displayed by the hounding of Pastor Tunde Bakare and Nasir el-Rufai.
No comments:
Post a Comment