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Dokubo Asari: I'm Not a Nigerian

Vanguard (Lagos)
NEWS
December 12, 2004
Posted to the web December 13, 2004

By John Ighodaro
Port Harcourt
I put a call through to the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force
(NDPVF), Alhaji Asari Dokubo, requesting to have an interview with him. He was
not the one who answered my call. I however introduced myself to the person at
the other end. And I could hear the voice repeating my name and newspaper house
to another person who I suspect was Asari Dokubo.
Then the first person came back on line: "Okay, come to..."
That was how I found myself at Alhaji Asari Dokubo's office. I met a group of
men and women who were there for one assistance or the other, I was ushered to
a chair at the reception hall for another round of introductions. The person
who offered me a chair went into the office to inform the man they call Presido
that I was around. He came back to tell me that "the Presido will see you in a
moment". About fifteen minutes later, about three fat men came out of the
office; Asari Dokubo was the third fat man in line. He was seeing off some of
his visitors. As he was passing by me, he held my hand, while talking to the
woman with a baby on her arms who sat beside me and he turned to me " I beg, I
dey come".
He saw off his visitors and came back to his office, beckoning on me, "please,
you can come over" and we went into his office. I could see that renovation
work was going on in his office. Asari sat behind a huge ornate desk and had
around him his aides who presented different postures as they sat on their
chairs.
It was perhaps the third time I was meeting Asari Dokubo. Sitting behind the
desk, his chubby well fed face broke into a friendly smile and he said: "You
wan interview me? "Yes", I said. He made polite gestures that I should go
ahead. As I was about to throw the first question, a certain chief was ushered
into his office and Dokubo rose to his feet and with both hands, he shook the
chief's lone outstretched hand. The chief needed some assistance on certain
issues and Asari told him that he should explain the details to the person who
brought him saying, "We will attend to it.
I do not even need to know the details. Speak to him�-oe�-oe when you've
told him the details, you've told me the details. There are people who will
attend to it". After further discussions with the chief, the chief got up.
Beaming with gratitude, the chief said, "we are proud of you people. We are
proud of you." Again, Dokubo saw him off and came back and sat behind the huge
desk. "I am sorry my brother. Let's go on," he said.
Told that there were talks about town that he had gone back to the creeks in
view of President Olusegun Obasanjo's recent visit to Rivers State where it was
alleged that Obasanjo had called Asari Dokubo and others rascals, Dokubo opened
up: "The President wasn't talking to me. I was a member of the audience, he
didn't mention my name. I do not know if he knew I was in the audience. At the
commencement of the meeting, there was the national anthem and I didn't stand
up for the national anthem, so I doubt if he saw me; I doubt if he knew I was
in the audience. So he was not talking to me. He didn't mention my name�-
oe�-oe Now, I must tell you this: I don't recognize the Nigerian Flag. I am
not a Nigerian, I am an Ijaw
"You mean you were not offended that he called you rascals and�-oe�-oe" I
chipped in and he said, "Like I told you, he didn't mention my name. And
whatever he said has not stopped me from doing what I am doing. Since Obasanjo
left a few days ago, I have surrendered 236 rifles and 4,200 rounds of
ammunition. It's not true that I have gone back to the creeks since Obasanjo
left. Going back to the creeks has not arisen right now. If you are talking of
arm struggle, no at the moment".
Asked to comment on the peace process, he retorted; "There is no peace process.
We cannot make peace with the Nigerian state. You can talk of our making peace
with Odili and with Ateke Tom because we, Odili, Ateke Tom are all victims of
the Nigerian state. So, with Odili and Ateke Tom, there is peace but not with
the Nigerian state."
He said Obasanjo was insensitive to the plight of the Niger Delta people. "See
what's happening at Kula community today; Kula is a community, it is not a
kingdom. A sensitive leader would go to Kula and see what the oil companies
have done to that environment and be touched but Obasanjo is not touched. He is
insensitive.
Reminded that Ateke once said that his reason for pursuing him to attack him
was because Dokubo had no respect for elders, he replied: "Whoever says I have
no respect for elders is lying. I rarely quarrel with people. I rarely quarrel
with people not to talk of elders. I respect elders. My respect for elders is
intact but I don't compromise. If an elder expects me to compromise my
principles because he is an elder, he has missed it because I won't compromise
but I have respect for elders."
He explained that he always had this revolutionary streak from childhood. "In
high school, I was the president of the debating society. When our school
principal introduced draconian laws, I fought him. He was asking students to
pay dues and fines for contravening one draconian law or the other and I went
about contravening the laws, because they were inhuman laws. He then expelled
me but I refused to leave the school. I took the principal to the House of
Assembly, I fought him. I went to school, did my examination. I didn't pay any
fine. At the university, I was in the students union. Who is that elder?
"Who is that elder? If the elder wants me to compromise my principles, I won't
but I respect elders, "If you remember when this crisis started, I wrote a
letter to the press. In that initial letter, I didn't mention Odili's name. I
avoided this war because this is not the war I wanted. I regret that I was
involved in this war. My training does not allow me to engage in this type of
war. The war I support is the one against the Nigerian state, not the one
against fellow victims like Odili and Ateke Tom."
Is it true that Obasanjo offered him N2 billion naira to make him stop the war
and he turned it down, Dokubo answered; "There is no truth in that.
What Obasanjo did was that when I got to Abuja, he told his people that
whatever I needed in Abuja, they should provide it for me. He told the SSS to
provide 24-hour security for me even when I got to Port Harcourt, but I said,
no, I don't want that because I won't feel free again. They would be trailing
me wherever I go and I don't want that. Like I have told you, I was not trained
to engage in this kind of war that we had. If I wanted this kind of war, I
would have started it long ago. I have had guns for 12 years when a G. 3 rifle
sold for N7, 000. That was when I started buying guns. It is the war againt the
Nigerian state that I support. That was why from the beginning I joined the
Ijaw National Congress, Ijaw Youth Council and MOSEND all with the ideology to
free my people.
Why should we (the NDPVF) be fighting Odili and Alamieyeseigha. They themselves
are victims. They are not our target; the Nigerian state is our target."
He wondered why state governors kowtow to the president, arguing that "if I am
a governor of a state, nobody can intimidate me.
If you attempt to impose state of emergency on my state, I' II blow up all the
oil wells. If governors are with the people they won't be afraid of a state of
emergency because in the event of a state of emergency, the people would rally
round the governor."
Asked if it was true that Obasanjo once likened Dokubo to himself, the Ijaw
militant said, "Well the President once told me that I am stubborn and that he
is stubborn too (in a manner of admiration) but I must tell you, the man does
not like me. There is no way he can like me. Although he once offered me the
first director of Youth Directorate in NDDC before the crisis, I turned it down
because then, I was president of the Ijaw Youth Council and I couldn't be both
at the same time,"
Dokubo was told that there was no way he could deny his Nigerian citizen status
as he carries the Nigerian passport, and he protested, "I am not a Nigerian; I
am an Ijaw man.
International law says I should carry that slave badge you call the Nigerian
passport. I have no option when I am traveling out of the country. That is why
I carry it. Ghana; Benin or Cameroon won't give me their passport and Ijaw does
not have a passport yet, so, you find me carrying the Nigerian passport. On one
occasion, I traveled to Saudi Arabia and when I got to the immigration point, I
had the Nigerian passport with me and the official asked me where I came from
and I told him I am an Ijaw.
He said, but you have the Nigerian passport and I said I am Ijaw and that
Nigeria has enslaved us and so we carry the slave badge wherever we go. He said
he was not going to write Ijaw in his form and so he called his superior
officer because I was insisting that I am Ijaw. A compromise was reached and
they now wrote Ijaw and added Nigeria in brackets"
He insisted that the Nigerian government must listen to the Niger Deltans. It
was his view that the only way the Niger Delta problems would be solved is
through armed struggle.
His words; "Through armed struggle, that's the way out of this because Nigerian
leaders are stubborn. But they have seen that they cannot kill all of us. It is
not possible." He said a time would come when they would shut all the flow
stations in the region. His words: "All of the flow stations would be shut and
let us see why there should be a Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos and a
wilderness called Abuja turned into paradise while all oil producing areas are
in darkness. They can't kill all of us." The interview was coming to a close.
He gave a bundle of money to the woman who had a baby in her arms.As we talked,
one of his men came and demanded for N2,000 and Dokubo initially said no, but
the man pleaded, "give to your small boy". Dokubo peeled N2, 000 from the
bundle in his hand and gave to his "small boy".
Dokubo explained; "You know what, I spend close to N500,000 every day. People
come here and dash (give) me money. As they give, I also give to people. Today,
for instance, somebody, an Ijaw who believes in our cause, came in here and
gave me N200,000, but you see," raising a bundle of naira notes in his clenched
fist, "what I have left of that money is about N10, 000".

   

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