Niger Delta militants ‘watching Buhari closely’

Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, ex-Delta militant leader says “the future of Nigeria is pregnant” and that the country would never be the same again.

He said the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll could erode the stability in the Niger Delta region, noting that the policies initiated by Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s incoming president, would determine the next line of action that the militant group would take.

Dokubo was speaking on Sunday during the annual Isaac Adaka Boro’s memorial public event convened by Rex Anighoro, spokesman of the Niger Delta People Salvation Front (NDPSF).

”Yes, a new government begins in Nigeria and a next phase of our struggle shall begin,” he said.

“Jonathan Goodluck presidency was like a restraining order. Now that the restraint is lifted, however, we will watch and wait, let them draw the first blood and we shall determine our best way forward. Nigeria will never be the same again. The future is pregnant.

“Let it be known that we were not defeated. 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.

“Should Buhari who 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.”

Dokubo further accused some ex-militants of being more concerned about how to benefit from Buhari’s government than focus on issues relevant to the region.

“Many so-called generals of the Niger Delta struggle have proven more than ever that they are petty penny merchants as they have fled the battlefield even before the first fire of the gun desperately negotiating to be accommodated in Buhari’s government as field slaves,” he said.

He said though Jonathan was a beneficiary of the Niger Delta struggle, he doubted if the outgoing president understands the concept of their activism.

“Jonathan Goodluck was never in the struggle. He was not a product of the struggle but an establishment beneficiary of our struggle,” he said.

“Our struggle is not and never about becoming the president. It was not about being awarded oil licences 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 unintegrated. 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.”

A few hours after the election results were announced on April 1, Dokubo expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the poll, saying the Yoruba and Hausa untied against the interest of the Niger Deltans and the Igbo.