Vanguard
7 December 2008
interview
Alhaji Mujaheed Asari Dokubo, leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, needs no further introduction. One thing you would notice on seeing him without being told is that this 'freedom fighter', is sick. And, as he put it, it all started after he was put in a dark underground cell during his two years incarceration under the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo. Sunday Vanguard ran into Asari in a friend's house in Lagos and he agreed to speak on his ailing health, criminality in the Niger Delta, Malam Nuhu Ribadu's travails, among others issues. Excerpts:
THE administration of President Umaru Yar'Adua seems to be at a loss over the recent harassment of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu at his graduation ceremony at NIPSS, such that the government would order investigation into the circumstances surrounding his alleged arrest and denial of graduation. How do you see the whole situation?
To me, the situation was very embarrassing. It was done in very bad taste. In the first place, Nuhu Ribadu ought not to be in NIPSS. Ordinarily, he is not up to an officer that should attend the NIPSS course. But he was there. Six months after his demotion, the police authority would have done everything to remove him from NIPSS, but they allowed him to pursue the course for the duration. Naturally, it is expected he should be awarded the certificate for the course, only for them to come to the graduation arena to eject him forcefully. It is wrong. It is embarrassing to both the people who carried it out and to Ribadu himself.
But like I said before, Ribadu ought not to be there in the first place. The real rank of Ribadu in the police ordinarily ought to be Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), not even Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). Ribadu, in six years, was promoted from Chief Superintendent of Police to Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG). Where was the due process we are talking about?
What of his colleagues, his course mates, those who came into the police force the same time with him? What risk did Nuhu Ribadu take for him to be catapulted to that rank? He served the interest of and pleasure of the dictator, the former president by persecuting all those that the General wanted him to persecute. Apart from that, Nuhu Ribadu did not achieve anything.
I start to wonder when respected people like Wole Soyinka and Gani Fawehinmi are drumming up support for Nuhu Ribadu. To me, Nuhu Ribadu ought to face trial, along with Maurice Iwu, Sunday Ehindero, Kayode Are and Obasanjo, for taking away from the people their constitutional right to choose people who would govern them. Nuhu Ribadu was the chief culprit in carrying out, in manipulating and in totally disrupting the electoral process in 2007. I do not believe in Karma, I'm a Muslim, that what happened to him serves him right? No. His rights were violated when he was forcefully removed. The people who withdrew the rank he did not merit ought ordinarily to have withdrawn him, because, in the first place, he was not qualified to be there.
Should Ribadu be blamed for a rapid promotion he never bargained for?
Nuhu Ribadu bargained for the promotion. He begged for it and he knows that the person promoting him did not have the constitutional authority to promote him. General Obasanjo, the dictator of the Nigerian State then, did not have the authority to promote Ribadu. That authority is vested in the Police Service Commission, PSC, which Ribadu is very aware of.
That is it. Ribadu, a man in uniform, serving government, was one of the people campaigning for PDP openly. He was in a campaign clip where he was campaigning for Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, the man in Aso Rock today. So, he was meddling in politics, he was openly insulting and abusing the then vice president, Atiku Abubakar, who had fallen out of favour with Obasanjo. He was abusing people, insulting people, like Atiku, Tinubu, Orji Kalu, Alamieyeseigha, Dariye. He was abusing them. He employed unconstitutional means in removing governors. In Bayelsa State, he did it.
In Plateau State, he did it. He attempted it in Adamawa State, his own state where legislators were arrested, beaten and detained. In Plateau State, INEC was there withdrawing the certificates of elected public officers with active connivance and participation of the judiciary. They withdrew the certificates and held another election even where there was a subsisting case by the legislators in the court. He did all that without recourse to the constitution. He was lord unto himself.
So, I know, with the character of Nuhu Ribadu, the person who promoted him ought not to have promoted him in the first place.
Would he have rejected the promotion, knowing it would be termed to mean insubordination to constituted authority?
So, now that they have removed him, he refused to wear the rank of Deputy Commissioner of Police, which he does not merit. He ought to be an Assistant Commissioner of Police. So, is it not insubordination for him not to wear his new rank. The agency of government that is concerned has removed him. Now he is protesting, meaning he actually lobbied for the position. Obasanjo contemplated making him even the Inspector General of Police before he left. What kind of due process was he talking about in promoting mediocrity who never went through the courses to get promotion? He was being given promotion because he was hunting the enemies of the man in power.
But rapid promotion did not start with Ribadu. There is history of such ...?
(cuts in) Who? Under democratic dispensation?
Like it was said that even the present I-G was also a beneficiary of rapid promotion?
Where? When? Let them point it out. What is the length of service of the present I-G? Can you compare a fine gentleman with Nuhu Ribadu along with others who scuttled the democratic process and foisted on us people who ought not to be close to where they are today. Everybody who is praising or talking about Ribadu, Nuhu Ribadu did nothing to fight corruption.
In fact, he was part and parcel of electoral corruption. He did not see the money that was being spent in the power sector, the people's money. Now, we are here (in Lagos), there is no light. How many days? They said it is about two weeks. For Nuhu Ribadu not to be punished and he is still opening his mouth to talk! It is only here that people like Nuhu Ribadu can talk. As an individual, he ought not to have that rank that was given to him. He should have been put back in his proper rank.
But what happened to him that day (at NIPSS) was wrong. They shouldn't have allowed him to reach that stage before cutting off the show for him. It is not right in this case.
But now that the government reportedly ordered NIPSS to issue him his certificate, how would you react to that?
As I said, they ought to issue him the certificate as long as they allowed him to go through the course. They should issue him his certificate if he finished his course. Even though there is the argument that he is not up to the rank to attend the course, did they not know when they allowed him to continue the course?
But it was argued that sending him on that course was just a ploy to remove him as the chairman of EFCC.
The removal of Nuhu Ribadu from EFCC is something that ought to have been done immediately, if the government that was coming was a government on the side of the people. Like I said before, Ribadu should have been removed and put on trial. So many people are disqualified, are we going to count? The greatest corruption is to steal the people's mandate, the people's vote, which Ribadu, Ehindero, Kayode and Obasanjo orchestrated.
Talking of the stealing of people's mandate, today we have the mandate of Governor Adams Oshiomhole restored to him. How would you react to his victory?
I was overwhelmed with joy, totally overwhelmed, because I never expected the outcome of that judgment. That judgment was not in agreement and in accord with the behaviour of the fascist judiciary in Nigeria, a country where a man will be in prison for over 10 years and still be awaiting trial, like Al-Mustapha, a man pronounced guilty before even evidence is taken from him, like my case.
So, what we were expecting was that, if they become too ashamed, they could order a re-run of the election. That was what we were expecting. So, it came like a thunderbolt or like somebody being beaten by a thunderbolt. It's out of the ordinary. It seemed like God touched the heart of those men because they acted outside the script that has always been written for the Nigerian judiciary. I'm not applauding the judiciary. Even, immediately after Adams Oshiomhole's victory at the Appeal Court, another bizarre judgment came up involving Rotimi Amaechi, the Supreme Court imposed governor in Rivers State and the candidate of the Accord Party.
Chief Amaechi, who never campaigned, who was never presented to anybody to contest election, was made governor by seven men of the Supreme Court of the Nigerian state. Out of 18 qualification and disqualification clauses, they took out one: That being a member of a political party and being presented ... no party presented Rotimi Amaechi for election. The PDP even went ahead to expel him from PDP. So, no party presented him for election. INEC did not present him to the people to be voted for.
People said 'let us just sit down, make we give them one governor, jo! Dis na the one wey we wan give them'. It was by fiat. He was not a member of the PDP at the time of the election because he had been expelled by the PDP, which is an internal working mechanism of the PDP.
So, the Supreme Court went outside, brought a man who was not known to the electoral process, made him governor. There was no election in Rivers State; Omehia's name was just announced by INEC like; as it was done in Bayelsa, Cross River and so on; like in Edo State where rigging has been clearly established. All we are saying is that once we say you are governor, you are governor.
The people who sought relief believing that the judiciary can give them relief are now saying 'oh, if the judiciary cannot give us relief, we will resort to self - help'. A lot of people are capable of resorting to self-help. Nothing will happen. The highest thing that will happen is that they will declare a state of emergency.
It will be good for the Supreme Court of Nigeria to reverse itself (on Amaechi), because a stage will come when we have seen that always to stop this man whom we never voted, Rotimi Amaechi, who is managing our resources, you will see that he is not answerable to anybody. Nobody voted for him, he is sitting there. They are telling the people to resort to self-help. So, Oshiomhole's victory was out of the ordinary. Up till today, we are thanking God, 'ah, God, your judgment is great'. It is not in any way to say that our judiciary is upholding justice, equity and fair play. No.
But there have been so many landmark judgements by the Nigerian judiciary, especially during the Obasanjo regime?
Which landmark judgment?
Like the issue of the on-shore, off-shore controversy ...
(cuts in) Yes, the on-shore, off-shore controversy, the Supreme Court ruled that the continental shelf is different, that the on-shore, off-shore controversy really existed. That is what the Supreme Court said. That the land of a state does not extend upwards to the sea.
So, if Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Ogun or Ondo were not part of Nigeria, would there be territorial waters of Nigeria? So, somebody in Niger, Chad will now come and contend that they too have territorial waters. Eh? Because they are there. Nigerian territory ends after the continental shelf, so we have the right.
They have never given any landmark judgment as far I am concerned. All their judgments are tainted with one reason or the other. All the judgments of the courts are tainted. INEC does not have power to disqualify. If INEC has power to screen, they have no power to disqualify. Yes, the judgment saved Obasanjo who wanted to use Iwu and Ribadu to disqualify people. So, all of a sudden, they took a decision, INEC cannot disqualify. Is that the landmark judgment? A landmark judgment that Alamieyeseigha's case was delayed. He was the only governor who was wrongfully removed that did not return (to) teach the people of Niger Delta lesson.
If anybody rises up in the Niger Delta to challenge our authority, we teach him a lesson. So, Dariye got his governorship back, Ladoja got his governorship back, but Alamieyeseigha's case was going to and fro.'Go to the lower court, come back. Go, to the lower court, come back,' until the end of his tenure. Even when his tenure had ended, they would have ruled.
He would have gone back to complete his tenure but they did not. The courts in Nigeria are targeted in giving judgment in a particular area; 'people who have fallen out of favour in the Niger Delta with the established status quo must be punished.' So, Alamieyeseigha was never restored to his position even though his case was the same with that of Dariye and Ladoja. He was never reinstated.
But don't you think that at that time his case was overtaken by events as ...?
Events cannot overtake an injustice. Was election not done in Anambra State and Andy Uba pronounced governor before the court decided that Obi should return. Alamieyeseigha ought to have been returned as the governor of Bayelsa State. The election held in Bayelsa would have been a nullity. Apart from Alamieyeseigha, which other politician has been convicted? Nobody. All the politicians are patted on the back, then you go.
Then Alamieyeseigha's, he was convicted, the property they recovered were confiscated. They were not even returned to Bayelsa State, the owners of those property. They were auctioned. You stole my property, everybody knows that this property belongs to me, which Alamieyeseigha stole. He stole Bayelsa property but, at the time, it was to return the property to the owners, the owner is identifiable, not that you don't know who owns the property. Instead of returning the property to Bayelsa State, what they did was to auction the property at ridiculous amounts.
That would be strange because what was recovered from Dariye by the British Police was returned to Plateau State?
But Bayelsa's was not returned. It was auctioned by Ribadu at ridiculous amounts. The owners of those property have been identified as the Bayelsa Government from which Alamieyeseigha stole. Why were they not returned? To teach our people a lesson. The same way my being put in prison was to teach the same lesson. 'We killed Isaac Boro, we killed Saro-Wiwa, but we are going to deal with you'. And I said 'no, you cannot deal with me.
It is only God who can deal with me'.'They will put you underground. You go blind. Now, I cannot see very well. I have eyesight problem. I have urinary track problem. 'We are going to put you there, you're going to die. You'll beg, if we hang Saro-Wiwa, nobody will come out again to challenge us'. They failed. They have to change. If not, it is going to be very dangerous because the people that will come after us will be more vicious than what they consider us to be.
But as the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, your organisation returned arms to the Federal Government under Obasanjo era. Would you say that the terms of the agreement were not adhered to by government which led to your being put in prison. Was it a kind of betrayal of trust?
Yes, because the government refused to pay for the arms, which we agreed at Aso Rock with representatives of the armed forces, the police and SSS. They refused to pay the money till today. Not only that, after that, I was arrested, thinking that if I'm arrested, without arms, nothing will happen. And they were mistaken. I told them that something will happen. If you kill Marshal Harry, you kill Saro-Wiwa, you kill all these people, you say nothing will happen, but if you kill Dokubo Asari, something will happen. And it happened. They have sowed the seed, it has germinated and it has brought forth fruit. And it is the fruit that it brought forth that we are reaping today.
While you were in detention, it was believed that the reason for militant activities then was for your release. But many months that you have been out of the place, militant activities in the Niger Delta has not abated. What then is the problem?
Well, one, I am not a militant and I don't lead a militant organisation. I've said it everywhere even before my arrest. I detest being called a militant. I've never checked that word in the dictionary. I've never bothered to check because it does not concern me. I don't want to belabour myself. I'm an Ijaw and Niger Delta nationalist, more as an Ijaw nationalist because I started up as an Ijaw nationalist, leading Ijaw organisation, rising from the rank and file to the highest echelon of leadership of the Ijaw people.
And when I felt that just leading the Ijaw is narrowing down the struggle of the people of the Niger Delta, that we should not make the mistake made by our heroic forbears, such as Isaac Adaka Boro and Ken Saro-Wiwa, that the struggle should be broadened to include all the dispossessed and oppressed people of the Niger Delta. So, we did that.
To me, the criminal activities, one is caused by government. Government wanted to set up a different militia, which they did actually, either by themselves or through their representatives at the state level, they consciously set up this criminal gang who contained the activities of the progressive struggle of MOSOP, Ijaw National Congress, Ijaw Youths Council and all other progressive organisations in the Niger Delta. It is like a boomerang. It has backfired. They threw it out and it has come back after them. That is it.
But your own organisation was into armed struggle at the time?
Yes, armed struggle is a legitimate means to free all nations and all land from foreign occupation. We said, 'look, we don't want to die. You don't want to die either. So, let us sit down at a sovereign national conference and discuss whether we want to be together, we want to correct the mistakes of 1914 and 1960'. They said, no, it is not possible. 'You will continue to be where you are'. We said, 'no'. It is our legitimate right to fight for the liberation of our land.
But it seems you have dropped the idea of armed struggle now?
That is not a decision by me. I'm just an individual member of a central command of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force. I'm just one member out of over 300 members of that central command. I'm just one of them. Then after the central command, it will be ratified by the general assembly of the Niger Delta Peoples Salvation Front, which is the parent body of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force. I was in prison when armed struggle was suspended.
I came out of prison and it is still there that it has been suspended. So, if the organs that have the authority and power to reverse that decision and say go back to armed struggle, then I'm just one person. It will be binding on me because as long as I remain a volunteer, a member, it will be binding on me.
Yet some people believe that the idea of armed struggle was suspended because you were settled by the then Obasanjo government.
In the history of Nigeria, who has ever gone to court, put in underground cell? People say things that they cannot do. Who will stand in court and tell a judge to his face 'you will be killed. I'm ready to die but you will be killed'? We tell the DPP, 'you will be killed'. You hold the court to ransom. Somebody who will be underground and will come out and say, 'I want to die'. They said, they want to grant him bail and I will say, 'I don't want your bail'. Who has ever said that? I am asking you a question. Name one person. People beg and cry, did you see me cry? Throughout my two years of incarceration, did you see me cry until they got tired of me?
But why were you that hostile to the judge?
He was there to do the bidding of General Olusegun Obasanjo and the only option is death. 'Sentence him to death or life imprisonment.' So, there was no other place he can put me other than there. So, as long as they are going to put me there, so be it. I'm going to fight it to my grave and that was it.
How can criminal activities in Niger Delta be minimised?
Stopping criminal activities in the Niger Delta is very simple. Do the right things. Convoke a sovereign national conference, stop patronizing those criminals. The oil companies are patronizing them, giving them security, contracts, paying them and things like that. Stop it. The government officials should stop patronising them, using them for election. Stop it. And also disarm them by calling for dialogue from the grassroots. You call for dialogue from the grassroots. Those who want to talk should be granted amnesty and those who are not leave them to the people.
The people are watching, the people are just watching because head or tail, they lose. Like in all the Niger Delta states, they have people in government that they never voted for. If some people say, 'rise up against those militants, rise up against those criminals'. They, the people say, 'oh', openly. 'The ones in Government House we did not put there, those in the House of Assembly that we did not put there.
The ones in the local governments, the chairmen and their councillors we never put there, who are taking our money and eating our money.' They spend the money in billions on road construction and nobody will see the roads. You want to build one secondary school for N4 billion. If you want to use N4 billion to build secondary school, I challenge you, put N2 billion in the bank, give me the specifications of the type of school you want to build.
Give me the prototype that you are building. I'll finish building it with the N2 billion you kept in the bank. After building it, the remainder, I'll use it to give other things to the people of the community. I'll not take one kobo profit. It is a challenge. If he is actually interested he wants to save the money for Rivers State, let Amaechi, who was imposed on us, a slap on our face, an insult on our dignity, daring us to do something if we can, let him do that. Keep the N4 billion you want to use and build the school in my community, Buguma, let him keep half, N2 billion.
The contract is to be completed in one year, I'll complete it in six months to specification and cash will remain. It is an open challenge, let him do it. He will not do it. Odili, from federal allocation, according to him, received over N800 billion in eight years. Amaechi, in one year, has received N389 billion from the same source, and his budget for last year before the supplementary budget was N256 billion, that is over two billion U.S. dollars. It is so funny. How many African countries budget up to half a million U.S. dollars.
They have full complement of the military, they have the police, immigration, the customs, secret service, the prison service and they have diplomatic missions. They have everything and this is a man who is telling us in one year, he has spent $3bn and nothing to show for it. Is that how people can devalue the Nigerian currency to become toilet paper? I have a big house. It is very beautiful, it's a marble structure and somebody is giving N120 million for the renovation of a house.
My house is five times bigger than that house they are renovating. I know the house at Akasa Street. That was where I grew up. That was where I lived all my life. So, I know that land belonged to someone before it was taken over by government. They built a house there and they said to renovate the house, not a new house, an old structure, N120m would be needed. It is out of the ordinary. I have a house, as I said, that is five times bigger than that house. The building, the land, the furniture, everything is not over N60 million, and it is better than that house even today. I have a house at Warri, go there, check the two houses. I know the house they are talking about. That was where I lived with my father until he died in 2003.
On the on-going trial of Henry Okah, there was a time it was such that the Federal Government wanted to use you as a prosecution witness against Okah. Was that the true position?
I know that the government of the Nigerian State wanted me to be part of the prosecution team. One, I have said it in an open court, I am not a Nigerian. I will not help the Nigerian State, even though I know Henry Okah. He is part of what the Niger Delta is going through. He had come to destroy the progressive element within the revolution of Niger Delta. He has diverted our struggle from purity to impurity.
So, for me, I cannot aid the Nigerian State against Henry Okah, even if he is evil, I will not. Two, Henry Okah should be tried in an open court. If you talk about rule of law, Henry Okah should be given a trial in an open court where the people will be there to watch the trial and to give their own judgment of the trial because, my own trial, even though it was public, some people were prevented from coming in.
All the security agencies were there, beating, flogging, frog jumping people and making people to roll on the ground every time I appeared in court and thousands will still come. As long as due process and the rule of law is not upheld in the trial of Henry Okah, substantial injustice has been done to him, because the judge is employed by the government of the Nigerian State and it is Henry Okah versus the Federal Government of Nigeria.
They pay the judges, they are the people who are saying you cannot try Henry Okah publicly, why? You are accusing him. Why are you afraid to lay all your cards there on the table? You are the one who arrested him and if you are afraid to lay all your cards on the table, then there is something wrong. That means that you do not have all the facts for you to get a conviction for him and it is wrong. For you to keep Henry Okah in detention to go on a voyage of discovery of evidence is wrong. If they don't have anything to try him on, they should allow him to go. It is as simple as that. I know him, by my relationship with him. But if they don't have any fact to convict him, they should allow him to go.
Recently, the list of the ministerial nominees were presented to the National Assembly and despite speculations that President Yar'Adua was shopping for technocrats that would take Nigeria to a point of achieving his Vision 2020, many feel he missed it all by appointing old politicians that have failed the country in the past. What does this have in stock for the nation?
As far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong, they have a right to vote and be voted for. They have every constitutional right to appear for any position and be given. This belief that new hands, can you compare the Ahmadu Bellos, the Awolowos, the Nnamdi Azikiwes, the Tam David Wests, the Dr. M. T. Akogbos, the Ciromas with the ministers we have been having, the younger generation, in terms of corruption?
All the roads that you enjoy, the old strong roads were built by these old people. The younger ones are more corrupt. Everything we are having is from bad to worse. It is becoming worst. So, what are you talking about? With our eyes korokoro, we are seeing the chairmen in the local governments. Apart from Fashola of Lagos State, can you count any governor doing better? Fashola is older than the governor of Rivers State and certainly older than the governor of Bayelsa State. So, of the so-called governors, if they talk, you think kindergarten children are talking. So, what are we talking about?
There is nothing wrong if they (recycled politicians) are going to deliver. Some of them, when they come out of government, they realise that what they did was not good. They want to repent and retrace their steps. In the United States of America, they have a senator father and a representative son, yes. A president is there, two of his children are governors. Somebody has been in the Senate for six terms, Steward of Alaska is over 90 years old and he was elected the seventh time. Politics is about learning. Everyday, people are learning. So, it is not about saying we want generational change.
What is generational change? How many of our fathers would drive Hummer Jeep or Infinity? They cannot. How many of them would want to sleep with two women in their old age? All the areas we spend money as young men, how many of them will do it? So, old hands are better. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with appointing them. If it was done sincerely, we should commend him (Yar'Adua) for appointing such people.
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