It’s true MEND wanted Jonathan dead – Asari-Dokubo
Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteers Force(NDPVF),
Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, formerly known as Melford Dokubo Goodhead
Jr., has earned a reputation as a man who has, arguably, made some
controversial pronouncements over the 2015 general elections.
In this interview, he spoke on the claim by President Goodluck Jonathan that Mr. Henry Okah attempted to kill him, his alleged threat to overrun Yoruba and other issues.Excerpts:
What is your reaction to the recent endorsement of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari by MEND?
Our people say that birds of the same feather flock together. It is not strange that this phantom organisation is endorsing Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. I have always maintained that there is nothing like MEND. Anybody who has been reading my write-ups and interviews know my position on this. Let me make some explanation, regarding the coming into being of MEND.
When I was in the prison, NDPVF, the the political arm of organisation I belong to, went to Okerenkuku on the invitation of Tompolo. The IYC also went. Tompolo’s organisation was there too. Other organisations were equally there. They went to Okerenkuku for a meeting on how to come together for our struggle. They decided that they did not want any more arrest. They resolved to use a faceless organisation. Denis Otuaro came with Kingston Poto and later Henry Okah came to me at Kuje prison.
They came to get my opinion on the need to get a name that would be used. Although members of the NDPVF resisted the new alignment, I coerced them into joining them. Okah and others wanted us to be faceless. They decided that fighters would bear phantom names. So, they came up with names, like Gen. Godswill, Tamino, Gbomo Jomo, Alaibe, etc. These were phantom names. They were not real. That was how the organisation, MEND, was formed. Before I came out of prison, there was a break when Henry Okah became more domineering. He was extorting money from oil companies. Almost all the governors in the Niger Delta were paying him millions. A former of Rivers State governor was paying him N100 million monthly.
Some groups started breaking out when they could no longer bear what was happening. There was a group that came out. The name was Nabina. It was the authentic MEND that started issuing statement. Anytime there was an attack, authentic MEND would come out with the nature of the attack, where it took place. It would do that before the other MEND would react. They started attacking each other. Nabina was linked to me. It was formed by members of the NDPVF, who felt that they were doing the job but another group was taking the glory. They were the people who went to Brass, Cutting Channel, etc. So, why would another group be taking the glory? That issue dragged until I came out from the prison.
At what point did President Jonathan come into the picture?When I met with the then Vice President, now President Goodluck Jonathan, he asked me all that was happening. I decided that NDPVF should stop all forms of arms struggle. That was how we disbanded arms struggle. That does not mean that we never had clashes with these groups. The Henry Okah group started to mop up people. Kidnapping became a vehicle for making money.
Ijaw struggle is a spiritual one. A lot of people do not know this. The struggle was based on Egbesu.
When you are an adherent of Egbesu, you do not steal. If you pick a toothpick that is not yours, you will die; if you rape a woman, you will die; If you shoot a person who is not armed, someone who is not fighting, you will die. Also, if you cut down economic tree or destroy a fishpond you will die and if you burn down a house, you will die. These are laws of Egbesu. Those who believe in Egbesu don’t do these things I mentioned. All the songs we sang then were Egbesu songs. Only a few of us – Labikeremana and I – who were a born again Christian and a Muslim that were a bit different. Even at that, we could not say that we were totally immune from Egbesu’s influence .
When Henry Okah first came to the Niger Delta, he didn’t know anything about Ijaw because he is a Yoruba Ijaw. He was misbehaving when he came. I have always called him a Yoruba man. He came through me to be known to everybody in Ijaw and Niger Delta generally. How his disagreement with Goodluck Jonathan started was that he wanted Jonathan to pay him money. I wrote a piece on this titled: ‘When silence is not golden’ in 2007, I revealed a lot in the piece, which I tagged part one.Ijaw elders begged me not to reveal more in my proposed part two of the write up. The part two was ready but I didn’t publish it because Clarke and others begged me not to. They said that I was revealing the secret of Ijaw. I told them that what they were doing would backfire. Everybody was on my head. I became their enemy.
If Henry Okah asked for money and you didn’t give him, they would come after you. When Jonathan was governor of Bayelsa, the Okah group asked him to share the budget of the state and give five per cent. They wanted five per cent of the state’s earning every month to service the ‘boys.’ But Jonathan said no. Because Jonathan refused, the Okah group invaded Government House. Some of the people who are now claiming to support Jonathan were part of the people that invaded Government House, Bayelsa. They destroyed some important things. My people ran away with Jonathan as governor. They went to Otueke, thinking he was there and burnt down his country home. The governor ran. Some of them are today the people around Jonathan.
You seem to habour personal grudges against Okah?I am the only person who has been talking against Henry Okah. He is nobody. He does not have the power they think he has. If he challenges me, we will meet. We will throw Ijaw into an orgy of violence. Back to the issue, the Henry Okah group continued with his strategy when Yar’Adua came to power. He continued arm-twisting him. He demanded for an oil bloc and Yar’Adua agreed to give him and his boys the oil bloc. But that could not be done until he died . Henry was still in prison while the discussion was going on. When Goodluck Jonathan took over, he reneged on that agreement. But Jonathan released him from prison on account of the amnesty programme. I had told the world that Henry was involved in a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea but it was denied. Later it was discovered to be true and he was arrested, detained and tried. But President Yar’Adua caused him to be released because some Ijaw people who today have ruined President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, impressed on the late president to help release him. Some Ijaw people, I must tell you, have ruined Jonathan’s government. They see danger but they tell him to go to the danger.
Back to the issue, Okah, after he was released, struck a deal with Yar’Adua to take amnesty. All the militants, except me took amnesty. Because I did not take the amnesty, Yar’Adua chased me out of the country and I went into exile. Between 2009 and 2010, I was in exile. When Goodluck became president, I was called and asked why I was still outside the country. I told them that I had no business coming back. But everybody came to Benin Republic to plead with me to return. In Benin, I was visiting Libya, Niger and Holland frequently. When I returned to Nigeria, one of my assistants, who is my cousin, one day called me and said, when one Chima was coming back, give him some money for me. I called Chima and he said he was coming to meet me the next day.
I am saying all these because people are asking why didn’t Goodluck say it. Some Ijaw people want him to make mistakes. When the call came, I decided to call back. I quickly remembered that when I was in prison, Chima used to work with Henry Okah. I told myself that something was wrong somewhere. One Orji, Chima’s friend, who was also close to me, called me and said they were in Abuja. He said that Chima would call me later. Anytime they called, after the conversation they would switch off their phones. I would call them, but their phones would be dead.
Immediately, I alerted the office of NSA that something was going to happen. That was two days to October 1. I told them that there were people in town and something was going to happen. One of our commanders told me that Chima called him and showed him some weapons, night vision goggles, explosives, etc. and that they wanted to renew the attack in the Niger Delta. He took the picture of the weapons. I went home, collected the picture and took it to the JTF commander. He printed the picture. He later sent the picture to Abuja. On Thursday, they went to search the home of Henry Okah in South Africa. One of the closest persons to Goodluck came to my hotel room in Bolingo and asked when I would end the hatred against Henry Okah. He asked if it was because he was more popular than I. I told him that we were not in popularity contest. This was happening on Thursday. On Friday, the bomb went off. Instead of helping to arrest Henry Okah, when he was here, they were calling him on phone to advise him that MEND should not claim responsibility for the bomb blast. Some of the things I am telling you were on my Facebook wall. I was the first person, after the October 1, 2010 blast, to come out to say that Henry Okah was responsible for the bomb explosion. Many people attacked me. The former president of IYC came out and abused me. They were all thinking that Ijaw must be united. It has dawned on all of them now that Henry Okah was the greatest danger to our struggle.
The reason I cannot be charged by the Nigerian state is that there is no evidence that I did oil bunkering, kidnapping or other evils. All my charges are political. As far as our struggle was concerned, we saw it as a moral one. We believe that morality must come first before any other thing. We are finished if we lose the support of God. It is the support of God that emboldened us to fight. It is what gives us the impetus, the drive to say that if you shoot us, we will not die. For me, what the president said is belated. He had known since 2007 that the Henry Okah group wanted to kill him. For not saying it out since, it is the fault of Ijaw leaders, including Clarke, who had been saying they should hide those thing and sweep it under the carpet. They forgot that one day, the debris under the carpet would become too much that the carpet would be undulated. The stench is coming out now and the president can no longer hold back; he has now come out to say that Henry Okah wanted to assassinate him. What he said was true. Henry Okah wanted him dead.
Were Ijaw leaders the people that asked the President to exonerate MEND when the blast took place?The argument that the president gave was in order. When you talk about MEND, Tompolo, Boy Loaf, Africa, Ogunbos and Varadagogo were all MEND leaders. They were field commanders but they were not among those that carried out the bomb blast. It is like IRA, a branch of the organisation goes to carry out a bomb blast and the mainstream IRA says no, we are not part of it . Ninety nine per cent of the so-called conglomerate of MEND was not there. They had taken amnesty and they were with Mr. President. So, the president was right in saying that MEND was not involved. If Mr. President had exonerated all the MEND elements, Henry Okah would not have been arrested. The president was making a distinction between Henry Okah and the mainstream MEND, which was led by Tompolo and which is still with Mr. President.
He was not wrong. Let me give you another analogy. It is like some APC members attacking somebody. They didn’t have the authority and backing of the authorities of APC before carrying out the attack. The party will not take responsibility. The party would be right to say that the attack was not carried out by it; that those people who did the attack are members of APC does equate to APC being responsible for the attack .
Is it safe to say that security agents at a point deceived the president by going after Chief Raymond Dokpesi?That is not true. A lot of things happened that Nigerians do not know. If we go into it, we will spill a lot of beans. Ebiwari, who is in prison now, was working with Dokpesi. My driver, who is late, was also working with Dokpesi and co. Henry Okah was with them. When they were caught, they saw messages in their handsets sent to Dokpesi, Henry Okah and other people. For everybody that was investigated, there were telephone calls that linked them together. The security tried to arrest everybody that was connected in the calls and text messages, etc.
When I was in the prison, kidnapping was going on. Dokpesi came to me when the first set of kidnapping was done. The police brought phone to me at Area 10. Dokpesi spoke to me through my sister, Hilda Dokubo. He asked me how I could facilitate and talk to these boys to release the people kidnapped. He said that it was giving a bad image to the government.
The Henry Okah people were anti-Goodluck. They didn’t want Goodluck to win the 2011 election; the same thing they are doing now endorsing Buhari. They issued the same statement in 2011 that nobody should vote for Goodluck.
You said that some Niger Delta leaders are deceiving Jonathan. Is Clarke among the people?
No, I didn’t say that Clarke was among those deceiving the president . What Clarke and few Ijaw leaders wanted was genuine. They wanted unity among Ijaw fighters, among Niger Delta people. They did not want disunity. They saw me as somebody who was not ready to abide by this. They felt that I was not ready to hide a few people who were doing some wrongs. They wanted me to keep quite, even when some things were not right but I cannot do that. By the way I was brought up I cannot keep quiet in the face of evil. Most of the people I am working with are from poor background. I have never known poverty. I have always had whatever I wanted. People want to be rich but wealth means nothing to me, it does not entice me. I was chauffeur-driven to school, except when I was in the village with my grandmother. My other siblings never experienced village life; that is why I am different from them. I went to live in the village because my father wanted me to learn the culture and language of my people. Most of siblings cannot speak our dialect very well. Clarke and others saw me as being arrogant.
You are considered as one of the few Nigerians making inflammatory utterances ahead of the February election. How do you feel being associated with this toga?
I have never made a statement without reacting to somebody. I am not a mad man. I see somebody with a gun on television, standing and saying: ‘We are going to kill you, Niger Delta; Niger Delta, we are coming’ and you expect me to fold my hands and watch him? No, I can’t do that. That is how the people in Gwoza waited: where are they today? The people in Mubi waited; where are they today? The people in Baga waited; where are they today? I will not wait. Let Ango Abdullahi and Buhari call their boys to order. If they shoot us, we will shoot them back. There are no two ways about it. You cannot tell me that I should fold my hands and get killed.
You see a man with armoured vehicle, anti aircraft and you tell me to fold my hands. I will not do so. I will also buy mine. I will also prepare. Before the man would shoot at me, I will shoot him. It is my right to life. Who is Ango Abdullahi? If not that he is from the North, would he have been a professor in the first place? What is his academic contribution? He makes careless and provocative statements and expects us to keep quiet. I will not do that. There is this thing that everybody has been doing – leave them, please, you are not like them, don’t go and compare your life with them, they will kill you, etc. That is nonsense. Don’t they have fleas and blood? If I shoot them, will they not die? Why should I leave them? They will look at me and say they are born to rule. I will punch anybody that says that.
You were quoted as having threatened to overrun Yorubaland if the people fail to vote for Jonathan next month. How true is the claim?
I never made such statement; it is a lie. Everybody knows that whenever I make a statement, I own up to it. There is no such thing. Many times, a lot of things are ascribed to me. For instance, they claimed I said ‘this Fulani man.’ I don’t use the world Fulani. What I use is Gambari for Fulani people. They claimed I said ‘this Fulani man, Buhari’ will do better for Niger Delta people than President Jonathan. How can I say such thing? When he was head of state, let him show what he did for the Niger Delta. He was in the PTF, let him show what he did for the Niger Delta. What they do is that, because they feel that I am very vocal for the election, they ascribe all manner of things to me. They know that they have lost Yorubaland; how can they win in Yoruba? There is nothing they can do to win in Yorubaland. They lost the election in Ekiti. In Osun, where they have the power, they scored 52/48. They know they have lost election in Yorubaland. They want to inflame tempers; they came up with the claim that Jonathan’s brother said he would overrun Yorubaland. They have failed; they have access to the press and I have too. I never said such thing.
Source:The Sun
In this interview, he spoke on the claim by President Goodluck Jonathan that Mr. Henry Okah attempted to kill him, his alleged threat to overrun Yoruba and other issues.Excerpts:
What is your reaction to the recent endorsement of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari by MEND?
Our people say that birds of the same feather flock together. It is not strange that this phantom organisation is endorsing Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. I have always maintained that there is nothing like MEND. Anybody who has been reading my write-ups and interviews know my position on this. Let me make some explanation, regarding the coming into being of MEND.
When I was in the prison, NDPVF, the the political arm of organisation I belong to, went to Okerenkuku on the invitation of Tompolo. The IYC also went. Tompolo’s organisation was there too. Other organisations were equally there. They went to Okerenkuku for a meeting on how to come together for our struggle. They decided that they did not want any more arrest. They resolved to use a faceless organisation. Denis Otuaro came with Kingston Poto and later Henry Okah came to me at Kuje prison.
They came to get my opinion on the need to get a name that would be used. Although members of the NDPVF resisted the new alignment, I coerced them into joining them. Okah and others wanted us to be faceless. They decided that fighters would bear phantom names. So, they came up with names, like Gen. Godswill, Tamino, Gbomo Jomo, Alaibe, etc. These were phantom names. They were not real. That was how the organisation, MEND, was formed. Before I came out of prison, there was a break when Henry Okah became more domineering. He was extorting money from oil companies. Almost all the governors in the Niger Delta were paying him millions. A former of Rivers State governor was paying him N100 million monthly.
Some groups started breaking out when they could no longer bear what was happening. There was a group that came out. The name was Nabina. It was the authentic MEND that started issuing statement. Anytime there was an attack, authentic MEND would come out with the nature of the attack, where it took place. It would do that before the other MEND would react. They started attacking each other. Nabina was linked to me. It was formed by members of the NDPVF, who felt that they were doing the job but another group was taking the glory. They were the people who went to Brass, Cutting Channel, etc. So, why would another group be taking the glory? That issue dragged until I came out from the prison.
At what point did President Jonathan come into the picture?When I met with the then Vice President, now President Goodluck Jonathan, he asked me all that was happening. I decided that NDPVF should stop all forms of arms struggle. That was how we disbanded arms struggle. That does not mean that we never had clashes with these groups. The Henry Okah group started to mop up people. Kidnapping became a vehicle for making money.
Ijaw struggle is a spiritual one. A lot of people do not know this. The struggle was based on Egbesu.
When you are an adherent of Egbesu, you do not steal. If you pick a toothpick that is not yours, you will die; if you rape a woman, you will die; If you shoot a person who is not armed, someone who is not fighting, you will die. Also, if you cut down economic tree or destroy a fishpond you will die and if you burn down a house, you will die. These are laws of Egbesu. Those who believe in Egbesu don’t do these things I mentioned. All the songs we sang then were Egbesu songs. Only a few of us – Labikeremana and I – who were a born again Christian and a Muslim that were a bit different. Even at that, we could not say that we were totally immune from Egbesu’s influence .
When Henry Okah first came to the Niger Delta, he didn’t know anything about Ijaw because he is a Yoruba Ijaw. He was misbehaving when he came. I have always called him a Yoruba man. He came through me to be known to everybody in Ijaw and Niger Delta generally. How his disagreement with Goodluck Jonathan started was that he wanted Jonathan to pay him money. I wrote a piece on this titled: ‘When silence is not golden’ in 2007, I revealed a lot in the piece, which I tagged part one.Ijaw elders begged me not to reveal more in my proposed part two of the write up. The part two was ready but I didn’t publish it because Clarke and others begged me not to. They said that I was revealing the secret of Ijaw. I told them that what they were doing would backfire. Everybody was on my head. I became their enemy.
If Henry Okah asked for money and you didn’t give him, they would come after you. When Jonathan was governor of Bayelsa, the Okah group asked him to share the budget of the state and give five per cent. They wanted five per cent of the state’s earning every month to service the ‘boys.’ But Jonathan said no. Because Jonathan refused, the Okah group invaded Government House. Some of the people who are now claiming to support Jonathan were part of the people that invaded Government House, Bayelsa. They destroyed some important things. My people ran away with Jonathan as governor. They went to Otueke, thinking he was there and burnt down his country home. The governor ran. Some of them are today the people around Jonathan.
You seem to habour personal grudges against Okah?I am the only person who has been talking against Henry Okah. He is nobody. He does not have the power they think he has. If he challenges me, we will meet. We will throw Ijaw into an orgy of violence. Back to the issue, the Henry Okah group continued with his strategy when Yar’Adua came to power. He continued arm-twisting him. He demanded for an oil bloc and Yar’Adua agreed to give him and his boys the oil bloc. But that could not be done until he died . Henry was still in prison while the discussion was going on. When Goodluck Jonathan took over, he reneged on that agreement. But Jonathan released him from prison on account of the amnesty programme. I had told the world that Henry was involved in a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea but it was denied. Later it was discovered to be true and he was arrested, detained and tried. But President Yar’Adua caused him to be released because some Ijaw people who today have ruined President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, impressed on the late president to help release him. Some Ijaw people, I must tell you, have ruined Jonathan’s government. They see danger but they tell him to go to the danger.
Back to the issue, Okah, after he was released, struck a deal with Yar’Adua to take amnesty. All the militants, except me took amnesty. Because I did not take the amnesty, Yar’Adua chased me out of the country and I went into exile. Between 2009 and 2010, I was in exile. When Goodluck became president, I was called and asked why I was still outside the country. I told them that I had no business coming back. But everybody came to Benin Republic to plead with me to return. In Benin, I was visiting Libya, Niger and Holland frequently. When I returned to Nigeria, one of my assistants, who is my cousin, one day called me and said, when one Chima was coming back, give him some money for me. I called Chima and he said he was coming to meet me the next day.
I am saying all these because people are asking why didn’t Goodluck say it. Some Ijaw people want him to make mistakes. When the call came, I decided to call back. I quickly remembered that when I was in prison, Chima used to work with Henry Okah. I told myself that something was wrong somewhere. One Orji, Chima’s friend, who was also close to me, called me and said they were in Abuja. He said that Chima would call me later. Anytime they called, after the conversation they would switch off their phones. I would call them, but their phones would be dead.
Immediately, I alerted the office of NSA that something was going to happen. That was two days to October 1. I told them that there were people in town and something was going to happen. One of our commanders told me that Chima called him and showed him some weapons, night vision goggles, explosives, etc. and that they wanted to renew the attack in the Niger Delta. He took the picture of the weapons. I went home, collected the picture and took it to the JTF commander. He printed the picture. He later sent the picture to Abuja. On Thursday, they went to search the home of Henry Okah in South Africa. One of the closest persons to Goodluck came to my hotel room in Bolingo and asked when I would end the hatred against Henry Okah. He asked if it was because he was more popular than I. I told him that we were not in popularity contest. This was happening on Thursday. On Friday, the bomb went off. Instead of helping to arrest Henry Okah, when he was here, they were calling him on phone to advise him that MEND should not claim responsibility for the bomb blast. Some of the things I am telling you were on my Facebook wall. I was the first person, after the October 1, 2010 blast, to come out to say that Henry Okah was responsible for the bomb explosion. Many people attacked me. The former president of IYC came out and abused me. They were all thinking that Ijaw must be united. It has dawned on all of them now that Henry Okah was the greatest danger to our struggle.
The reason I cannot be charged by the Nigerian state is that there is no evidence that I did oil bunkering, kidnapping or other evils. All my charges are political. As far as our struggle was concerned, we saw it as a moral one. We believe that morality must come first before any other thing. We are finished if we lose the support of God. It is the support of God that emboldened us to fight. It is what gives us the impetus, the drive to say that if you shoot us, we will not die. For me, what the president said is belated. He had known since 2007 that the Henry Okah group wanted to kill him. For not saying it out since, it is the fault of Ijaw leaders, including Clarke, who had been saying they should hide those thing and sweep it under the carpet. They forgot that one day, the debris under the carpet would become too much that the carpet would be undulated. The stench is coming out now and the president can no longer hold back; he has now come out to say that Henry Okah wanted to assassinate him. What he said was true. Henry Okah wanted him dead.
Were Ijaw leaders the people that asked the President to exonerate MEND when the blast took place?The argument that the president gave was in order. When you talk about MEND, Tompolo, Boy Loaf, Africa, Ogunbos and Varadagogo were all MEND leaders. They were field commanders but they were not among those that carried out the bomb blast. It is like IRA, a branch of the organisation goes to carry out a bomb blast and the mainstream IRA says no, we are not part of it . Ninety nine per cent of the so-called conglomerate of MEND was not there. They had taken amnesty and they were with Mr. President. So, the president was right in saying that MEND was not involved. If Mr. President had exonerated all the MEND elements, Henry Okah would not have been arrested. The president was making a distinction between Henry Okah and the mainstream MEND, which was led by Tompolo and which is still with Mr. President.
He was not wrong. Let me give you another analogy. It is like some APC members attacking somebody. They didn’t have the authority and backing of the authorities of APC before carrying out the attack. The party will not take responsibility. The party would be right to say that the attack was not carried out by it; that those people who did the attack are members of APC does equate to APC being responsible for the attack .
Is it safe to say that security agents at a point deceived the president by going after Chief Raymond Dokpesi?That is not true. A lot of things happened that Nigerians do not know. If we go into it, we will spill a lot of beans. Ebiwari, who is in prison now, was working with Dokpesi. My driver, who is late, was also working with Dokpesi and co. Henry Okah was with them. When they were caught, they saw messages in their handsets sent to Dokpesi, Henry Okah and other people. For everybody that was investigated, there were telephone calls that linked them together. The security tried to arrest everybody that was connected in the calls and text messages, etc.
When I was in the prison, kidnapping was going on. Dokpesi came to me when the first set of kidnapping was done. The police brought phone to me at Area 10. Dokpesi spoke to me through my sister, Hilda Dokubo. He asked me how I could facilitate and talk to these boys to release the people kidnapped. He said that it was giving a bad image to the government.
The Henry Okah people were anti-Goodluck. They didn’t want Goodluck to win the 2011 election; the same thing they are doing now endorsing Buhari. They issued the same statement in 2011 that nobody should vote for Goodluck.
You said that some Niger Delta leaders are deceiving Jonathan. Is Clarke among the people?
No, I didn’t say that Clarke was among those deceiving the president . What Clarke and few Ijaw leaders wanted was genuine. They wanted unity among Ijaw fighters, among Niger Delta people. They did not want disunity. They saw me as somebody who was not ready to abide by this. They felt that I was not ready to hide a few people who were doing some wrongs. They wanted me to keep quite, even when some things were not right but I cannot do that. By the way I was brought up I cannot keep quiet in the face of evil. Most of the people I am working with are from poor background. I have never known poverty. I have always had whatever I wanted. People want to be rich but wealth means nothing to me, it does not entice me. I was chauffeur-driven to school, except when I was in the village with my grandmother. My other siblings never experienced village life; that is why I am different from them. I went to live in the village because my father wanted me to learn the culture and language of my people. Most of siblings cannot speak our dialect very well. Clarke and others saw me as being arrogant.
You are considered as one of the few Nigerians making inflammatory utterances ahead of the February election. How do you feel being associated with this toga?
I have never made a statement without reacting to somebody. I am not a mad man. I see somebody with a gun on television, standing and saying: ‘We are going to kill you, Niger Delta; Niger Delta, we are coming’ and you expect me to fold my hands and watch him? No, I can’t do that. That is how the people in Gwoza waited: where are they today? The people in Mubi waited; where are they today? The people in Baga waited; where are they today? I will not wait. Let Ango Abdullahi and Buhari call their boys to order. If they shoot us, we will shoot them back. There are no two ways about it. You cannot tell me that I should fold my hands and get killed.
You see a man with armoured vehicle, anti aircraft and you tell me to fold my hands. I will not do so. I will also buy mine. I will also prepare. Before the man would shoot at me, I will shoot him. It is my right to life. Who is Ango Abdullahi? If not that he is from the North, would he have been a professor in the first place? What is his academic contribution? He makes careless and provocative statements and expects us to keep quiet. I will not do that. There is this thing that everybody has been doing – leave them, please, you are not like them, don’t go and compare your life with them, they will kill you, etc. That is nonsense. Don’t they have fleas and blood? If I shoot them, will they not die? Why should I leave them? They will look at me and say they are born to rule. I will punch anybody that says that.
You were quoted as having threatened to overrun Yorubaland if the people fail to vote for Jonathan next month. How true is the claim?
I never made such statement; it is a lie. Everybody knows that whenever I make a statement, I own up to it. There is no such thing. Many times, a lot of things are ascribed to me. For instance, they claimed I said ‘this Fulani man.’ I don’t use the world Fulani. What I use is Gambari for Fulani people. They claimed I said ‘this Fulani man, Buhari’ will do better for Niger Delta people than President Jonathan. How can I say such thing? When he was head of state, let him show what he did for the Niger Delta. He was in the PTF, let him show what he did for the Niger Delta. What they do is that, because they feel that I am very vocal for the election, they ascribe all manner of things to me. They know that they have lost Yorubaland; how can they win in Yoruba? There is nothing they can do to win in Yorubaland. They lost the election in Ekiti. In Osun, where they have the power, they scored 52/48. They know they have lost election in Yorubaland. They want to inflame tempers; they came up with the claim that Jonathan’s brother said he would overrun Yorubaland. They have failed; they have access to the press and I have too. I never said such thing.
Source:The Sun
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