A former Niger Delta warlord, Alhaji Asari Dokubo has reinstated the readiness of his group, Niger Delta People Salvation Front, to reawaken their seemingly silent struggle in the nation if the president-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari dares to push them to the wall as he braces to take over the leadership mantle.
Dokubo made this stance known on Sunday, May 17, 2015 during the Annual Major Isaac Adaka Boro’s Memorial Public Event.
According to reports, the militant said whatever restraining order the Jonathan’s administration had on the armed struggle for the self determination of the Niger Delta people has now been voided with the emergence of the in-coming Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
He said a new phase in the struggle will soon be unveiled, but that militants will wait for the new government to “draw the first blood.”
He said, “Yes, a new government begins in Nigeria and a next phase of our struggle shall begin also.
“Jonathan Goodluck Presidency was like a restraining order now that restraint is lifted. However, we will watch and wait, let them draw the first blood and we shall determine our best way forward. Truly Nigeria will never be the same again the future is pregnant.
“Should Buhari whom 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.”
He further called on Niger Delta youth to resist any attempt to treat the region as a defeated region especially following the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the Saturday, March 28, 2015 presidential polls.
He said, “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.”
“He, Jonathan Goodluck, was never in the struggle. “He was not a product of the struggle but an establishment beneficiary of our struggle. Our struggle is not and never about becoming the president. It was not about being awarded oil licenses 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 un-integrated. 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.
“Our status in the Nigerian enterprise remains that of a conquered people living a slave and prisoners status. This is the collective identity we have as a people. Whether you are rich, poor, high, low, big, mighty or small, no matter how well dressed, well fed a slave or a prisoner his, he remains a slave and a prisoner who constantly lives at the mercy and dictates of others with his contributions and consent of no consequence. This is why we must now than ever stand up like the Scottish to determine our going forward for our platforms and reject our oppressors. This will not come easy.”
