"There will be no peace in Nigeria if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015" - Asari Dokubo warns

A former President of Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) and leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has warned that there would be no peace in the country if Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is not allowed to do a second term in office.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja yesterday, Dokubo-Asari said the relative peace being enjoyed in the Niger Delta was not as a result of amnesty granted to militants but because Jonathan is the president of the country.

He said if Jonathan was stopped from being president, the Niger Delta would react violently.

He warned those aspiring to take over the presidency from Jonathan in 2015 to stop dreaming, saying that insurgent would rise in the Niger Delta.

He said: “Recently, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Mr. Kingsely Kuku, made a statement in the United States of America, that the peace being enjoyed in the Niger Delta will not be guaranteed if President Goodluck Jonathan is not returned as President of Nigeria in 2015.

“I want to go on to say that there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015, except God takes his life, which we don’t pray for. Jonathan has uninterrupted eight years of two terms to be president, according to the Nigeria constitution.

“We must have our uninterrupted eight years of two tenure, am not in support of any amendment of the constitution that will reduce the eight years of two tenure that Goodluck Jonathan is expected to be president of Nigeria.

“I am an Ijaw man, call me an ethnic bigot, I don’t care, I have no apology to give to anybody. I am an Ijaw man, if you touch an Ijaw man, you touch me. So there is nothing about it that I am going to be ashamed of.”

He said for a every long time, the resources of the Niger Delta had been used to feed and fund Nigeria while some people continued to feel that Nigeria was their personal property, and they could manage it the way they liked.

“But those days are gone forever, it can never come back again. The days when we will elect a president and some people will annul our mandate, and place the winner of that mandate in their dungeon and murder him, such days are over and they will never come again,” he added.

On whether the president had performed well enough to deserve to be elected for a second time, Asari said he (Jonathan) had done better than his predecessors in office.

He said: “We from the Niger Delta have been fair. We criticise our own, but that does not change what I have always said that “monkey no fine, but im mama like am. We will continue to support and stand by Goodluck.”

He said colonial operators left functional railways system and roads that were motorable, education and energy sector that worked.

But that from Yakubu Gowon to Murtala Muhammed, Olusegun Obasanjo to Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari to Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha to Abdulsalami Abubakar, and to Olusegun Obasanjo again, the infrastructures built by the colonial operators were totally destroyed.

He said: “But today, the story has changed, I made five hours from Benin to Lagos by road. Electricity supply is relatively constant now than what it was before Jonathan came in as president. The Abuja-Lokoja road that was neglected is almost completed and several other roads across the country. People have started using the rail system again.”

“This shows that Jonathan is silently moving the country on the right direction to satisfy this insatiable people, while we from the Niger Delta are not being satisfied.”