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Saturday 15 December 2012

You Are Losing Base And There Is No Need Whatsoever To Disagree With Obasanjo- Dokubo Warns Jonathan

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was on Friday given a tongue lashing by Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) who said the president has alienated his support base in the South-South and South-East political zones forgetting that it was the people from those zones who massively voted for him to win the last general election.

The former chieftain of one of the most feared Niger Delta militant groups, the NDPVF, who was addressing journalists in his house in Abuja, said even though he has benefited from the Jonathan presidency, he could not continue to keep quiet over the government’s failure to deliver, warning that it would be difficult for the president to secure the people’s mandate in 2015 if he chooses to contest in that election.



Dokubo who said his conclusions are based on the president's performance rate, predicted that the president might not go beyond 2015 because he (Jonathan) has lost the support of the entire south-east and south-south.

Earlier in March Asari declared that Jonathan would occupy the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja for eight years from 2011, but has dramatically changed his stance saying it would be an uphill task for President Jonathan to be in Aso Rock beyond 2015 as a result of the 'greedy' people who have caused his real supporters, including former president Olusegun Obasanjo to abandon him.

Asked why he was turning against the president, he said it was no longer fashionable for him to keep quiet as things were already going wrong with the Jonathan presidency
 "I want to start with an Ijaw proverb which says: the eyes watched its seven children die.

Instead of advising them, it was just looking at them until they died while the mouth talked its only child to life and success. We from the entire Niger Delta especially we Ijaw people and others from the south-south mobilized to support President Goodluck Jonathan, but the time has come when silence cannot be golden.

"We must speak out on issues that are very critical to the survival of our people of the south-south and the south-east, the political base of Goodluck Jonathan.

"Jonathan is surrounded by very greedy people who are only there to enrich themselves at his expense.

"This brings us to another Kalabari proverb which says: where there are elders, a goat cannot be allowed to deliver a kid still tied to a stake. If we don't talk and we continue to brush the issues aside, tomorrow we will be blamed and the people will say: but Mujahid Dokubo-Asari was around when Goodluck Jonathan was president, and he didn't talk, then I will be seen as both an accomplice and an accessory after the fact."

Asari, who admitted benefitting from the Jonathan presidency stressed that whatever benefits he gained are not enough to make him keep quiet.

"I have benefited immensely from Goodluck Jonathan but benefits alone are not enough to make me keep quiet when the period is very challenging for our people," he added.

On the face-off between Jonathan and former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Asari said: "First, there was no need whatsoever for Goodluck Jonathan, to disagree with Obasanjo. I don't like Obasanjo, I don't like his face, I hate him, but he was instrumental in bringing Goodluck Jonathan to power. And the greedy people around Jonathan have not managed him well enough to the extent that they allowed him to disagree with Obasanjo publicly.
"And if you check, all those who supported Jonathan and fought to bring him to power have openly disagreed with him; but one should ask what the causes of these disagreements were, these are the questions we want the president to tell us."

Asari, the former president of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), expressed his misgivings saying the current situation around the president might deny the south-south zone an uninterrupted occupation of the presidency.

Giving reasons he said: "It is alarming because the south-south must have its uninterrupted constitutional eight years tenure but with the way things are going under Jonathan's watch, we are afraid we may not be able to have our eight years because there will be no magic about it if it is going to be one man one vote.

"Some people say Obasanjo is manipulating Goodluck Jonathan, that is why Jonathan is disagreeing with him, and we ask: what has the Goodluck Jonathan government achieved to show that it is a departure from other governments that have existed since 1956? For us, nothing has changed. It is still business as usual. So what is the advice that Obasanjo gave to Jonathan that is so difficult for him to fulfill that made him decide to fall out with Obasanjo?

"Obasanjo was instrumental and manipulated the process that illegally removed Diepreye Alamieyeseigha as governor of Bayelsa State and installed Jonathan as governor, made him vice president, fought for him not only to become acting president to become president of Nigeria as well.

"Apart from Obasanjo, there are so many people who supported Goodluck Jonathan; some have been pushed out by those who were not there to give him any support, while some others have been trapped and they cannot talk.

"Monkey no fine, but the mama like am, but when the ugly monkey becomes so rascally, the mother will desert it because if the mother continues to like the ugly monkey in its rascality, she too will die with the ugly monkey, after all she has more than one monkey child."

Assessing members of Jonathan's cabinet, some of whom he said have failed to perform their duties, Asari added: "So, some of us are tempted to ask this question: why are all these things happening? Why has the president allowed some ministers like Godsday Orubebe to continue in government? Every day people die on the east-west road, if Orubebe is incompetent as he has shown himself to be, he should be removed. Nobody voted for Orubebe. And why is Orubebe so important to the president that he can't remove him even in the face of his obvious incompetence and several allegations of corruption.”

Asari admitted that he was among those who lobbied for Orubebe to be appointed as minister but: "We feel very ashamed and embarrassed. Orubebe was one of us, he was attending meetings with us, sleeping on the ground with us, entering the night bus with us, and we nominated him to be appointed a minister; we have visited and complained to him that we don't like they way things are going on in his ministry, and told him that if the president leaves in 2015 without the completion of the east-west road, we are finished but the man kept telling us there is no money. When IBB was there, there was money, when Abacha was there, there was money, when other people were there, there was money, how come the money disappeared when Jonathan got there. Jonathan and Orubebe will account for the deaths on the east-west road," he concluded.

Credit: The Will

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