For saying that there would be war in 2015 if President Goodluck Jonathan failed to win second term, the House of Representatives yesterday asked the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Mohammed Abubakar, to arrest Alhaji Mujaheed Asari-Dokubo, leader of Niger Delta Peoples’ Volunteer Front (NDPVF). Apart from Dokubo-Asari, the Lower Chamber directed Abubakar to quiz the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Amnesty, Hon Kingsley Kuku, for allegedly making similar utterance.
Asari-Dokubo told a news conference in Abuja last weekend that the current insecurity and tension in the country would be a child’s play if the President fails to win the 2015 election. He declared that the South-South zone will not settle for anything less than eight years for Jonathan. Kuku was also reported to have said in the United States that there will be chaos in Nigeria if President Jonathan is not re-elected in the next election.
The House flayed the comments, arguing that it is capable of aggravating the already foggy security situation in the country. Hon Ali (Kano), who said that the threats were big enough to cause disaffection among Nigerians, said that the duo deserved to be quizzed by the police because, according to him, their comments were a threat to national security. Niger State Governor, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has also called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of Asari-Dokubo.
“By now, the security agencies should have swooped on Asari-Dokubo, arrest and prosecute him for treason. His statement is tantamount to practical treason. In a democracy you don’t engage in threatening people. “If you get elected by threatening people, such victory will be nothing but pyrrhic victory and if everybody engages in such threatening game where will that lead us as a country”, Aliyu asserted. The governor spoke at a reception for delegations from the Abuja Guards Polo Club, management team of the Bank of Agriculture, Commander of Guards as well as the Education Committee of the House of Representatives at the Government House in Minna yesterday.
Meanwhile , Executive Secretary of Anti-Corruption Network, Dino Melaye, has advised the Federal Government to treat the threat by Asari-Dokubo with all seriousness. Melaye , a former member of the House of Representatives, urged the IGP, Directors-General of Department of State Security (DSS) and National Intelligence Agency to arrest the NDPVF leader. In a statement issued in Abuja, Melaye said the civil rights community was expecting what President Jonathan would do on the threat from a man “who has carried arms against the Federal Government of Nigeria.”
He said, “Were it to be any of us in the civil society groups that made such an outrageous statement, by now, we would have been invited by the SSS and the Police and we would have been accused of threatening the security and peace of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” On its part, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has urged President Jonathan to call Asari-Dokubo to order, accusing him of recklessly endangering national security, subverting the Constitution and endangering the country’s democracy.
In a statement issued in Enugu, the National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, said: “We are making this call for the interest of our dear country, our fledgling democracy and President Jonathan himself. “For we are yet to locate how President Jonathan can secure the kind of votes he secured in 2011 elections; if people like Alhaji Asari-Dokubo are allowed to stridently beat the dangerous ethnic drum of war?”, Okechukwu queried.
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