It is because the Federal Government is not sincere; the way they sincerely built Abuja. They don’t want to build the Niger Delta like that. So they are pretending and playing politics with it. They want to continue to deceive us the way they deceived our fathers, but our generation is ready to hold them by the throat. They have no escape route. Let them be pretending, they are just postponing the doomsday.
How is it possible for boys in the creeks to take on professional soldiers in the Nigerian Army?
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It is spiritual and that is the simple truth. When God finds out that the oppressors are not ready to shift ground and that they are using the wealth of the oppressed group to build their own land, God gives the oppressed extraordinary strength to conquer. Examples abound in various religious books. God would raise David to surprise Goliath. Look, these things are controlled by the spirit in Ijawland. And that is why we said that Ijaw gods are the ones taking hostages. If it were ordinary human beings executing this violent armed struggle the way the black South Africans did during the days of apartheid, the story would have been different. Even in the South African struggle, God gave strength to the blacks to subdue all the sophisticated machines of the white minority government.
It may indeed be spiritual, but the group known as Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, is in the forefront of the physical violence. Do you regard MEND as a terrorist group?
You can call them terrorists, but I tell you that they are freedom fighters. In those days, the white minority government and European nations called Mandela a terrorist. That was why he was given life jail. What MEND is asking for is simple. They are saying that you are polluting our environment and refusing to develop our land, please leave our land. So what’s the crime there? So if you refuse to leave the land, God will give them power to act.
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But the kidnappers collect ransom after kidnapping, so where does freedom fighting end and where does criminality begin?
Asking them to bring money, is that criminality? Did President Obasanjo not bribe members of the National Assembly to remove the Senate President? The oil companies have refused to employ our people, they refused to provide industries. The clothes you are putting on is textile and without petrochemicals you cannot establish textile industries. Without petrochemicals, you cannot produce computers, plastics, chairs and cookers. So why is it that the Federal Government and oil companies have refused to provide industries that would involve petrochemicals and engage the idle minds in the region. What do you expect from these idle minds?
In 2004, we had this stakeholders meeting in Port Harcourt, I was the last person that spoke before President Obasanjo took the microphone. I remember I told Obasanjo that very soon he would start having suicide bombers in the Niger Delta. Then there was no kidnapping, yet Asari was declared wanted. But now we know better. Go to the creeks and see squalor and poverty walking on two legs. I went the other time to carry out deworming with university students from the Niger Delta as part of my yearly humanitarian programme. What I saw was appalling. Our children die anyhow because of lack of hospitals, yet Shell and Chevron would tell you that they have spent billions on community development. So if people kidnap their workers and use the proceeds to buy weapons to actualise the struggle, what is wrong with that? Since the oil companies would prefer to bring money to bribe the kidnapers instead of providing industries to engage these idle brains.
Is there any correlation between the upsurge in kidnapping and the arrest and trial of Asari Dokubo?
Definitely. If Asari is released today, there would be no hostage taking from the next one or two years. Asari has the capacity to stop the crisis in the creeks.
Is Asari that powerful?
Asari is more powerful than even Mandela. This is because, what Asari is doing is spiritual. He is under the control of the gods. Now, because the Federal Government is holding Asari Dokubo hostage the Ijaw gods are also holding the expatriates hostage. If they release Asari Dokubo now, I tell you all the hostages would be set free. But they want to kill him. Asari is seriously sick, you saw him the other day when he came to the court. You have met Asari one on one before. Was that how he looked? President Obasanjo wants to kill him. But if he kills Asari, it will not be like Ken Saro-Wiwa. For the death of Asari, I tell you thousands of foreigners will die.
MEND has been in operation for sometime now. From where does it get its funding?
They are living inside oil. Where did Federal Government get weapons, is it not from their oil? If Federal Government can travel from Abuja to the creeks to collect oil money to buy weapons, what of the people who are living inside the oil? We don’t need to ask that. Oil is at their doorsteps, backyard and in front of their thatched houses. The cocoa people selling cocoa to Cadbury, do they apply for license? But in our case they ask us to apply for license. As far as the creeks are concerned, our people have come to realize that these people are calling us fools. So the weapons matter should not come up.
Again, government seems to forget that the entire South-South zone has no border with any other country except the open seas. From America, Europe you have direct access to our villages. So if you line up every member of the Nigerian Armed Forces across the Atlantic coast they cannot provide security there. If we had a responsive government, they would know that such a place is prone to danger, because anything can move into the creeks from the Atlantic Ocean. We don’t have a border like Idiroko or Seme borders in Ogun and Lagos states. But the Atlantic Ocean is our border. Yet government is playing with the security of these areas.
So are you saying that there is no criminality in hostage taking?
Look, there is no Ijaw man dead or alive that is not happy over the attack by our gods. Even Daukoru, the Oil Minister, is happy. Ijaw people in government can only pretend. They are all sad that their fathers died as a result of cholera; no hospital. Even those in top government positions are not allowed to do something to help their people. So every Ijaw man is happy that oil production is systematically being halted.
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