LEADER of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force,
Alhaji Mujaheed Dokubo-Asari, on Monday canvassed the dissolution of the
President Goodluck Jonathan’s government to pave the way for the convocation of
a Sovereign National Conference.
He said the conference was the only solution to the
menace of the violent Islamist sect, Boko Haram, whose members are currently
executing a bombing campaign against military and police facilities and
churches especially in the northern states and Abuja.
“Whether he likes it or not, Goodluck Jonathan must
convoke an SNC. There is a need for a national discourse and dialogue. It is
only an SNC that will solve the problem. The solution to the Boko Haram crisis
is to dissolve the government and convoke an SNC,” Dokubo-Asari told
journalists at the meeting with youths of the Niger Delta in Abuja.
The ex-Niger Delta militant warned that if the Boko
Haram issue could lead to another civil war if not tackled on time. He said the
sect’s “arrogance” was unIslamic.
“The arrogance of Boko Haram is un-Islamic. The level
of bombs they are using is low. If we begin throwing bombs, nobody will stay in
Abuja,” the man who claimed to have started arms struggle in the oil rich Niger
Delta said.
While threatening that the Niger Delta youths would
retaliate if any evil should befall Jonathan, Dokubo-Asari however said the
President had failed in the governance of the country.
“We are saying that nothing must happen to Goodluck
Jonathan because if anything happens to him, the world will know.
“But we are not saying Goodluck Jonathan has tried. He
has failed. What is Godswill Orubebe (Minister of Niger Delta) still doing in
the federal cabinet? If Orubebe has failed, Jonathan has failed.
“A time will come if he didn’t change, our people would
say, Goodluck, you are on your own. He has every power and every moral
authority to convoke a Sovereign National Conference. He must correct the 55
years of injustice against us.”
On the face-off between ex-dictator Ibrahim Babangida
and leader of the Ijaw nation/First Republic Minister of Information, Edwin
Clark, over the Boko Haram menace, the NDPVF leader said IBB and former Head of
State, General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had no hands in the violence unleashed
on the country by the sect.
Clark last week had accused Babangida of alleged
complicity in the Boko Haram activities thus attracting a response from the
ex-dictator camp that the first republic minister “is a loose cannon in public
discourse.”
Dokubo-Asari said, “I want to be fair to IBB and Buhari
on the Boko Haram crisis. They have nothing to do and cannot do anything about
it. But the fact remains that the political elite of which IBB and Buhari
belongs have not been able to address the problem of Boko Haram.
“They cannot do anything because nobody wants to commit
suicide. The Boko Haram people are just killing themselves but cannot kill us.”
He also faulted the amnesty programme of the Federal
Government which he said amounted to bribery and blackmail.
“The Amnesty is a bribe. I did not partake in the amnesty
programme. That amnesty will not work because it amounts to criminalising
people on account of kidnapping and they will later be settled. Amnesty was
just a bribe for the oil to flow,” he said.