Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples
Volunteers Force, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has declared that President
Goodluck Jonathan may not rule beyond 2015.
Dokubo-Asari based his statement on
the facts that the President had lost the support of his political
stronghold-South/East and South/South, going by the result of the 2011
presidential election.
The Ijaw activist had in March this
year declared that Jonathan would occupy the Presidential Villa for eight years
from 2011.
But at a news briefing on Friday in
Abuja, he made a U-turn and declared that it would be difficult for Jonathan to
go beyond 2015 because of the ‘greedy’ people around him.
He said these people were responsible
for the current rift between Jonathan and ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He said, “We have continued as Ijaw
people and the entire Niger Delta and South-South to support President
(Goodluck) Jonathan, but the time has come when silent cannot be golden. We
must speak out on issues that are very critical for the survival of our people,
the survival of the people of the South-South and the South-East, which is the
political base Jonathan.
“Jonathan is surrounded by very
greedy people who are only in the Presidency to enrich themselves at the
expense of the President himself.
“This brings us to another Kalabari
proverb which says: ‘Where there are elders, a goat cannot be allowed to
deliver while tied to a stick.’ If we don’t talk and we continue to brush it
aside, tomorrow we will be blamed and people will say: ‘Mujahid Dokubo-Asari
was around when Jonathan was President, and he didn’t talk;’ then I will be an
accomplice and accessory after the fact.”
Asari, who said he had benefited from
Jonathan, stressed that whatever benefit he had gained from the President was
not enough to silence him.