Niger Delta activist, Mujahideen Asari-Dokubo
Another Niger Delta leader, Kingsley Kuku, who had earlier been quoted to have made a similar remark, said that he was quoted out of context.
The House of Representatives ordered the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar to arrest Mr Dokubo-Asari for questioning.
The House also asked the police boss to summon Mr Kuku, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Amnesty, for allegedly making utterances capable of causing crisis in the country
Mr Dokubo-Asari had last weekend said that the current insecurity and tension in the country would be a child’s play if President Jonathan is not re-elected in 2015.
He declared that the South-South zone will not settle for anything less than eight years for President Jonathan.
Mr Kuku was also reported to have said in the United States of America that there would be chaos in Nigeria if President Jonathan is not re-elected.
The House condemned the comments, arguing that they are capable of aggravating the already tense security situation in the country.
The resolution was contained in a motion raise by Ali Sani Madaki (Kano) who claimed that the threats were weighty enough to cause disaffection among Nigerians. He contended that the duo ought to be quizzed by the Police because, according to him, their comments were a threat to national security.
Mr Dokubo-Asari had reportedly said: “The day Goodluck is no longer the President, all of us who are on sabbatical will come back. There will be no peace not only in the Niger Delta but everywhere. If they say it is an empty boast let them wait and see.”
Reacting to the Mr Dokubo-Asari’s remarks, the Niger State governor, Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, said: “You don’t win election by frightening people and even if you win the victory will be pyrrhic.”
Mr Aliyu received members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education led by Aminu Sule who paid him a courtesy call at government house Minna. He said that the statement credited to Mr Dokubo-Asari was “unfortunate and inciting”, adding that “by now the security agencies should have arrested him for treason.”
I was misquoted
Mr Kuku on Tuesday however said that he never told anybody that the people of the South-South region would make the country ungovernable if President Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015.
He also declared that President Jonathan had neither told any of his aides that he would be seeking re-election in 2015 nor mandated anybody to start campaigning for him.
The Presidential Adviser, however, lamented that the various giant strides of the present administration were being grossly under reported.
Mr Kuku, who pointedly said that he was misquoted during his recent interview in the United States, stated categorically that no section of the country could make the nation ungovernable for the President because all the sections of the country voted massively for him during the 2011 election.
He said: “Nigeria will remain governable under the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. It can never be ungovernable”.
The Presidential Adviser said that his call for the re-election of President Jonathan during a recent visit to the United States of America was informed by his firm belief that the Jonathan administration had done everything to stabilise the economy through the tremendous increase in the volume of crude oil being produced daily.
He said: “What I said in the US has been completely misrepresented. I spoke of the possibility of a degenerated Niger Delta if we do not value the fragile peace we have in the area today. I did not say that the Niger Delta will resort to violence if the President is not re-elected in 2015. I never said that and I couldn’t have said that.
“What I did was a historical analysis of what led to the peace process in the Niger Delta in response to questions raised on the Boko Haram insurgence and others.
“When it was clear that pure military response was not working and there was bitterness in the entire region, peace was eventually extracted after the meeting in Camp 5 which was personally attended by the then Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan.
“At that meeting, one fundamental agreement that we had was the fact that, in getting peace, the Niger Delta must be developed. There must be a coastal road linking the region to other parts of the country.
“We also spoke about the completion of the East-West road whose funding has not been too impressive of late. The need to develop new towns and the ex-agitators also demanded for three higher institutions in coastal parts of the Niger Delta.
“It was agreed that the ex-agitators will get economic lifeline and that they will be incorporated into companies that will enable them participate in oil and gas business”, he said.
Kuku, while noting that most of the agreements reached during several meetings with the government are yet to take off, reasoned that an additional four-year tenure for Jonathan would enable him to oversee the implementation, noting that the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) of about 30, 000 ex-agitators is just a fragment of the total package.
According to him, “People have created negative tendencies just to create the belief that President Jonathan cannot govern Nigeria. I did not say that Jonathan should be elected, by hook or crook, as President in 2015 otherwise there will be violence in the Niger Delta. It was reported wrongly.
“What I said is that for the peace process not to degenerate and collapse, President Jonathan should be allowed to implement the Amnesty package. Nigeria will never be ungovernable. Nigeria will be governable under President Jonathan and he is already stemming the tide of restiveness.”
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