Niger Delta activist, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, has joined the growing number of notable voices to berate President Muhammadu Buhari. In a recent video outburst, the activist described the embattled President and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the real enemies of not just Nigeria, but the Ijaw nation as well.
Dokubo who spoke in a video, which has been in circulation on the internet said the recent executive bills sent by the President to the National Assembly (NASS) to pass into law are not in the interest of Ijaws and the generality of Nigerians. Dokubo said: “At times one wants to walk away, but the more you want to walk away, the more you are brought back. Like Jonah who was sent to Nineveh to preach the gospel of salvation and by warning the people, I cannot run away from my responsibility, the responsibility I have chosen by myself, and my responsibility is to defend my people.”
Condemning the bill on waterways, Dokubo said: “An executive bill has been sent by Buhari to NASS to confiscate all our ocean shores, all our river banks, all our coastal land in its totality. And a lot of Ijaw people are not even aware. It is not by demonstrations, it is not by issuing statements. We have to take action. We must rise up against this bill. It must not see the light of the day.”
Also speaking about the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which is currently on the last laps in the National Assembly, the activist fighter said: “Have you not heard that because we allowed them to lay pipes and take our oil from here to Kaduna, Maiduguri and so on for what they call oil terminals and depots, they are now saying that all oil pipe communities are oil producing communities? Who will allow that?”
As if throwing his hat into the ring for a fight, Dokubo declared: “These people are not stronger than us. They are not iron and we are flesh, they are flesh like us. If they kill, we can also kill. We must rise up and resist these new laws, these laws that are coming to take our land.”
Declaring Buhari and the ruling party APC enemies, Dokubo roared: “We must talk about this raw deal, this raw deal of resisting these bloodsuckers, oppressors and enemies of our land. They say APC will produce an Ijaw candidate in Rivers State, that Ijaw candidate that APC wants to produce, what has he done to stop the confiscation of our land, confiscation of our heritage? We will not reward traitors with our votes. Any Ijaw man who is in APC is an enemy of the Ijaw nation. That is the truth, except they come out and tell Buhari that he cannot enact these laws when they are also in APC. Except they do that, all Ijaw people should regard them as enemies and shame them. They did the land use law, we left them. They did the waterways and pipeline laws, we left them. They are now talking about confiscating all our shores. No! This is way far too much, you have gone beyond your limits.”
