Loved by some and hated by many, you cannot discount the honesty of the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Voluntary Force, Alhaji Asari Dokubo. In this inteview with the Vanguard newspapers, he talks about his path to radicalization, his skirmishes with the SSS, security agencies and Armed Forces. And then he discloses some insight as to how the Nigerian Army has engaged “insurgents” in the past and finally he he talks about how he divinely changed day to night.
Excerpts:
Did you have any encounters with the army?
Yea. It was a hide and seek game. The military is looking for you and you are looking for the military. Sometimes, you come to a truce. The military sees you they don’t shoot you, they pretend they are not seeing you. You too, you don’t shoot them, you pretend you are not seeing them. And then, when the people in Abuja say ‘where were you when they said there was Operation Locust Feast’, the military will come. They want to prove a point. They want to shoot. Sometimes, they would call us and say, ‘Please, we are just doing our work o.
We are actually doing our work o. You want to shoot and kill us. We too we will not agree’. Then they will shoot and there will be a battle. One thing leads to another and it is just a ding dong – this way, that way and it became more and more dangerous. The then Rivers Governor Odili had his Malaysia. The Malaysia is looking for you. They were even more than the military. So, you are tackling the military and the state sponsored Malaysia. So, every day it was about death.
There was an incident. One day, we were coming from St. Batholomew River. We were passing through the creeks to Idaman, one of the oil producing communities. We had almost reached the centre of Sombryo trying to enter New Calabar River when we saw two naval gun ships as they were coming. There was no way they will not stop us. We were armed. We were just three persons in the boat: myself, my cousin, Dakaro, who is late and another cousin of mine who was driving. As if something instigated me, I put my hand in the water and I started raining curses on the deity of Kalabari. I said, ‘Today, you will be disgraced for ever. Today, you will be ashamed. Your land will be conquered and ravished. I think you said you are a god’. After I did that, I threw the water into the sky and day turned into night. Darkness was moving as if it was propelled by something. And it covered the whole sky. And the naval gunships passed us. Their wave was tossing us up and down. They didn’t see us. They even had lights on. After about 30 minutes, the darkness cleared. No drop of rain. Nothing.
There are so many encounters that one had seen. You see these injuries on my body; my friend, my companion, very close aide; the bomb we were carrying exploded and his head got cut off. I did not die and I was standing close to him. Nothing happened to me. Just these injuries.
Path to Radicalization
During the anti-SAP riot, after the demonstration in Jos, students in the University of Calabar also demonstrated. We were demonstrating outside the main campus when the police started shooting. And there was a female student, Nnenna, behind me. She was shot. She fell. I started wondering. I was taller than she was. How come she got shot standing behind me? How did the bullet pass me to hit her? I carried her with all the blood and everything. Though it was not fatal. From that day, I decided inside me that the Nigerian state must be made to explain to the people, to my people especially, what they are doing with the resources of the people. As a law student, many laws tell us, he who owns the land owns everything in the land. And I asked myself, how come the resources of my people now belong to everybody? That was the turning point in my life. In 1988 when I was rusticated from the University of Calabar, I decided to go to Libya. So, I left home. I converted to Islam. I took the bath and became a Muslim at the Calabar Central Mosque which was managed by some Yoruba people. I became radicalised after I became a Muslim. One goal I set for myself was the liberation of my people and I wanted a military.
As the President, National Union of Rivers State Students, I had read so much about revolution and my greatest attraction was Libya; that is why I decided to go to Libya. So, I took a night bus from Calabar and dropped at Jos. From Jos, I proceeded to Kafanchan, then to Saminaka, down to Leri, Zaria, until I got to Kano. From Kano, I passed through Dutse. Then Damaturu was a small town. I got to Maiduguri. From Maiduguri to Marite. I was just going until I got to Gamboringala. From there I got to Gambori France. From there to Kusiri to Jamina to Eir, Eir to Agadese in Niger Republic. It was easy for me as a Muslim because I joined them to pray. I saw many deaths on the road. People wanted to go to Europe and so on. When I couldn’t enter Libya at that time, I had to come back.
My father had secured a new admission for me at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology. So I had to go back to the university to continue my law programme. From that radicalization, I started to join different groups. I set up one called CCC – Committee of Collective Conscience – a Marxist movement for change in our society and I started talking to people. When I went back to school, I discovered I had lost interest in formal education. From then, I started confronting state authority. I aligned with progressive forces. But you know, I really don’t see any progressive force in Nigeria. I was in PSP. From there, I went to Peoples Front formed by by Yar’Adua. From there, I joined the NCP. I became a little bit prominent in the party because of my ideological stand. After the wrongful annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, and the role I played during the election, I began to think more and more about confronting the Nigerian state militarily. And I believed that was the only way freedom could come to our people. And that was the period the Ijaw started gathering because of the movement that was going on in Ogoni land. It influenced Ijaw people. I joined the Movement for the Survival of Ijaw Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta. I aligned with them and put in my contribution into what T.K. Ogoriba was doing. It, it metamorphosed into the Ijaw Youth Council (IYM), the Kaiama Declaration. But before then, we had formed another group named Kirimani which was more military than civil. But a lot of our people do not understand the ideological thrust of our struggle and we formed other organizations. We found there was a lot of injustice in the Nigerian state and some of us could not stomach it. So, I became a regular guest of the State Security Service (SSS) and the police and sometimes the military because when we went out to carry out a march, the police will come. We also had confrontations with the army. So, I became a regular face with the State Security Service. During NADECO, the role I played is well known to the people who were in the group. I always like to be on the side of the people. The struggle has become my life.
Read the full interview @Vanguard