[INTERVIEW] Asari Dokubo uncensored: Shameful soldiers

Asari Dokubo, a former militant leader in the Niger Delta, has damning verdict on the performance of the Nigerian military under successive Service Chiefs: “They have enough resources to fight. (But) instead of fighting, they are busy stealing.They are busy making the government to spend unnecessarily”. Dokubo spoke after visiting President Bola Tinubu in Abuja recently. See below the unabridged version of interview:

What’s your mission in State House? Mr. President has been a father figure to me. Our relationship spans over 30 years. I came here today to give words of encouragement to the President for the actions and policies so far made in his less than three weeks of governing a very difficult country like Nigeria. We discussed a wide range of issues, especially on security and oil theft in the Niger Delta. My brothers and I assured the President that there will be zero oil theft and vandalization in the Niger Delta. We’re going to work with the NPPCL and the IOCs to make sure that oil theft is brought to zero. I also want to say that oil theft is encouraged by the military.

The military is at the center of oil theft and we have to make this very very clear to the Nigerian public. 99 per cent of oil theft can be traced to the Nigerian military, the Army and the Navy especially. The Army and the Navy intimidate the Civil Defense who, by status, are supposed to guard these pipelines.

They receive a lot of money from NPPCL and the IOCs and just across the corner you will see a meter not far from a household, an oil bunkering refinery or tapping directly from oil well. it is very pathetic now. What has happened in the Niger Delta in the past eight years was unprecedented in the history of oil production anywhere in the world. The vandals do not only attack the pipeline, they have migrated from the pipeline and gone directly to the oil well to take directly from it. They set up haphazard facilities called local refinery and artisan refinery. This is crime against humanity because the livelihood of the people is being totally destroyed. At every meter you will see a naval house boat or the army houseboat stationed. The main culprits are the army and the navy and there are notorious naval commanders who are known to be kingpins of this bunkering activities.

Even if they give one billion (naira) contract to everybody in the Niger Delta because these military men are armed from the army and the navy, nothing will happen. The President has promised to take decisive action to make sure that this does not continue. It has to be brought to an end because it is very shameful. I volunteered to help, to assist and to do the things that are necessary to put a stop to this evil that is being perpetrated against the people of the Niger Delta, the oil-bearing communities and the whole of Nigerians.

On security, I want to clearly say that there are full-scale wars going on in different parts of this country. In the South-East, the IPOB ESN is waging a full-scale war against the government of this country. Many local governments and communities are deserted; schools are closed, hospitals are closed. It is the same in Niger, in Zamfara, in Plateau, in Kaduna, in Yobe, in Borno.We are only talking about Boko Haram. Boko Haram is just the tip of the iceberg in the full-scale war going on.

The blackmail of the Nigerian state by the Nigerian military is shameful. They said they do not have enough armament and people are listening to these false narratives. They are lying, they are liars. I repeat they are liars because I am a participant. I am a participant in this war. I fight on the side of the government of Nigeria.

Today you are traveling to Kaduna on this road, it is not the army that made it possible for you to travel to Abuja or travel to Kaduna viceversa, it is my men employed by the government of Nigeria stationed in Niger. Today go to Baga, you go to Shiroro and go to Wase. We have lost so many men, we don’t even have one per cent of the armament deployed by the Nigerian military and we have had resounding success.

So this blackmail must end. They have enough resources to fight. Instead of fighting, they are busy stealing. They are busy making the government to spend unnecessarily.

Where is Dogo who was terrorizing Niger and Kaduna?

He is nowhere because he has been served his dish that he was serving others. So, let us support the government and don’t listen to these false narratives because somebody must tell the truth. We don’t have arms. An average person is carrying two magazines of AK 47 bullet. In their trucks, the Nigerian army would carry 2030 cans. Two magazines of AK 47 is 25 rounds of ammunition 700 or 750 make up a can and they are 2021 30 in their district.

They will leave on slight attack. They will abandon these weapons for the bandits, the insurgents to take them. In actual fact, the insurgents are harvesting from the Nigerian military and police to further their insurgence.

Most of these people are they actually insurgents?

They are criminals. You go to song camps, you will find 200 vehicles stolen from people who are the owners of these vehicles.

They cut these vehicles into parts, they sell them. You go to some places, you will find out that human parts are being brought out put in coolers and sold. It is human organ trafficking, which the governor of Anambra State, Soludu has also attested to in one of his interviews. Before the President came, I knew that we had never had any person like him aspiring for this position.

I’m not flattering him now. I said it before the primaries. I said it during the course of the election. I said it after the election. So, all the forces of evil and darkness came together to fight to ensure that Ahmed Bola Tinubu did not become president of Nigeria because they are benefiting from the institution failure that is going on.

Why is it that NDDC is not working?

say this because there are people from here who go and collect all the money from the NDDC, all the money, the NDDC MD and the board members only want to survive. Let me just take my bread and water, let them not sack me, so they take all these things.

At the amnesty programme, it is the same thing. They just go and collect everything. And it is the people that are sitting there that suffer. How can somebody save 500 billion a month, saying that it is being used to lift people out of poverty? Do you know how many industries that will settle? Do you know how many agricultural settlement that will set up? Where did the money go to? How can somebody say we use $10 billion almost eight trillion to service the glutonous appitite of a few people at the expense of the masses?

And the NLC and TUC will come and say they should give them palliatives. What is the percentage of members of NLC and TUC vice versa the total population of Nigeria? Why will we operate an apartheid system of rewarding a few people at the expense of the generality of the people? Why would they have palliative cushioning the woman in Otugbene, the woman at Kola, who is fishing or the woman somewhere at Agayii who is farming, does she have that same palliative? Have we not been having this palliative? Did we not have PTF, did we not have this road maintenance agency, what do they call it, FERMA? They are all conduit pipes, they achieve nothing. They are conduit pipes, the president should not listen to that advice. He should channel the money on fixing our education.

Channel the money to health, fix our road, fix our agriculture and don’t tell me that they’re going to give loan. Agricultural loan is being given by the central bank. How many people access it? A few people that accessed billions did they pay back? Aviation loan is there somebody is giving 10 million US dollar 20 million US dollars, 100 million Us dollars as loan to cushion the effect of who? How many Nigerians travel by air?

Why would we carry the glutinous appetite of a few Nigerian who are not even up to one per cent and put it on the generality of the people? The President is a firm person. I know him. Everywhere I went to campaign I always said if Ahmed Bola Tinubu fails, hold me responsible because I have known him, I can stand and say, this is Ahmed Bola Tinubu I can take bullet for him. And I came today just to say hello and to encourage him and to say we are with him, and inshallah Allah, he is going to succeed.

You said your men are everywhere fighting criminality, do you have your own army? I don’t have my personal army. Nanami has been engaging mercenaries from other country from Belarus, from South Africa to fight insurgency, maybe you are not aware. So why will Nigeria not engage in the same token, locals who have the same wherewithal and are more effective and are more conversant with the environment. We’re not the only one, hunters association, different people like the JTF are engaged to confront this evil that has enveloped this country. I don’t have a private army. I am assisting the government as a good citizen of this country to save lives. Since the time we went there, Kaduna road has been free. No more kidnapping, we are saving life. I don’t have a private army and the Constitution does not provide for a private person to have a private army.

You said that you and your brothers have agreed to bring oil theft to zero and you equally said that the military, particularly the navy and the army, are involved in oil theft in Niger delta, so I am wondering how you are going to bring this situation to an end, what exactly is your plan to bring this to an end?

The President is a strong president, he is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces he is going to take decisive action to get this rotten eggs. It’s not the whole Army and the Navy, there are few who have this entitle mentality, “I better pass una, I get power pass una I get people wey dey up, wey go cover me.” The President is going to remove them and make it possible for the people of this country to b e n e f i t .

F o r instance, Emefiele is gone, Bawa is gone. So more heads will roll. Those who are standing as an impediment to the good and progress of this country will go. The President will not get involved with them. He is going to kick them out. And when he does that, we’ll have the unfettered power, encouragement to get rid of oil theft with all my brothers in the Niger Delta, all of us have
agreed.

Talk about the full scale war going on in some parts of the country. In the north and the South-East, some people have mentioned that the only solution with regard to the South-East is a political solution, which is the unconditional release of Nnamdi. Do youshar e that position?

I don’t share in that. When the madness called EndSars started, I was one of the people who opposed that nonsense called EndSars.

During EndSars, Nnamdi Kanu was walking free. What did he do? He poured petrol on the flames for EndSars. Now, he has been caught. What of the people who have died? He is a criminal and should face the law. As I am talking, Nnamdi Kanu does not have control over what is happening in the South-East.

Simon Ekpa has come out pretending that he is with Nnamdi Kanu, he has actually plotted a coup against Nnamdi Kanu to take over the leadership of IPOB, that is the truth of the matter. So, releasing Nnamdi Kanu is rewarding criminality and rewarding gruesome murder of innocent people. He should face the law for the actions and the instigations he has carried out.

What was the President’s response to all these things? Second, the boys in the Niger Delta have been accused of being responsible for oil theft and you are telling us that it is the navy and the army, how do we reconcile this?

I cannot tell you what I discussed with the President. What I know, like I told you, is that the President is a very firm person. When he came out, people were saying all sorts of things. No person has been so maligned, abused, made fun of like this president.

Those of us who believed that it was the President’s turn stood behind him. When he said emi lo kan, he was firm despite the booing and backstabbing.

Jesus Christ had one Judas. Tinubu’s Judas were in their legion and he survived. So, I’m not going to discuss or disclose what the President told me.

Also, a lot of people had come out to say it many times that the people doing the bunkering are not our people because they cannot bring those big super cargo ship, vessels that are almost the size of this villa. They don’t have the resources.

There are powerful cabals. Most time operating from Abuja. We know and you saw it on television where pipes are linked to export terminals and diverted.