Nigeria: Dokubo-Asari's Wife Speaks
Akanimo Sampson
Port Harcourt, Nigeria
INYE, wife of the detained militia leader,Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has started to speak on the circumstances
surrounding the alleged attempt to assassinate her husband last Friday.
In a wired statement to our correspondent, Mrs. Inye Dokubo-Asari, a lawyer, said: ''Since April 20, 2007, I have been
inundated with disturbing telephone calls, text messages and emails concerning information on the health of my beloved
husband and our esteemed and patriotic leader, the flag bearer of the Ijaw and Niger Delta struggle, Alhaji Mujahid
Dokubo-Asari.
Several of the callers said that they had heard, read from newspapers and from the internet, about a purported attempt
by the agents of the Nigerian state to murder my beloved husband. I quickly called Port Harcourt to get in contact with
the larger family since I have not had access to my husband since the last adjournment of his case on the 14th of March
2007. The family in turn, got in contact with our brother Mr Boladei Igali, secretary to the Bayelsa state government.
Mr Igali was very disturbed by the report.
In response, Mr Igali, Chief (Dr) Ernest Karibo (personal physician to my husband) and Chief E.K. Clark flew immediately
into Abuja to meet with the police authorities at Force CID, Area 10, Garki Abuja where the police authorities
communicated with the state security service (SSS) who are illegally, criminally and unlawfully without regards to
subsisting court ruling detaining my husband in the most pitiable and terrible condition.
My husband was brought to the Force CID headquarters at about 4.16 pm in the company of officers and men of the Nigerian
police, and about 37 state security operatives in about four vehicles. All our phones were collected from us to ensure
that we do not make external calls. Chief (Dr) Ernest Karibo was then mandated to carry out random blood and urine
samples which were shared between the SSS medical personnel and Chief (Dr) Ernest Karibo as my husband had been
complaining about severe internal pains and frequent passing of urine.
After about 30 minutes, my husband was then returned to his place of solitary confinement where he is still being
criminally and unlawfully detained for the past eight months in absolute and flagrant disobedience to subsisting court
rulings and orders.
When I inquired from my husband about the incidences reported in the press statement issued by our beloved sister and
captain of the struggle left behind by my husband, he exhibited total ignorance and said he had very close and cordial
relationship with the state security medical personnel and junior operatives and that he had never seen Mr Igali within
the confines of the underground cell or within the confines of the state security service. He maintained that he had
only met Mr Igali in the court premises during the hearing of his case and at the Force CID. He also said that Mr Igali
has been very good to him and his entire family and he does not believe in any stretch of his imagination that Mr Igali
is capable of harming him but that does not deter from the fact that the criminal, wicked and diabolic regime of General
Olusegun Obasanjo (retired) will not try to snuff out the live of my husband, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari and his
comrades including Chief Ralph Uwazurike, leader of MASSOB.
Before the March 14th 2007 adjournment, various delegations of Ijaw elders and top Ijaw people in the service of the
Nigerian state have tried to broker a negotiated settlement with the Nigerian state including General Olusegun Obasanjo,
his attorney general Bayo Ojo, the director of public prosecution and even the judge who all agreed that my husband will
be granted bail on the 14th of March 2007. We were in great expectations and with high hopes but my husband had always
insisted that Obasanjo can and should never be trusted.
My husband had always sarcastically insisted that if the devil and General Obasanjo were to give a promise, he would
believe more in the promise devil because the devil is more trustworthy than Obasanjo. At the end of the day, my husband
was not granted bail.
The judge who was spirited in from Benin is a native of Ogun state same as General Obasanjo and his mandate was to carry
out the hatchet job of preventing my husband from being in circulation while they carry out the ‘sham’ called elections.
My husband has always believed that it was his lot to be persecuted for his belief that if the occupation forces of the
Nigerian state do not peacefully vacate Ijaw and Niger Delta territory, they would be forced to do so. He has not
retracted an inch from these positions and belief.
My husband has always assured me that he will not hesitate to pay the supreme price like those who have gone before him
to liberate Ijaw and Niger Delta people from the captivity of the ungrateful Nigerian state.
We as his family members and dependants might see it differently but we know that my husband will never be persuaded to
abdicate these noble thrusts.
My husband does not believe that his current travails are caused by any individual talk less of Mr Igali and he has
therefore directed me to absolve Mr Igali of all wrong doing, ill motives and therefore no one should ascribe such to
him. Mr Igali, he believes, is a good man and my husband therefore holds him in high esteem.
My husband has also directed me to condemn in the strongest terms, the disgraceful, unrepentant, corrupt and bankrupt
political elites of the Ijaw and Niger Delta region who shamelessly masquerade as leaders of the people when in actual
fact, they are our greatest and most painful nightmare. These people stole the mandate of Ijaws and Niger Deltans when
they allotted to the PDP, unbelievable figures in the past elections in the Bantustans of the Ijaw and Niger Delta
region for they think that they can render and ridicule the heroic and noble struggle of the Ijaw and Niger people but
they will fail and they have failed to foist on our people an evil political enterprise.
Compatriots, you must all remember that the decision of my husband to take up arms against the Nigerian state was
predicated upon the same crime when these same outrageous figures were allotted to the PDP in the fraudulent elections
of 2003 when my beloved husband as President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide along with other executive
members, mobile parliament, zonal, clan and community leaders issued statement denouncing and condemning the outrageous
and unbelievable figures cooked and allotted to the PDP by the corrupt, criminal, bankrupt and thieving elites of the
Ijaw and Niger Delta region. He came to be on a collision course with these evil, anti-people political elites. Several
assassination attempts on his life were carried out but God delivered from their evil plans and machinations.
Today, the same elites have conspired with General Olusegun Obasanjo, the maximum ruler of the Nigerian state to confine
my husband in a dungeon in the belly of the seat of despotism’ Abuja which was transformed and developed from a
wilderness to paradise from the resources, money, sweat and blood of the people of the Ijaw and Niger Delta territory.
We know that we will win and victory is certain''.
ENDS