We’re ready for Boko Haram

Former leader of Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, Mujahid Dokubo-Asari has warned that Niger Delta fighters are ready to take up arms to fight Boko Haram Islamists, and are holding back only out of respect for the president.

Dokubo-Asari, a Muslim who led a rebellion in the Delta until a peace deal with the government in 2004, said bomb attacks by Boko Haram could provoke retaliation by mostly Christian Southerners, including those living in the delta.


Asked if Northerners could be the in the south, he replied: “It is seconds away ... Nigeria is on the precipice of a civil war.”

“For Niger Delta, people to take up arms is just a minute away. Its just Goodluck that is holding us back,” said Asari. “We have all reached the extreme. There is nothing anybody can do about it except we fight.”

It would be recalled that the Asari-led Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, managed to push oil prices to record highs in 2004 with its constant attacks and threats against oil production in the Delta’s swampy creeks.


Since then, peace deals with the region’s warlords have pacified the Delta, and Boko Haram in the North has become the number one threat to Nigeria’s security.


Asari paused to read some Facebook posts from his iPad about the Christmas Day bombs.

Asari said, he was skeptical that the government could negotiate with moderate members of Boko Haram via “back channels” as National Security Adviser, General Owoye Andrew Azazi suggested in an interview with Reuters.

Sitting in his flat in the city of Port Harcourt, Asari said the group’s faceless nature, an issue General Azazi acknowledged, made talks impossible.

“If you cannot identify the people who are carrying out these attacks, how can you dialogue with them, interact with them, and bring them round the table?” He said.

In any case, such extreme violence meant the time for talks had passed, he said.
“You cannot ask government to negotiate now. On what basis? The government should...rein these people in, or the people will resort to self-help,” said Asari, who stressed where his loyalties lay despite being a Muslim: “Anybody that wants to start any revolution in Goodluck’s time, we the Ijaw will pull down that revolution,” he said.

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There’ll be no reprisal killings in N-Delta – Kuku

The Federal Government, yesterday, assured that there would be no reprisal killings in the Niger Delta region, in response to the violent activities of the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

Government’s assurance came against the backdrop of the two weeks ultimatum given by Egbesu warriors, after the bombing of a mosque in Sapele, Delta State, to Muslims in the region, to leave or face reprisal killings.

Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Matters, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, in an interview in Lagos, said the reported attack on the mosque in Sapele was an isolated case, which should not be seen as retaliatory attack.

According to him, the provocative antics of the Boko Haram sect will not instigate any form of attacks on Northern or Islamic targets.

He said: “The President has said it all, what Boko Haram is doing is pure terrorism. What the sect is doing has nothing to do with Islam neither can any one say the sect is propagating a Northern agenda. It is terrorism, pure and simple.

“The wicked activities of Boko Haram are affecting both Christians and Muslims. The bombs they have been throwing have been killing northerners and southerners. Beyond the declaration of state of emergency in certain parts of states in the north, where Boko Haram cells are very active, I am aware of other unprecedented security measures that had been put in place by President Goodluck Jonathan.

“Based on what I know as a Presidential Adviser, I can confidently tell Nigerians that the days of Boko Haram are numbered.”

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