The Asari blunder, By Wale Bakare

As a young man, I grew up admiring the handsome ruggedness of revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro of Cuba. In America, they had the ascetic Malcolm X who wanted equal rights for the Blacks ‘by all means necessary’! On the African Continent, there were people like Samora Machel, Patrice Lumumba, and the iconic Nelson Mandela. Closer to home , we had people like Isaac Adaka Boro, the Ijaw nationalist who gave his life for the cause. And even the heavily bearded Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu also cut the image of the revolutionary, even if he did not have the lean look of someone who had forsworn all earthly pleasures. By the Eighties, we had idealists like Thomas Sankara and John Jerry Rawlings. One thing all these people had in common beyond an abiding conviction that they were on a divine mission to save or free their people was the fact that they looked the part.

When I first came upon the name of Asari Dokubo in the early days of armed militancy in the Niger Delta, I was doing some work in Port Harcourt. The name of the leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force was spoken with dread. There was something exotic about it. Almost like the stuff of medieval fictional writings. I imagined a Sankara-like young man, spewing molten lava of revolutionary ideology! A black version of Che Guevara! An Isaac Boro lookalike. At worst, a lightly chubby Ijaw version of Martin Luther King! Nothing prepared me for whom I was to finally encounter. Slinging an AK47 across his ample shoulder, I found it a bit difficult to reconcile the image of the bearded rotund Buddha before me with the stories of the dreaded Warlord from the creeks I had heard so much about. The let-down was a bit hard to take. To say the reality did not live up to the hype would be an understatement of some proportion.

And since those days, Asari has been a constant on the Nigerian political and social scene. Even when he was arrested and charged with treason, his loyalists kept up the violence in the Niger Delta, kidnapping, maiming and generally engaging in activities that set the stage for the very same grand larceny that still holds the country captive to this day. His incarceration and subsequent release (aided by the blanket amnesty of the Yaradua regime) did not appear to have had much of an effect in curbing his appetite for violence. Seemingly untouchable by the Law enforcement Agencies, he makes threats of violence at will while brandishing unlawful arms like they are toys. Since he moves around with a private army of heavily armed youths, it is no wonder that he has started having delusions of grandeur. This attitude of unbridled self-apotheosis was manifested on Friday 16th June when our newly minted President decided to grant him audience in Aso Rock like some visiting Head of State or top religious cleric.

Undoubtedly, the less than one month old administration of President Bola Tinubu has taken quite a few endearing policy decisions. I mentioned recently that the speed of conversion of opponents to cheerleaders by PBAT is worthy of a research project by students of political science. Even his most vocal critics prior to the elections and swearing-in have either capitulated or adopted a more conciliatory tone. Nothing signposts the willingness of the Nigerian public to give the new administration the benefit of doubt as the equanimity with which the fuel subsidy removal was accepted. The rather confused Labour Congress that had compromised its impartiality by openly declaring its support for a particular Candidate during the election failed to properly read the mood of the nation and called for a nationwide strike. It is doubtful if it would have succeeded had the courts not ordered that it be suspended. This was seized upon and spun as a willingness to negotiate rather than the lucky escape that I believe it was. The PBAT administration seemed incapable of doing wrong. At least until last Friday.

I am not sure whose idea it was to allow Asari the benefit of the Press Center to launch his bizarre attack on the Military establishment. The President’s Spokesman and Strategy Adviser, Mr Dele Alake is a brilliant communications expert and strategist. I don’t think he could have had any inkling of what Asari was about to do and he would have given his approval. I suspect that someone failed protocol and allowed him to wander into that Press Center, unescorted. Seeing a pardoned kidnapper and terrorist sitting with the Coat of Arms of Nigeria behind him while excoriating the entire Military establishment was the most unbelievable sight of my life. And this was happening in Aso Rock, for crying out loud. It was not a Shekarau in the middle of unmapped Sambisa forest or a General Strongbone in uncharted Niger creeks. I saw hubris at play. I knew I wasn’t alone seeing what I was seeing. It was being seen by the 99% of hardworking Officers and Men of the Military who had never seen a drop of crude oil in their lives, never mind stealing it. The insults were being heard by the comrades and widows of the thousands of Officers and Men who had fallen in the defence of their country, never having sold a single bullet to the enemy and never having shied away from their duty posts, even when they knew the end was inevitable. The orphans whose fathers had laid down their lives to protect Aso Rock watched as the sacrifice of their parents was trampled upon by this funny looking man, right in the nation’s seat of power.

It would be simply unreasonable to insist that the Military and other Security Agencies tasked with maintaining security in the Niger Delta are innocent of the accusation of collusion in the theft of crude in the region. These soldiers however form an insignificant population of the entire services whom Dokubo so carelessly sought to tear down. I dare not think what the real objective of his diatribe was but when one considers that he was once charged with treason, then it might not be too difficult to make the connection that this was a continuation of his war against the Nigerian State. This time, he was provided with the platform by the highest Seat of power in the State itself. Lets not overlook the fact that his accusations did not stop at the baseless charge of the Military being responsible for 99% of the oil theft. He went further to accuse the Army of cowardice and other treasonable acts. Whatever might be the shortcomings of the Military institution in recent years, sitting through the unsubstantiated blanket accusations being thrown about by Asari, with the crest of the nation behind him, was the most difficult thing I have had to endure in recent times. I felt violated.

I hope this is a wake-up call to the new government. While the early indicators might look good, we are just in the first month of a 48, and possibly, 96 month journey. More introspection is needed in the conduct of the affairs of the Nation than was shown in this obnoxious matter. There will be many more such banana peels strewn along the way. The true test of the vaunted sagacity of the President will be in how he and his team navigate their way through them. The Asari affair was not a good indicator of the type of thinking to expect from them.