Saturday Meshach
May 19, 2015 – There are indications that the Niger Delta militants will return to the creek and resume the struggle for resource control and self-determination after May 28, when President Goodluck Jonathan would exit the stage.
President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari would be sworn in May 29, 2015. A formidable leader of the struggle for resource control and leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force, Mujaheed Asari Dokubo who was speaking at the annual Major Isaac Adaka Boro Memorial public lecture said the exist of Jonathan from the stage would lift the “restraining order” for the next phase of struggle in the oil-rich region.
According to him, Jonathan’s exit from the saddle would “revoke” the “restraining order” on Niger Delta militants who had suspended the struggle for self-determination and resource control during the reign of Jonathan who is from the Niger Delta.
He said the struggle would kick off once the Buhari administration draws the first blood.
“Yes, a new government begins in Nigeria and a next phase of our struggle shall begin. Also Jonathan Goodluck Presidency was like a restraining order. Now, that the restraint is lifted. However, we will watch and wait. Let them draw the first blood and we shall determine our best way forward.
“Truly Nigeria will never be the same again. The future is pregnant. Should Buhari, who like Pharaoh has determined in his heart to turn desolate the Niger Delta region, draws the first blood by undermining certain interest of the region, begin the systemic arrest, maiming and murder of our comrades, continue the confiscation of our rights to self-determination and treat the region as a conquered region, then it may be honourable for some of us to die in prison or in the field of war as nobody is afraid of him”, he said.
He called on Niger Delta youths to wake up and be ready for the days ahead, noting that the existence and survival of the Niger Delta People rest with them.
“Let it be known that we were not defeated, it was Jonathan and his party that lost an election. We, as a people, indeed the Niger Delta region alongside the Igbos, were never defeated. We collectively rejected the born-to-rule and supremacist agenda which some of our brothers as field slaves and taskmasters supported yet their number shows that they are of little consequence. We must however not take them for granted.
“He was never in the struggle, he was not a product of the struggle but an establishment beneficiary of our struggle. Our struggle is not and never about becoming the President, it was not about being awarded oil licenses and mouth-watering contracts, it was not about massive infrastructural development of the Niger Delta region, it was not about high scale appointments, employment and empowerment, it was never about interventionist programmes and projects.
“Our struggle indeed is about our collective freedom from a false and forced colonial union that has remained divided and unintegrated. It is about our being conferred a slave status and seen as a conquered people who must exist at the mercy of the overloads and supremacist class using our own brothers as taskmasters against us in a Nigerian Union.
“Our status in the Nigerian enterprise remains that of a conquered people living a slave and prisoner status. This is the collective identity we have as a people, whether you are rich, poor, high, low, big, mighty or small. No matter how well dressed, well fed a slave or a prisoner is, he remains a slave and a prisoner who constantly lives at the mercy and dictates of others with his contributions and consent of no consequence. This is why we must now than ever stand up like the Scottish to determine our going forward for our platforms and reject our oppressors. This will not come easy, ” he said.
