2015: You Are Losing Base, Dokubo Warns Jonathan

By The Citizen

Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF) former President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari  Friday  in Abuja said that President Goodluck Jonathan has alienated the people of the South-South and South-East who massively voted for him last year.
Addressing journalists in his house in Abuja, Asari, who in March this year, declared that Jonathan will occupy the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja for eight years from 2011, told journalists in Abuja that it will be an uphill task for Jonathan to make it back to Aso Rock in 2015, adding that even though he had benefited from the Jonathan presidency, he could not continue to keep quiet in the face of failure by government to deliver and as a result of ‘greedy’ people around him, who have caused real supporters of the president, including former president Olusegun Obasanjo to part ways with him.
He warned that it would be difficult for Jonathan to secure the people mandate in 2015 if he chooses to take a second shot at the presidency.
Using the president’s performance rate, Dokubo said the President might not go beyond 2015 because he (Jonathan) has lost support of the people of the entire south-east and south-south.
He also added that it was no longer golden for him to keep quiet as things were already going wrong in the Jonathan’s presidency, adding, “I have benefited immensely from Goodluck Jonathan with my stake, but benefit alone is not enough to make me to keep quiet when the period is very challenging for our people”.
He  said: “I want to start with an Ijaw proverb which says: the eyes watched its seven children to death, instead of advising them, it was just looking at them until they died. While the mouth talked its only child to life and success. We have continued as Ijaw people and the entire Niger Delta and south-south to support the presidency of President Goodluck Jonathan, but a time has come when silent cannot be golden.
“We must speak out on issues that are very critical on the survival of our people, the survival of the people of the south-south and the south-east which is the political based of Goodluck Jonathan.
“Jonathan is surrounded by very greedy people who are only in the presidency to enrich themselves at the expense of Goodluck himself.
“This brings us to another Kalabari proverb which says: where there are elders, a goat cannot be allowed to deliver tied to a stick. If we don’t talk and we continue to brush it aside, tomorrow we will be blamed and people will say: Mujahid Dokubo-Asari was around, when Goodlcuk Jonathan was president, and he didn’t talk, then I will be an accomplice and accessory after the fact.”
He also stressed further that: “And if you check, all the people who supported Goodluck Jonathan and fought to bring him to power, have openly disagreed with him, what was the cause of these disagreements, these are the questions we want the president to tell us.”
He said: “It is alarming because the south-south must have its uninterrupted eight years tenure which is constitutional, but with how things are going under Jonathan’s watch, we are afraid that we may not be able to have our eight years tenure, because there will be no magic about it if it is going to be one man one vote.
“Some people say Obasanjo is manipulating Goodluck Jonathan, that is why Jonathan is disagreeing with him, and we ask: what has the Goodluck Jonathan government achieved to show that it is a departure from other governments that have existed since 1956? For us, nothing has changed. It is still business as usual. So what is the advice that Obasanjo gave to Jonathan that were so difficult for him to fulfil, that made him decide to fall out with Obasanjo?
“Obasanjo was instrumental and manipulated the process that illegally removed Diepreye Alamieyeseigha as governor of Bayelsa State and installed Jonathan as governor, made him Vice President, fought for him to become acting president and also fought for him to become president of Nigeria.
“Apart from Obasanjo, there are so many people who supported Goodluck Jonathan, some have been pushed out by those who were not there to give him any support, while some others are trapped and they cannot talk.
“Monkey no fine, but the mama like am, but then the ugly monkey becomes so rascal, the mother will desert it because if the mother continues to like the ugly monkey in its rascality, she too will die with the ugly monkey, after all  she has more than one monkey child.”
Speaking on some members of Jonathan’s cabinet whom he said had failed to perform their duty as required Asari said: “So, some of us are tempted to ask this question: why are all these things happening? Why has the president allowed some ministers like Godsday Orubebe to continue in government? Every day people die in the east-west road,  if Orubebe is incompetent as he has shown himself to be, he should be removed. Nobody voted for Orubebe. And why is Orubebe so important to the president that he can’t remove even in the face of his obvious incompetence and several allegation to corruption.
Asari, who said that he was among those who recommended Orubebe to be appointed as minister in the Jonathan’s cabinet also said: “We feel very ashamed and embarrassed. Orubebe was one of us, he was attending meetings with us, sleeping in the ground with us, entering night bus with us, and we nominated him to be appointed a minister, we have gone to him and complain to him that we don’t like they way thing are going in his ministry, and told him that if the president leaves in 2015 without the completion of the east-west road, we are finished. And the man keep telling us there is no money. When IBB was there, there was money, when Abacha was there, there was money, when others people where there, there was money, how come the money disappeared when Jonathan got there. Jonathan and Orubebe will account for the death in the east-west road.” (THISDAY)