- By Halimah Olamide
One of Nigeria’s militant leaders opens up over the theft of country’s crude oil singling out the military as being responsible and saying the wars on end should be tackled to bring peace to the country.
Niger Delta activist, Asari Dokubo, has blamed the Nigerian military for what he described as aiding of the oil theft that has been happening in the Niger Delta area of the country.
Dokubo said the military have not been sincere in the prosecution of the many wars in many fronts be it in the Niger Delta, South-East or in the North.
The controversial militant, who was guest of President Bola Tinubu at the presidential villa on Friday, said his people are poised to provide the necessary backing to the new government.
“I also want to say that oil theft is encouraged by the military. The military is at the center of oil theft and we have to make this very clear to the Nigeria public. “99% of oil theft can be traced to the Nigerian military, the army and the Navy especially. The army and the Navy intimidate the civil defense who are by status the people who are supposed to guard these pipelines. They receive a lot of money from the NNPC, PCL and the IOCs and just across the corner you will see a few meters from a household an oil bunkering refinery or tapping directly from oil wells,” he told journalists at the state House.
Describing what is happening as “very pathetic” Dokubo said the situation has been happening in the Niger Delta in the past eight years.”
Adding this “was unprecedented in the history of oil production anywhere in the world,” the militant leader said “vandals do not only attack the pipelines, they have migrated directly to the oil well ends and they take directly from there.
“They set up haphazard facilities they call local refineries, artisan refineries and this is crime against humanity because the livelihood of the people is being totally destroyed and every meter you see an army output stationed so the major culprit are the army and the navy and they are notorious Naval commanders who are known to be kingpins of these bunkering activities.”
He said even if government gives one billion contracts to everyone in the Niger Delta, nothing will happen, adding “because these military men are armed from the army and Navy.”
Revealing what he discussed with Tinubu, he said, “The president has promised to take decisive actions to make sure that this does not continue; that It is brought to an end. It is very shameful, so I volunteered to help, assist and to do the things that are necessary to put a stop to this evil that is being perpetuated against the people of the Niger Delta, the oil-bearing community and the whole of Nigerians.”
Speaking on security, Dokubo said there are full scale wars going on in different parts of this country.
“In the South-East, the IPOB, ESN is waging a full-scale war against the government of this country and many local governments, communities are deserted. Schools and hospitals are closed.
“In the same vein, in Niger, Zamfara, Plateau, Kaduna, Yobe, Borno, we are only talking about Boko Haram. Boko Haram is just a tip of the iceberg, there is a full-scale war going on and the blackmail of the Nigerian states by the Nigerian military is very shameful. They say they do not have enough armaments and people listen to these false narratives, they are lying, because I am a participant in this war, I fight on the side of the government of the Nigerian state in Plateau, Anambra, Niger, Imo, Abia, Rivers and in Abuja.
“Today you are traveling to Kaduna on these roads, it is not the army that makes it possible to travel, it is my men employed by the government of the Nigerian states. We do not use and do not even have one percent of the armament deployed by the Nigerian military and we have had resounding success so this blackmail must end, they have enough resources to fight. So instead of fighting, they are busy stealing, waiting on the government to spend unnecessarily.
“Where is Dogo today? Who was terrorizing Niger-Kaduna, he is nowhere because he has been served his dish that he has been serving other people. So, let us be able to help us support the government and stop listening to these false narratives because somebody must tell the truth.”