Posted by By Henry Chukwurah, Port Harcourt on
Local militia leader in Rivers State, Alhaji Dokubo Asari, has threatened to go into full scale war over resource control if the nation's leadership continues to ignore the needs and cries of his native Niger Delta region.
Local militia leader in Rivers State, Alhaji Dokubo Asari, has threatened to go into full scale war over resource control if the nation's leadership continues to ignore the needs and cries of his native Niger Delta region.
Asari, it would be recalled, turned in hundreds of sophisticated guns and ammunition to the State Government last year, in exchange for cash as part of a peace package made after more than one year of cult-related bloodletting and killings in parts of the state, including Port Harcourt and his native Kalabariland.
His Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force (NDPVF) had been locked in bloody supremacy war with his arch-rival, Ateke Tom's Vigilante group.
Speaking on a radio interview in Port Harcourt, the leader of the dreaded NDPVF hinted that the songs of violence may resume, this time, on a wider scale, if the nation continues to toy with his people's quest for resource control.
"The resources na our own. We wan take am. We no dey beg anybody. No be the conference wey dey hold for Abuja be our business. When we go take the resources sef, dem no go know. I'm telling you the truth."
Warning of looming widespread sorrow, tears and blood, Asari said that many cities in the country would be blown up in the next phase of the self-assigned struggle.
"The next phase of our struggle will not be in the creeks. The next phase of our struggle will be in Abuja. It will be in Lagos; it will be in Kano; it will be in Sokoto; it will be in Ibadan.
"You will see the next phase of our struggle. That is how big it will be. They will feel the pains that our people suffer. We promise them that they will certainly feel the pains that our people suffer. If our people are dying by explosives, they will die by explosives".
Alhaji Asari gave the thumbs-down for the on-going national political reforms conference, predicting that the outcome of the, "pre-determined" parley will add no extra value to the lives of the people of the Niger Delta region.