It is understandable that Asari Dokubo, the rabble rouser and self-promoting Niger Delta militant, will talk down on the Nigerian military the way he just did and proceed to accuse them of economic sabotage against the state. The derision in which Dokubo holds the military is, perhaps, only comparable to the disdain he has for whatever the laws of Nigeria are. He sure has his reasons. He is not that obtuse. For one thing, he knows his environment quite well and has proved to know how to play and maximize his takings in the setting.
The tendency in some quarters to be dismissive of Dokubo, to wave him off as one of those irritants in a wayward society brimming with rebellious sons and daughters, is, of course, there. Make no mistake about it, Dokubo is no longer just an irritant. He has stayed around and mastered the system too well to be dismissed as may have been the case some years ago. He now personifies a huge hole on the deck of the gigantic Titanic that the Nigerian state is. To all who seek to live in denial, this other Titanic is as sturdy as the original, believed to have been built beyond reproach. Like the original, however, this ship is sinking. Not unexpectedly, there are still parties and merrymaking on board. Very surreal.
There are few places like Nigeria. This is the land of the absurd and the possible. Asari Dokubo’s bouncy visit to Bola Tinubu at the Nigerian seat of power in Abuja last week added to the uncommon narratives of Nigeria. The visitor, a former militant, who has apparently suspended his calling for now, was expansively received by his host. There was a photo session, followed by warm valedictory handshakes. The content of their discussion was left between them. The visit seemed designed to make some statements about Asari Dokubo, his relationship with Tinubu and a few others. Much more than the optics may have been involved in this outing. It did confirm Asari Dokubo’s reckoning in the emerging but yet cloudy political firmament in Nigeria.
When, on his way from the seat of power, he wasted no time in excoriating the Nigerian military, Dokubo was standing on a firm ground of sorts. In savaging the military publicly as he did after visiting with Tinubu, Dokubo had at least two planks on which he stood. The first must have been built on what he knows to be a fact: the military is not coming to equity with clean hands in terms of tackling oil theft. Indeed, Dokubo was specific in his accusations. He said the culprits in the oil-stealing enterprise were personnel of two arms of the armed forces: the Nigerian Army and the Navy. In making his pointed charge, he seemed to have the relevant facts to speak without equivocation. He was not guessing. He did not say military personnel MAY be involved. He did not say losses occurred or that incidents of negligence in the provision of security led to the oil theft. He said that the military, specifically personnel of the two services, were involved.
This, indeed, is a monumental indictment. But then things happened under the watch of Muhammadu Buhari as President. The rot in the system spread all over and allusions to unprofessional and unbecoming things happening within the armed forces were rife. Was it not also being murmured almost audibly through the period that some military officers were conniving with terrorists and bandits to put the lives of dedicated servicemen in danger? The embarrassing incidents of military personnel being caught in kidnapping also became public.
The initial response of the military high command to Dokubo’s accusation, as was reported in the media, to the effect that he should go further and name the military officers involved, came across as trivial. This must be an equivalent of schoolboys asking the number of a stolen ball pen in the classroom. The military high command should get serious and take decisive steps to convince the public that their men are not at once the defenders and the breach of our common estate.
The second plank on which Dokubo stood after his meeting with Tinubu, to look the military in the face and accuse it of wrongdoing, is power. As absurd as it may seem, the former militant exuded a curious air of paramountcy in relation to the military in terms of national security obligation at this point in time. Dokubo did not leave anyone to guess the basis of his new spirit of pre-eminence. He informed the world that it was he and not the military that provided security on Abuja-Kaduna Road and that axis, enabling Nigerians to still use that route.
It is pertinent to note that a few months back, while Buhari reigned, the Abuja-Kaduna Road virtually became a death trap. Bandits and killers were in control and only those with a death wish or driven by desperate circumstances made trips on that road. But normalcy seems to have been restored in recent times, with travellers heaving a sigh of relief. Now, it is known that it is Dokubo’s army that provides security on the Abuja-Kaduna Road and not the Nigerian military or the police. So why will Dokubo not feel triumphant and disdainful of the military?
A few months ago, a video clip of a military training camp run by Dokubo as the general office commanding went virile. A relatively large troop. Many who saw that clip were left astounded on how a private citizen, more so, a known agitator against the state, could so brazenly be carrying on such a training camp, with state security agencies looking away. People obviously know better now. The Asari Dokubo security forces do not only exist in reality, they have overtaken the military and police in some critical security tasks across the country, going by the commander’s information. Indeed, Dokubo said his private army is on duty in six states, fighting on the side of the federal government. Exactly what that means is yet to be decoded.
The frightening import of the situation Dokubo has brought to the attention of Nigerians needs to be appreciated. If, for instance, Dokubo’s private army is present in six states, according to him, including Bayelsa, Rivers, Abia, Imo and Anambra, it means that, in some of the gun incidents that occur intermittently these days, say, Imo State, in which incidents the police and the Nigerian Army peremptorily declare the Eastern Security Network (the other unapproved private army) responsible, the actual culprits may be Dokubo’s approved unofficial army on duty. Is the reality of Nigeria’s present security conundrum getting clearer? Yet nobody ever told the citizens about the approved existence of Dokubo’s army and the extent of its operations or the relationship between it and the armed forces and the police.
And to imagine that this whole aberration was brewed under the watch of a retired general as President. So, Tompolo takes charge of guarding oil pipelines and Asari Dokubo takes charge of movement of individuals on the roads. It makes sense that the Nigerian armed forces get busy now with chasing around and neutralizing IPOB.