Dokubo Asari’s Sinister Dance

 By Ochereome Nnanna

True friends of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should call him aside and whisper wisdom into his ears with regards to his dalliance with Niger Delta “repentant” militant and self-acclaimed “Biafra fighter”, Dokubo Asari. This is not the first time I am raising this issue on this forum. And which way you look at it  this “friendship” is bound to end in regret. Not much was known of the relationship between Tinubu and Asari until the latter confessed in several media outings that Tinubu once helped him when he was facing the consequences of his armed activities in the creek.

*Asari

Dokubo Asari can posture as anything, depending on the direction his current interest is looking. We call it  anywhere belle face  in popular Nigerian parlance. Asari’s garrulity especially in the social media has laid bare almost everything about him for those who care to pay him any attention. He claimed that his grandfather, a hunter, migrated from Abam in Abia State to Kalabari land. According to him, the hunter magically transformed into a slave merchant specialising in selling his fellow Igbo to the White man. Mind you, he has never provided any proof of his claims. Asari is more of mouth. In contrast, Tompolo is more of effective action.

How did Asari’s self-imposed angst with his ancestral group, the Igbo people, develop? It all started when the Biafra struggle resumed, especially in the past decade. Ralph Uwazuruike was nursing his Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB. From within his ranks, a much more radical and gifted leader, Maazi Nnamdi Kanu, arose and established his Radio Biafra somewhere in the UK. From there he would broadcast his controversial messages.

Few people really paid attention to Kanu’s persistent calls for a referendum for the peaceful exit of “Biafra” from Nigeria. Muhammadu Buhari’s regime unwittingly popularised Kanu through his extreme nepotism and Fulanisation agenda. Millions of Igbo youth and their counterparts from other parts of the South-South responded to Kanu’s call for street protests. Kanu eventually formed the Eastern Security Network, ESN, an armed group created specifically to confront the invasion of the East by Fulani from all parts of the Sahel.

It was at this point that Asari started making his social media broadcasts, claiming he was the “authentic” Biafran leader. He argued that “Biafra”, having been coined by a Kalabari man, Frank Opigo, belonged primarily to Kalabari people, and everyone else claiming Biafra was a mere “joiner”. He had several verbal shoot-outs with Kanu and Uwazuruike, with dire threat exchanged. Concerned onlookers were expecting an “event” to happen, sooner or later. So, when you hear Asari begging Tinubu not to release Nnamdi Kanu, it is simply that Kanu’s freedom will put Asari back in a state of dread.

Why has Asari, who modelled himself as a “Biafra separatist” during Buhari’s era, now become a rival to the nation’s military and police high command?  He talks down on them, accuses them of corruption, oil thievery and ineptitude. And he gets away with it all! He spoke from Aso Villa’s Media Centre, with Nigeria’s Coat of Arms behind him. He posed for photographs with our new president, Bola Tinubu inside Aso Villa!

We saw Asari insulting the Igbo in a video and brandishing an AK 47 assault rifle. He boasted that he had been awarded contract to perform “security operations” in several parts of Nigeria, including Anambra, Imo, Abia and Rivers states. In the past couple of years or so, we have seen the sudden emergence of a faceless group called “Unknown Gunmen” cowardly staging ambushes and killing people. 

Among those killed were Dr. Chike Akunyili and the Labour Party senatorial candidate for Enugu East Senatorial District, Oyibo Chukwu (who was gunned down during the campaigns along with five of his supporters). Also, Sen. Ifeanyi Uba and Sen. Rochas Okorocha escaped assassination while their police escorts were killed. There was a strange jailbreak in Owerri in April 2021, and most of the attackers caught were not of Igbo stock, as Governor Hope Uzodimma asserted. The sit-at-home illegal order has been enforced against the directives of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, directives.

There has been this rumour that opponents of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election, sponsored insecurity in the South-East to beat down voter turnout in the zone. Were Asari’s display of the rifle and claim of being involved in “security operations” in the South-East tacit admissions of being a part of the insecurity in the South-East? We need to find out, since the Directorate of State Security Services, DSS, is not interested. 

Asari has gone a step further to display his uniformed troops to the public. The scandal is no longer just that Asari has a private army while our armed forces and security agencies play the ostrich. The bigger scandal is that President Tinubu has publicly embraced this fellow and given him the hallowed portal of our presidential palace to display himself.

Why does Tinubu need Asari and his army? His legal team threatened anarchy if the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT, sacked him. A few days later, Asari “unveiled” his army, proclaiming readiness to fight for Tinubu. These two are playing with fire. Fire burns. 

Dokubo Asari and his goons must be immediately arrested and tried, along with other terrorists, bandits, armed herdsmen and armed separatists. I say it again: Tinubu  and Asari’s dalliance may not end well.  Like play like play, na so butterfly dey enter bush!

*Nnanna is a commentator on public issues