Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, may have begun another battle for his health few days after he regained freedom from his 21-month incarceration by the federal authorities. The fresh hurdle is that no embassy in Nigeria has yet agreed to issue him a visa to travel out of the country despite being released by a Federal High Court on health grounds.
Dokubo-Asari told our correspondent in an exclusive interview in Port Harcourt that even an Islamic country, where he goes frequently for religious purposes, has also refused to grant him visa.
“I know that my health is falling and I need medical check-up to be able to determine how far the solitary confinement affected me. But the problem I have is that till now, none of the embassies in Nigeria is willing to give me visa to travel,” the Ijaw youth leader said. Although he admitted that he was not tortured during his incarceration, Dokubo-Asari said he was exposed to psychological trauma as a result of the “illegal detention.”
He, however, informed that he had begun the process of reconciling all the militant groups in the Niger Delta, with a view to bringing about peace in the region and allowing the government begin the process of addressing the contentious issues.
To this end, he disclosed that a strategic meeting has been slated for Okerenkoko in Delta State, where all the forces committed to the Niger Delta cause would meet and chart the way forward.
Although the NDPVF leader expressed willingness to meet with President Umaru Yar�Adua, he, however, insisted that he was not a Nigerian and would not want to live and die as a Nigerian.
“What I am saying is personal. I am not a Nigerian and I do not want to live and die as a Nigerian. What we want is for the government to organise a referendum to determine where the Ijaw people want to be. If the referendum is conducted and they prefer to be part and parcel of Nigeria, I will not oppose them.
“But for me Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, I want to state again that I am an Ijaw and that is where God wanted me to be. I cannot leave where God puts me to go and accept another place. If God wanted me to be a non-Ijaw, He would have put me elsewhere,” he reasoned.
On his allegation of corruption against former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Dokubo-Asari disclosed that he had already instructed his lawyers to file a case against Obasanjo. He said the case, to be filed by Festus Keyamo, is to compel Obasanjo to account for the huge oil revenue that accrued to the country in the last eight years but with little or nothing to show for it.