SEVERAL eminent Nigerians and civil society groups yesterday in Lagos protested the continued detention of the leaders of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, and Chief Ralph Uwazuruike of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).
The prominent citizens included leading human rights activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN) and the current President of the West African Bar Association, Mr. Femi Falana.
The protest took place shortly after a world press conference addressed by the Coalition for the Freedom of Dokubo and Uwazuruike (COFDU) at the secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Alausa, Ikeja.
The three-page speech was delivered before a cross section of both local and international journalists by the co-ordinator of the group Mr. Ayodele Akele.
Others present include Mujahilda, wife of Dokubo-Asari, and Ngozi, wife of Uwazuruike. There were also other leaders of over 30 civil rights organisations, including the Oodua Peoples Congress, (OPC) and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF).
Addressing the conference, Fawehinmi said: “We are here today to register our protest over the continuous detention in prison of Alhaji Dokubo-Asari and Dr. Ralph Uwazuruike. They have spent two years without trial and we are calling for their immediate and unconditional release.”
According to the activist lawyer, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has only one choice in the matter: The unconditional release of the two gentlemen from prison. This, Fawehinmi added, is for the interest of the country.
He urged Yar’Adua to invoke Section 174, sub-section (1) (c) of the 1999 Constitution and drop the charges in the interest of the nation by way of a nolle prosecui.
“The only thing left for the Federal Government is to release Dokubo-Asari and Dr. Ralph Uwazuruike if not this government will become illegitimate and the illegitimacy will be compounded. This government must not allow these men die in prison,” Fawehinmi warned.
The eminent lawyer also urged the Yar’Adua government to convene a Sovereign National Conference where all Nigerians would come together and discuss the problems facing the country and proffer solutions.
On his part, Falana said that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and other foreign law bodies would soon join in the crusade if the present government turned deaf ears to the calls for the release of the two men.
All those present also protested the planned secret trial of the duo.
The convener of the conference told the gathering that the coalition was concerned and committed to the restoration of peace in the Niger Delta region and indeed any part of Nigeria and felt disturbed about the continued incarceration of the two activists.
“We therefore resolved to engage all peaceful means not only to ensure the release of these activists, but for the restoration of peace in the Niger Delta region. Our objective is to rally support and carry along all well-meaning people about their (the detainees) plight and to galvanise the interest of Nigerians, activists, locally and internationally to see Dokubo-Asari, Ralph Uwazuruike and others released from detention without further delay,” he said.
He also lamented the death of Uwazuruike’s 85-year-old mother Madam Monica Uwazuruike whose only son is the detained Uwazuruike. He said her body was still lying in the mortuary while the only son was languishing in prison.
He condemned the Federal Government’s plan to try the duo in secret from tomorrow.
Akele said: “There is also the dimension of a written undertaking (demanded by President Yar’Adua of Dokubo-Asari) as a condition for his release and of course the Supreme Court ruling denying him bail, and the conclusion, judgment before commencement of the trial, that he is a security risk.”
He added: “In spite of violent repression and militarised approach over the years to resolve the Niger Delta crisis and indeed the South East MASSOB issue, the crisis has deteriorated to a frightening level.”
He also noted that the improper handling of the crisis had led to “increased blood-letting, recurrent hostage taking, sporadic blow-up of oil facilities, loss of oil revenue and panicky withdrawal of foreign oil firms from the region.”
Contributing to the matter, Dokubo-Asari’s wife said that she was very optimistic that her husband would be freed since he never committed any offence.
“The Dokubo-Asari, I know can never commit those offences. He was only trying to liberate his people in the Niger Delta region.”
Also the wife of Uwazuruike called on the Federal Government to release her husband so that he could come back home to take care of his children.