Rebel rallies oil delta in struggle

LAGOS – Nigerian rebel leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari believes only armed struggle can deliver justice for the impoverished people of the oil-producing Niger Delta.

Asari, whose threats to Nigerian crude production drove the price above US$50 a barrel for the first time at the end of last month, had little confidence in the tactics of ethnic rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa, hanged in 1995 after years of non-violent protest. A Muslim convert and trained guerrilla fighter, Asari has demanded more autonomy for the delta’s predominant Ijaw who live in abject poverty despite the huge oil wealth being pumped from their lands.His rebel Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force has attracted thousands of armed Ijaw youths fighting sporadic gun battles with the forces of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government.”I believe the only path to self-determination and resource control is the path followed by people in South Africa, in Chechnya, in Kosovo — the path of armed struggle,” Asari said in a recent interview with Reuters at a rebel base in the delta.”It is only violence that brings tyrants to their senses because tyrants survive by violence.”A direct descendent of the founding monarch of the Kalabari clan, a sub-set of the Ijaw tribe based around the oil city Port Harcourt, Asari followed his high court judge father’s footsteps in studying a law degree at Calabar University, only to leave early and get involved in ethnic activism.LIBERATION FIGHTER OR GANGSTER? Despite his history of ideological campaigning, the government of the delta’s Rivers state has dismissed him as an oil thief and a gangster.”The idea that Asari is some kind of liberation fighter is rubbish,” said Rivers State Information Commissioner Magnus Abe.”This is an economic thing — criminals fighting for prized bunkering routes,” he said, using the local term for oil theft.Asari rejects the accusation, although he maintains it would be no crime for Ijaw people to take the oil that they believe to be theirs from a corrupt and illegitimate government.A fellow Ijaw activist remembered Asari advocating armed struggle in the late 1990s, his revolutionary fervour undimmed by the death in 1998 of dictator Sani Abacha.”He said what we were doing — non-violence — would not work because Ken (Saro-Wiwa) and others had tried it and were killed,” the activist said.After Abacha’s death, Ijaw militants formed the Ijaw Youth Council and made what is known as the Kaiama Declaration, something close to a declaration of independence for the Ijaw.Asari, now in his 40s, became president of the Ijaw Youth Council in 2002, but was driven underground last year, when he accused the government of rigging the elections which saw Obasanjo and his People’s Democratic Party returned to power.”We were forced into Nigeria by the British colonialists.We are not Nigerians — there is no such nation as Nigeria,” Asari told Reuters.”Until there is a Sovereign National Conference to decide these issues, we have no choice but to fight for until sovereignty is in our hands.”- Nampa-ReutersA Muslim convert and trained guerrilla fighter, Asari has demanded more autonomy for the delta’s predominant Ijaw who live in abject poverty despite the huge oil wealth being pumped from their lands.His rebel Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force has attracted thousands of armed Ijaw youths fighting sporadic gun battles with the forces of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government.”I believe the only path to self-determination and resource control is the path followed by people in South Africa, in Chechnya, in Kosovo — the path of armed struggle,” Asari said in a recent interview with Reuters at a rebel base in the delta.”It is only violence that brings tyrants to their senses because tyrants survive by violence.”A direct descendent of the founding monarch of the Kalabari clan, a sub-set of the Ijaw tribe based around the oil city Port Harcourt, Asari followed his high court judge father’s footsteps in studying a law degree at Calabar University, only to leave early and get involved in ethnic activism.LIBERATION FIGHTER OR GANGSTER? Despite his history of ideological campaigning, the government of the delta’s Rivers state has dismissed him as an oil thief and a gangster.”The idea that Asari is some kind of liberation fighter is rubbish,” said Rivers State Information Commissioner Magnus Abe.”This is an economic thing — criminals fighting for prized bunkering routes,” he said, using the local term for oil theft.Asari rejects the accusation, although he maintains it would be no crime for Ijaw people to take the oil that they believe to be theirs from a corrupt and illegitimate government.A fellow Ijaw activist remembered Asari advocating armed struggle in the late 1990s, his revolutionary fervour undimmed by the death in 1998 of dictator Sani Abacha.”He said what we were doing — non-violence — would not work because Ken (Saro-Wiwa) and others had tried it and were killed,” the activist said.After Abacha’s death, Ijaw militants formed the Ijaw Youth Council and made what is known as the Kaiama Declaration, something close to a declaration of independence for the Ijaw.Asari, now in his 40s, became president of the Ijaw Youth Council in 2002, but was driven underground last year, when he accused the government of rigging the elections which saw Obasanjo and his People’s Democratic Party returned to power.”We were forced into Nigeria by the British colonialists.We are not Nigerians — there is no such nation as Nigeria,” Asari told Reuters.”Until there is a Sovereign National Conference to decide these issues, we have no choice but to fight for until sovereignty is in our hands.”- Nampa-Reuters