My attention was at about 4pm on Thursday, January 26th 2012 drawn by long standing comrades and friends to a damaging, malicious, treacherous and agent-provocateur posting on the Face Book wall of and authored by a Mujahd Dokubo Asari.
Let me say categorically that I have never had any personal, organisational or one-on-one relationship with Asari Dokubo even though I have encountered him like several other trumpet-blowing so-called “activists” on very few occasions at public fora since March 1999, who are in the struggle for diverse and self-serving reasons they alone can explain.
Suffice to state that there is a history to this current attempt by the Federal Government to hang on me a charge of TREASON and CRIMINALISE the organisation I serve as the Secretary – the Joint Action Front (JAF); Asari Dokubo is only an estranged PAWN being used to launch the premeditated treason plot, which shall fail like the previous attempt by the Nigerian State to eliminate me in 1999.
First, let’s read the Asari Dokubo’s crooked concoction of perfidy and blackmails as reproduced below.
Zakari Biu....Don't hang an innocent man ....
I met Zakari Biu in 2007 in the company of mutual friends....at first I had suppressed anger and hatred towards him...because of the role we both played at the opposite sides for the struggle for the actualization of the June 12 mandate freely given to MKO Abiola.... Zakari Biu was a target for elimination by those of us who were in the treanches.
It is unfortunate that people accuse Zakari Biu of masterminding the incident that led to the death of Dr. Omatsola of Murtala Muhammed Airport....When they know better. I never met Dr.Omatsola.... but Abdul Hakim who died with him in the 504 Peugeot salon wagon was a comrade and a strategic partner in our struggle for the actualization for the June 12th mandate.
What I am about to say will shock and make others angry or even mad.....but that is their business they should have told the truth or kept quite. As one of the persons who was in field operation in the struggle.... Comrade Abiodun Aremu, Secretary of The Joint Action Front (JAF) came with Comrade Abdul Hakim from Lagos...he introduced him as an explosive expert from the USA...Comrade Aremu left Abdul Hakim with me....to train, teach and instruct our cadre on how to make and handle explosives.... Abdul Hakim stayed with for about a mouth.... he was an highly intelligent, humble, amiable and ideologically very sound .... There was no dull moment with him....we engage in political and revolutionary discussions most times very late into the night.....he was a power house of revolutionary strategies. The cadre fell in love with him.
We both travelled to Lagos before his death.... he had informed me that there was going to be a major operation in Lagos ... and if it was necessary some of our cadre will be involve to ascertain how far they had gone in their training .... a night before his death we were at the Unilag mosque together where I usually stay both for religious and security reasons..... He started praying ... even better than myself after an heated debate on Islam .... initially he sees religions, especially Islam, as an impediment to revolution .... I told him about my experience in Libya .... My meeting with the Revolutionary Saint...the universal comrade brother Muammar Qaddafi .... the Sayid .... the Nur of all generation. He was astounded and wanted to meet with the comrade brother .... I promised to facilitate it .... even though at that time I had serious disagreement with the comrade brother on the modus of our struggle. The next evening Comrade Aremu paged me .... to inform me that I should not page Abdul Hakim again as he had died in an incident on his way to the airport ..... the reason is that his pager might have fallen into the hands of security operatives.
I am not holding brief for Zakari Biu .... but there is more to the death of Dr Omatsola and Abdul Hakim than we were told by those in Lagos.
The questions our comrades in Lagos have not answered are .....
1. Why was Dr Omatsola with Abdul Hakim...if he is not one of us?
2. What were they carrying to the Airport in the vehicle?
3. Were they on their way for the operation Abdul Hakim hinted at before he left Port Harcourt?
On the escape of Umar Sokoto from the custody of Zakari Biu .... this is not the first time an accused is escaping from police or prison custody .... Soboma George and others have escaped from police and prison custody several times. Zakari Biu should not be demonize and crucified for a crime he may not have committed in the first place .... he must be giving fair hearing”.
Second, let me say that I never had any collaboration with Asari Dokubo or any of the names he mentioned in his above FB posting in the course of the June 12 Struggle; and he was never anywhere in all the meetings and prominent activities of the defunct Campaign for Democracy (CD) (1990 – 97) led by Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti and United Action for Democracy (UAD), which were the anchor organisations, in which I participated modestly and at the highest levels (not as an elected officer) in the struggle that culminated in the exit of military rule in May 1999.
Third, I never knew or sent any Abdul Hakeem at no time to Asari Dokubo or to anybody. Asari Dokubo must definitely be going through some kind of delusion to have concocted such blatant falsehoods against my person.
Fourth, is that I have been an active participant in the struggle of the people in the Niger Delta long before the June 12 struggle and ever before Asari Dokubo enrolled himself as a “freedom fighter” of the Ijaws. The first time ever I noticed him as one of the upcoming generation of “activists” was on March 29th 1999 where I was the Keynote Speaker at the Convention of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) that produced the Gani Adams and Evangelist Adesokan’s OPC leadership. Asari Dokubo came then as part of the delegation led by Felix Tudulor – a one time leader of the Egbesu Assembly. Except the exchanges of solidarity greetings after my presentation, I didn’t have any collaboration with any member of their delegation and never since with any of them till date.
Fifth, is that the Nigerian public and the international community need to know the agent-provocateur and duplicity character of Asari Dokubo. In 2007, the same Asari Dokubo authored a document captioned: “Conscience is an Open Wound: Only Truth Can Heal it” where he implicated Henry Okah as an accomplice in arms deals. Just a passage from that document to show that his PAYMASTER still engages him as a perfidious tool. “Ordinarily I would not have commented on the issue of this bloodthirsty criminal Henry Okah if those who knew so little had learnt to keep quiet. I met Henry Okah on the 3rd of February 2003 at the residence of a mutual friend who introduced him to me as an Ijaw man who deals in arms. I placed my orders for 6.8 million Naira worth of firearms and paid him cash on the spot in advance of the delivery. Henry Okah was so elated that he told the mutual friend that he had not seen an Ijaw man who was so ready to part with his cash for the sake of the Ijaw struggle. When I met him on the day of the delivery of the arms at the designated point, Henry Okah asked me if I was engaged in bunkering or a recipient of government patronage to be so committed to the struggle. I told him no to either and made specific reference to my support of bunkering since the oil was our but was opposed to the environmental impact it had as a side effect to the actions of bunkering. He said in return that struggles couldn’t be carried out with personal funds, as we Ijaws do not have the type of money to pursue a struggle”. This is Asari Dokubo for you on Henry Okah. Yet the same Asari Dokubo enjoyed the same AMNESTY granted to Henry Okah and other Niger Delta “activists” by the Federal Government under the Yar’Adua regime.
Sixth, is the ongoing struggle for the REVERSAL in the price of petrol to N65, which the Joint Action Front (JAF) that I serve as its Secretary has resolved to intensify, in addition, to its agitation for fundamental changes in the political and socio-economic structure of the Nigerian polity; and the stance by the Federal Government to criminalise some organisations and individuals in the struggle with treason as pronounced recently by the retired IGP Hafiz Ringim. It should be noted that Asari Dokubo was a prominent figure in assisting the Federal Government to ethinicise the struggle for the reversal of the price of petrol and his threat to attack other groups and patriots involved in that struggle has now found overt complicity with the Federal Government in a plot to frame Comrade Abiodun Aremu with Treason, and by extension, criminalise JAF.
Seventh, is to recall that on the eve of the Indefinite Strike/Mass Action on January 8th 2012, the same Federal Government using the medium of NTA caused a band of impostors led by an unknown Malik Bassey and two others to impersonate the leadership of JAF and said that JAF has backed out of the Strike/Mass Action that was jointly initiated with NLC and TUC.
Eighth, and finally for now, is to state that the goal and struggle of JAF are in the open (see www.jointactionfront.blogspot.com) and I AM NOT IN ANY WAY DETERRED BY ANY TREASON PLOT as long as what is at stake is the destiny of humanity in our country. The organisation I belong – JAF – will at the appropriate time makes its response on this issue.
Forward ever, Backward never!
Comrade ABIODUN AREMU
cc:
1. Joint Action Front (JAF)
2. Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)
3. Trade Union Congress (TUC)
4. United Action for Democracy (UAD)
5. Olisa Agbakoba
6. Femi Falana
7. Bamidele Aturu
8. Social Action, PH
9. Media (print, electronic and social)
10. Nigerian and international public
