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Apr. 30, 2007 Ralph Uwazuruike and Asari Dokubo have something in common in the Nigerian context. While the former is the head of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) the latter is the radical chief of the Niger Delta people volunteer defence force (NDPDF). The two leaders are in detention in Abuja for years now. And their crime? Well the King Kong of Abuja the power-intoxicated president of Nigeria rtd. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo deemed it fit taking them out of circulation, making life unbearable for them both in solitary confinement and depriving their movements the leadership they need to soldier on in their justifiable campaigns for self-determination in a bloated manipulated federal Nigeria where monstrous primitive injustice walks in four leprous legs. Dokubo and Uwazuruike have been roundly humiliated, tortured and denied every access or contact with the sun and their members, families and outside world. Abuja to them has transformed itself into a darkness that bears unforgiving brutality and meanness of a cabal in power that sees every threat to the Niger Delta oil reserves and their access thereto as a national common enemy that must be crushed with federal might and crude methods. While MASSOB through Uwazuruike's able uncompromising leadership has metamorphosed into a movement that is as real as dawn and dusk appealing to the young Igbos desirous of a separate entity out of the present national atrophy NDPDF through effective militancy has developed into a real threat to the continuing exploitation of the people whose resources have become more of a curse than a blessing. In their face the federal government sitting comfortably in Abuja controls the crude oil deposits exploiting same to better the lots of cities and individuals who do not know the colour of crude oil. While their lands, creeks, waters and environment continue to suffer degradation, pollution and utter neglect the Obasanjo power clique in Abuja smile to the bank daily depositing both looted funds for themselves or save some on behalf of Nigeria as reserves for rainy days. MASSOB through force mixed with global pacific campaigns seeks to draw attention to the plight and marginalisation of Igbos in the scheme of things Nigerian; in so doing a lot of bad blood and powerful enemies even within the Igbo elite has been drawn. But their profile, rank and file keep rising because the youth especially (even those who did not witness the 1967-70 pogrom like myself) has seen the need to re-visit Biafra and right certain wrongs and injustices perpetrated over time by the federal government. Uwazuruike has in the course of actualising and giving vent to what he believes in incurred the wrath of Obasanjo and his host of Igbo haters who see every attempt to bring issues of Biafra forward at any fora as a crime punishable by harassment and detention and even death. He (MASSOB leader) has made efforts by creating both the Biafran national anthem and flag; he has effortlessly won over hearts and minds (including some sympathetic whites) who see in his struggle a freedom-fighting venture fraught with dangers. In embarking on that course of action Uwazuruike knew that challenges abound and the road to his dream strewn with all kinds of terror and horror. Yet he chose that option! Ditto Dokubo whose movement has been making exploration of oil and the explorers know the meaning of terror and how not to abuse the golden goose that lay the golden eggs. The boys in the creeks and swamps from Olobiri to Bayelsa to Port Harcourt have gotten bolder refusing to be traumatised or intimidated by the federal forces stationed before them with the instructions to kill and maim and extirpate the dream and stop the message whose time has come. The detained fiery Niger Deltan standing celebrated trial for treason had cause to raise alarm through Barrister Festus Keyamo, his lawyer, last weekend over discovered plans by Obasanjo to kill him before May 29. Hear Dokubo: "Information now reaching me from some members of security forces who still have conscience, is that plans have been perfected to murder me in detention before you (Obasanjo) leave office on May 29, 2007, in the same manner Chief (M.K.O) Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola was murdered through food poisoning. Consequently, I have decided on the following: To give you my dead body on a platter of gold by embarking on an indefinite hunger strike in the unlawful custody you have kept me; to inform you that if I die, the freedom fighters of the Niger Delta will continue the fight from where I stopped until the last of them drops dead; that I have no regret at all for choosing this path which I have laid for myself." The Nigerian federal drama is playing itself out on a daily basis in a Byzantine fashion stretching the tolerance of good and bad men to rise to the ocassion. Nigeria as a country founded on fraud and maintained through fraudulent means has been busy fighting and warding off incursions by those who smell subjugation and dispossession. That is why almost every tribe and ethnic group that makes up the federation are crying foul over the inherent foundational fraud and monumental injustice on which Nigeria sits. In confronting this ugly situation the people at the receiving end of this 21st century madness has decided to take their destinies in their own hands since Obasanjo and the dictators before him had failed to heed the voice of reason and allow a sovereign national conference that will debate and work out the acrimony-free modalities for nationhood that's worth its name. Pa Anthony Enahoro and Professor Wole Soyinka and other eminent Nigerians have been calling for this conference so that we can heed late Winston Churchill's warning that it is better to 'jaw-jaw' than 'war-war'. While calling for the immediate release of Ralph Uwaruruike and Asari Dokubo from Obasanjo's dungeons it must be made clear that their detention has not had any adverse effect on their followers out there in the jungle (and in the Diaspora like MASSOB USA) that is Nigeria delivering the message of terror or freedom and winning new converts to their fold. Whether Obasanjo likes it or not these men even in their death will not stop the message they have started from reaching receptive ears. Like the late Che Guevera heroically declared in Bolivia as he was fighting for the liberation of the people: "Our every action is a battle cry against (dictatorship) . . . wherever death may surprise us let it be welcome so long as our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may reach out to pick up our weapons". This saying from a liberation struggle hero from Cuba to Bolivia is instructive! Whether Obasanjo releases Dokubo and Uwazuruike now or not is inconsequential because they have (and continue to) make their points. Come May 29 when he bows out in shame after overseeing the worst administration democratic(?) in the annals of our chequered history his successor will most definitely inherit the mess he's leaving behind and the questions thrown up by MASSOB and Niger Delta fighters. The web of intrigues and disservice must be beheld and dismantled by the president-elect Musa Yar'Adua if Nigeria must survive as one national octopus. Nothing (or no force) on earth can stop an idea whose time has come! To seek to asphyxiate a process of change in an unjust federation like ours is the height of madness. The messenger may be silenced or eliminated (a la American Martin Luther King) but his message is both enduring, timeless and a civil right religion worth dying for. ------------ About the author: Sunny Chris Okenwa is a U-K contributor based in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. Email: soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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