By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe
I have great respect for such fearless and principled Niger Delta warriors as His Majesty King Ateke Tom— Amanyanabo of Okrika Kingdom of Okochiri and Chief Tompolo Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo. These are men of honor and principle whose pedigrees in militancy are not questionable. This is not the case with Mr. Melford Dokubo Goodhead alias Alhaji Mujaheed Asari Dokubo, whose trajectory of militancy is guided by the political compass of his stomach.
The people of Kalabari ethnic nation know their true sons and daughters and Mr. Asari Dokubo is not one of them. Asari Dokubo contested Local Government election to be elected Councilor and failed. He contested Local Government Chairmanship election and failed. He again contested the House of Assembly election and fail. And when he attempted to cause problem after his serial rejection, he was reminded that as a third generation descendant of Igbo slaves he was barred by Kalabari customs and tradition from representing them politically. The big question then is if Asari Dokubo is not among the true sons of Kalabari ethnic nation, what then is his ancestry?
Asari Dokubo is a confused man because he is a man who is confused by his miserable Igbo origin. A man without a known a great-grandfather, his history as a Kalabari man only began with his grandfather, a slave from an unknown Igbo community. This is the irony of the same man speaking of selling the Igbo as slaves.
I refrained from responding to his leprous tirades against the Igbo not because reminding a mad man of his madness is not a worthy assignment but because a man whose kinsman is dancing naked in the village square has his own share of the resulting shame. Asari Dokubo is only a second generation Kalabari man whose grandfather named Goodhead by his Kalabari slave master was a pure Igbo slave acquired in late 19th century by the trading family of another ex-Igbo slave Nagbogbo Harry Briggs.
Nagbogbo Harry Briggs was indeed an Obosi man captured by Abam warriors during one of their raids and consequently sold to the Aro slave traders, who thereafter resold him to King Amakiri of Kalabari. It was this family that named his grandfather “Goodhead” because of his characteristic obedience to his master. Goodhead begot Dokubo who in turn begot Melford now Asari. That was all about his Kalabari ancestry and nothing more. Empty drums make the loudest noise they say! Asari Dokubo is therefore a second-class slave, being an Igbo slave to an Igbo slave. So his attempt to link his ancestry to the noble Harry Briggs family is a fallacious attempt to elevate his confused paternal slave background.
Likewise, his mother who he claims to belong to Amakiri royal family was indeed the daughter of an Igbo slave housemaid to a member of King Amakiri family, who was later sold off in form of marriage to Harry Briggs for Goodhead his grandfather as a compensation for his good behavior. Is it not therefore an irony of history that the same man whose grandparents were sold by the Igbo as slaves to families of ex-Igbo slaves will be talking of selling the Igbo as slaves? This is the extent this man called Asari Dokubo could go confused.
I have further reason to refrain myself from responding to him because the man on whose Presidential victory his present state of vile power drunkenness is predicated, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is currently wearing the garb of a clay-footed President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The question is what happens to the likes of Asari Dokubo, if the Court nullifies Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory tomorrow? This is the one fundamental question such addle-brained political scavengers like Asari Dokubo fail to ask themselves.
The Nigeria of today is not the Nigeria of yesterday where everything goes. The Igbo say in their words, Abuzu gba nkiti na-atu onu (the silent cricket is busy digging its hole). Nigeria is currently in a Machiavellian state of political shifting-sand with her tomorrow practically unpredictable. The time is coming when the likes of Asari Dokubo will have no place to hide their AK-47.
The Igbo would often say, onye na-amaro ebe mmili si maba ya, a ma makwa ebe osi kwusi i maya (a person who did not know when the rain began to beat him would equally not know when it stopped beating him). This is the case with Asari Dokubo. If he knows his true root he would not have opened his mouth to refer to the Igbo as slaves; bearing in mind that his ancestors both through his father and mother were victims of the said Igbo slavery.
But how would he have known his accurate history? How would he have known that his father and mother were direct descendants of Igbo slaves sold to Amakiri royal family of Kalabari kingdom? How would he have known that King Amakiri the first, the founder of the present Kalabari royal family was an Igbo slave who worked his way through the thick and thorns of slavery like King Pepple of Bonny, King Jaja of Opobo and Olaudah Equiano to become king?
It is impossible for a two-time university drop-out like Asari Dokubo to have known his ancestry to the letter. He dropped out from University of Calabar Faculty of Law. He came back to Port Harcourt to study political science at Rivers State University of Science and Technology and dropped out again. And since thuggery and militancy laced with oil bunkering became the quickest means economic relevance in the Niger Delta he quickly reverted to militancy through which he engaged on bunkering.
Outside his primitive accumulation of incongruous wealth through selfish-driven militancy nobody in Nigeria would have cared to listen to him, much more seeing him casting aspersions to the Igbo— the same people that sold his ancestors to Kalabari people as slaves?
I am not in any dispute with Asari Dokubo over his support for Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the obvious reason that they are fellow Southern jihadists. Moreover Asari Dokubo stated it in black and white as reported by Greenbarge Reporters issue of June 10, 2022 that he is supporting Bola Ahmed Tinubu for selfish reasons. Hear what he said on June 10, 2022:
“When I was in prison, Tinubu was so kind to me; he paid my children’s school fees. He gave me a house at VGC. He gave my wife a house at Ogba. When Tinubu was taken to the Code of Conduct for trial, I trekked miles and when I entered the court, he came to embrace me after the court session. Dokubo said that Nigerians will miss a lot if they fail to vote Tinubu, adding that he (Tinubu) has many qualities that would lift Nigeria beyond imagination.”
Does the above statement indicate someone with principle, noble antecedents and cognitive intelligence?
A serial betrayer and Judas Iscariot par excellence and, master blackmailer; when it suits his selfish interest he lays claim to his cloudy and servile Igbo origin and, when the milk appear not to be flowing from the fountain of his Igbo origin, he relapses into his questionable and foggy Kalabari identity.
He betrayed his mentor Henry Okah who at one time sold his house in South Africa to purchase arms and ammunition for him. Henry Okah is currently serving a prison sentence in South Africa on account of the betrayal of Asari Dokubo. The same Asari Dokubo not satisfied with the betrayal of Henry Okah went further to betray his first son who is currently serving a prison sentence in Abuja. How can such a man be accepted as a true son of Kalabari land? Impossible!
Asari Dokubo became a Biafran agitator not because of revolutionary instinct which he does not have, or patriotic Igbo spirit which he lacks as well, but because of his propensity towards insane and opprobrious pursuit of ill-gotten wealth. He was an unrepentant Biafran agitator and comrade-at –arms of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu when the money was flowing. But when the conduit pipe of Biafran sovereign agitation wealth began to dry up he immediately switched over to anti-Biafra and anti-Igbo agitator and subsequently an incorrigible enemy to Nnamdi Kanu.
He scammed Muamar Gaddafi to become a Muslim freedom fighter with the objective of declaring jihad in Niger Delta, which he failed to do and, instead became a militant addicted to kidnap of Oil workers and bunkering. This explains why the current Governor of Rivers State made it known to him that Rivers State is a Christian State.
When I visited Libya in 2009 on the invitation of the Libyan Government I was offered a mouth-watering incentive to convert to Islam and serve as an alternative to Asari Dokubo who had by then been declared a persona non grata by Libyan Government for betraying their trust in him as a Mujahedeen (Holy Warrior) in Niger Delta. I was promised two hundred and fifty thousand US dollars as a primary incentive, which I cautiously rejected on the ground that coming from a strong Christian community I would no longer be trusted by my people. That was after Nigeria’s Senate President Senator David Mark had described Col. Muammar Gaddafi as a mad man for suggesting the division of Nigeria into many countries; to which Col. Gaddafi was not happy with and personally protested to the Nigerian Delegation during our meeting with him.
It was for the reason of this betrayal of trust against the Libyan Government that the Fulani leadership in Nigeria never trusted him as a true Muslim. He made fruitless efforts to be considered as a worthy Muslim slave to the Fulani throughout the eight-year regime of Muhammadu Buhari in order to be awarded the contract for the protection of oil pipelines. The contract was later awarded to Chief Chief Tompolo Government Oweizide Ekpemupolo. The Fulani know that anybody who professes Biafra and claims to be a Muslim is an apostate.
Finding himself miserably abandoned by his so called Fulani Muslim brothers, he turned into a desperado and made a daring attack on Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. In return his so called University in Benin Republic which was considered a scam was sealed off and eventually closed. His so-called Soccer Academy in Abuja was no more and no less an abandoned graveyard. His illegal conduit for oil bunkering was further sealed off by the Military. This explains his recent accusation against the military for engaging in oil bunkering. Asari Dokubo saw himself bankrupt overnight. His saving grace became the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as APC Presidential candidate and subsequently the temporary President.
Reasonable Nigerians should therefore not consider Asari Dokubo as a man of reasonable sense of moral judgment, principle, and political consequence. As a man noted for his shameless state of amnesia, Nigerians should not be surprised if the same man turn against Bola Ahmed Tinubu to support Peter Obi if the former loses in court.
By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD, Leader, Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (CAC-GEN)
Email: [email protected]
DISCLAIMER: The opinion expressed in this article is entirely that of the writer, it does not in any way expressed or represent the opinion and views of TIME AFRICA.
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