Perhaps, one of the biggest problems that confronts and is holding this nation back is the skewed reward system that is targeted only to satisfy the crooked and villain at the expense of those who seek to remain patriotic and live within the ambit of the law and their honest means of livelihood.
How else can one describe a system that presents a Melford Dokubo Goodhead Jr. aka Asari Dokubo as a hero for the rest of the population? How else do you rationalize the fact that Dokubo can boast of his fraternity and association with the president of the country? A felon and economic saboteur who is boasting of his ill-gotten wealth.
Dokubo can only be recognized by a system that rewards crime and brigands and the lawless. What has Dokubo contributed to the nation to warrant his holier-than-thou posturing and postulations other than despoiling our national patrimony?
With the coming of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu regime, Dokubo has been spewing forth statements and comments that will only help in attracting flak to the government. If he has the support of the government, as his actions suggest, it will be only a matter of time before the government gets its desired consequences.
To be honest, Dokubo should not be speaking where people with integrity are gathered, but as we have said, ours is a system where touts are given the leeway to run riots, where bandits are allowed a free reign and where rogues have unfettered access to the corridors of power and the sanctuary of God to pontificate.
Dokubo, in a recent video, had boasted of his wealth, the source of which he can hardly disclose in public. Here is a brigand who in 2004, established the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), which would become a major source of disturbance in the Delta region. The NDPVF, a militant organisation, was involved in illicit oil ‘bunkering’ and other sorts of local resource extraction.
In 2013, Asari became a Benin Republic citizen and shifted his assets from Nigeria’s Niger Delta to Cotonou, where he erected multiple schools, colleges, and a university. Today, he boasts of being a successful businessman and to him whoever earns a salary is with no honour.
This suspicious wealth has given him a bloated ego so much so that he now thinks that those who do honest work and live within the ambit of the law are the scum of the earth who do not deserve respect or honour.
Recently, he again uttered those gibberish in a viral video where he urged Tinubu and the National Assembly to see to the amendment of the constitution to allow the Igbo breakaway from the country in accordance with Kanu’s demands.
He said he would gather the signatures of one million citizens in support of his idea. A man who has not won any election, even as a councillor, would gather one million signatures.
Dokubo was quoted to have said, “Please, in the name of God, why do we allow this vicious cycle of irritation of people who claim to be victims when they are the oppressors and the people offending others? Let the Igbo go so that there will be enough resources for other people to manage.” To manage or to steal?
He was not done yet, he also said, “They don’t even need a referendum. The President and National Assembly should meet and someone courageous enough should sponsor a bill at the National Assembly. There should be a constitutional amendment. The five Igbo states and any group of people who want to join them should go.
“We have a lot to gain if we let these people go and turn their country into heaven on earth. Please, National Assembly, President Bola Tinubu, I am begging you, let the Igbo go so that we will rest and they too will rest and they should be barred from coming into our country.”
What Dokubo and his likes do not know is that they may just be doing the Ndigbo a favour. Is it about size or relevance and importance? What is the size of Israel and what is their importance and relevance to the world?
Dokubo is not deserving of any serious person’s time, but because ours is a society where rogues are given national honours and recognition. Since Dokubo is a self-confessed friend of President Tinubu, it will only be a matter of time before he is given one, that’s if he has not got one already. I suggest he be awarded the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON).
In calling for the barring of Ndigbo, after the separation, can one ask how the country will work with brigands like him at the helm of affairs. Is it the same Nigeria where all our youth and elders are currently fleeing from? Is it the Nigeria where honest people do not have jobs while known criminals and dishonest people are being rewarded and granted audiences? Is it the Nigeria where justice, fairness and equity have been murdered on the altar of sycophancy, nepotism, hypocrisy and injustice?
If this is not lunacy then what is it? Between Nnamdi Kanu and Asari Dokubo, who poses greater danger and causes more harm to this nation? If there was justice and equity across the land, who would have known Kanu and Dokubo? But unlike Dokubo who used his agitation to despoil the nation, Kanu has not been accused of mining our resources.
Dokubo’s pillage of our resources and his desire to further loot the nation is the reason he is now doing these. He wants federal government patronage and for him the only way he knows best to do this, is by insulting those he perceives as Tinubu’s ‘enemies’ and critics, just to curry the government’s favour.
He wants to isolate President Tinubu from reality. The very same reason President Muhammadu Buhari failed. He surrounded himself with sycophants and hypocrites like Dokubo who are only looking for avenue to pillage the nation as he had done in the past under the cover of Niger Delta militancy.
A non-state actor who is allowed by the state to go about with arms and ammunition unrestricted and black sheep of his family who could not make it through school is today a VIP and given unfettered access to the seat of power and maybe very soon, unrestricted access to our common wealth again.
Do you blame Dokubo for being garrulous and assuming a false sense of self-worth? If Tinubu would allow him to have his way, is left to be seen. Some day, his day of reckoning will come and he will meet with his Waterloo like any other criminal or felon.
