NIGERIA: Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a muslim who led a rebellion in the delta until a peace deal with the government in 2004 says bomb attacks by Boko Haram could provoke retaliation by mostly Christian southerners

Record ID: 235433

  • Title: NIGERIA: Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a muslim who led a rebellion in the delta until a peace deal with the government in 2004 says bomb attacks by Boko Haram could provoke retaliation by mostly Christian southerners
  • Date: 5th January 2012
  • Summary: ABUJA, NIGERIA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF AFTERMATH OF BOMB BLAST PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA (RECENT) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MUJAHID-ASARI DOKUBO, FORMER MILITANT LEADER SAYING "We are on the precipice of a civil war, if they continue (the bomb attacks) whether they like it or not, the first retaliation took place in the south-south." DAMATURU, NIGERIA (RECENT) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) CYCLIST AND MOTORCYCLES GOING THROUGH AN UNMANNED ROAD BLOCK VARIOUS OF ROADS WITH VERY LITTLE TRAFFIC SIGN POINTING TO DAMATURU POLICE STATION POLICE STATION COMPOUND POLICE ROADBLOCK PORT HARCOURT, NIGERIA (RECENT) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) MUJAHID ASARI-DOKUBO, FORMER MILITANT LEADER SAYING "It is because of Goodluck, if Goodluck was not President and another person was President, even an Ogoni man, Itsekiri man from the south-south is President, and this killing (bomb attacks) Ijaw people would have started long time ago (retaliation attacks). It is just Goodluck that is holding us, they should know, if anything happens to Goodluck, that same day, we are not bursting pipes, we are moving to Abuja."
  • Embargoed: 20th January 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria, Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADJYTM2NUWDBXW8NRQ3TT8W5D0
  • Story Text: Southern Nigerians could take up arms to fight northern Boko Haram Islamists, and are holding back only out of respect for the president, a former militant leader from the oil-rich Niger Delta said on Monday (January 02).
    Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a Muslim who led a rebellion in the delta until a peace deal with the government in 2004, said bomb attacks by Boko Haram could provoke retaliation by mostly Christian southerners, including those living in the delta.
    Asked if northerners could be targeted by some from the majority Christian south, he said: "We are on the precipice of a civil war, if they continue (the bomb attacks) whether they like it or not, the first retaliation took place in the south-south."
    President Goodluck Jonathan has already declared a state of emergency in parts of the north which Boko Haram targeted in Christmas Day bomb attacks, including one against a church near Abuja that killed 37 people.
    The attacks, and their spread from the north into other parts of the country, have raised the prospect of sectarian and regional violence escalating in a country about evenly divided between mainly southern Christians and mainly northern Muslims.
    "It is because of Goodluck, if Goodluck was not President and another person was President, even an Ogoni man, Itsekiri man from the south-south is President, and this killing (bomb attacks) Ijaw people would have started long time ago (retaliation attacks). It is just Goodluck that is holding us, they should know, if anything happens to Goodluck, that same day, we are not bursting pipes, we are moving to Abuja," said Dokubo-Asari.
    Asari's former group, the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, managed to push oil prices to record highs in 2004 with its constant attacks and threats against oil production in the delta's swampy creeks.
    Since then, peace deals with the region's warlords have pacified the delta, and Boko Haram in the north has become the number one threat to Nigeria's security.
    Asari said he was skeptical that the government could negotiate with moderate members of Boko Haram via "back channels" as National Security Adviser General Owoye Andrew Azazi suggested in an interview with Reuters. Asari said the group's faceless nature made talks impossible.
    "Who are you going to negotiate (with), are you going to tell the woman who lost four of her children and her husband that they should negotiate, on what basis, negotiate her children that they should die, no, the government should use every power it has to bring these people in or the would be telling the people to resort to self help," the former militant said.
    In any case, such extreme violence meant the time for talks had passed, he said.
    Outside the northern town of Damaturu, hundreds of people displaced by the ongoing fighting between Boko Haram and the military received food and other relief material from well-wishers.
    Gun battles between security forces and Boko Haram killed at least 68 people in two days of fighting in Damaturu on December 22 and 23.
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