By Casmir Igbokwe
I felt insulted when I saw the video of how the people of Niger Republic denigrated our President, Bola Tinubu. The insolent crowd displayed a banner with pictures of our President on a car, poking fun at him. Even his first name, Bola, was changed to Ebola.
Nigeria should not tolerate this insult. We desperately need the services of the former Niger Delta agitator, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, and the Lagos State Parks Management Committee Chairman, Mr. Musiliu Akinsanya also known as MC Oluomo. President Tinubu should contract them to send their boys to Niger to teach this tiny country a lesson. This has become more necessary now that the Senate has denied the President the support to deploy troops in Niger. Obviously, Dokubo has shown that he has the capacity to engage in any fight, no matter how tough. After all, it is not a crime to engage mercenaries to fight your enemies. That is what the Wagner Group in Russia does for a living. Niger military rulers have even asked for help from this group against the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) planned intervention.
No doubt, many Nigeriens are angry over the role of Nigeria in the planned invasion of their country by ECOWAS forces. Tinubu is the current Chairman of ECOWAS. Following the coup that toppled President Mohamed Bazoum of Niger on July 26, 2023, ECOWAS leaders met in Abuja and resolved to impose sanctions on Niger. They gave the military regime led by Abdourahmane Tchiani up to Sunday, August 6, to restore the ousted President or face military action. Nigerien soldiers have turned a deaf ear to this warning. They dared ECOWAS forces to do their worst. And they are emboldened by the support of fellow military regimes in Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali.
These Niger soldiers have failed to realize that Tinubu is a dogged fighter. That is why, despite warnings by well meaning individuals and groups against military intervention in Niger, the President wrote to the Senate, seeking support for “military buildup and deployment of personnel for military intervention to enforce compliance of the military junta in Niger should they remain recalcitrant.” He said his government would embark on sensitization of Nigerians and Nigeriens on the imperative of his planned actions, particularly through the social media.
Unfortunately, the majority of Nigerians are against this military action. They believe our soldiers are stretched and have been fighting on different fronts. The insurgency in the North is there. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. Millions of others have been displaced from their homes. The menace of known and unknown gunmen has not abated in the South-East. The evil exploits of bandits and kidnappers in different parts of the country are still a source of worry.
There are other existential problems that have brought our country to its knees. Chief among them is poverty and hunger. Over 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. Unemployment is a serious problem. Many of those who have jobs cannot afford the basic necessities of life because their take-home pay hardly takes them home. These people need food more than war. They need better jobs. They need adequate palliatives, as the sudden removal of fuel subsidy has catapulted the cost of living to an unbearable level. Our debt profile has ballooned to over N70 trillion. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) embarked on protests last week. It has threatened to go on strike soon if its demand for better welfare for workers, among others, is not met. Simply put, Nigeria cannot afford to engage in any type of war now.
This is where people like Dokubo and Oluomo come in. Dokubo, for those who do not know him, is an Ijaw warlord. He is also a close friend of our President. I got to know him in the late 90s when I was a correspondent of TheNews magazine in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. Then, he and some other Niger Delta militants were fighting for resource control. At some point, they went underground and started destroying oil pipelines. Many soldiers sent to engage them met their Waterloo.
What the militants had going for them was their perceived extraordinary spiritual powers anchored on Egbesu, a deity of the Ijaw people. The belief is that bullets don’t kill Egbesu adherents. It was not until the late President Umaru Yar’Adua set up amnesty programme for militants that some sanity prevailed in the Niger Delta. They surrendered their weapons and embraced peace.
Today, Asari Dokubo is engaged in war of a different hue. He is ready to defend Tinubu and his legacies at all costs. Last June, the President invited him to the seat of power in Abuja. At a press conference he later addressed in Aso Rock, Dokubo denigrated our military and accused them of being behind 99 per cent of oil theft in the country. He also boasted of his capabilities and volunteered to use his boys to assist in halting the menace of oil theft.
When rumours to truncate the inauguration of Tinubu as President on May 29, 2023, were rife, the Ijaw warlord sent his boys to Abuja to confront whoever dared to stop the inauguration. Even the last NLC protest in Abuja was distasteful to him. His boys reportedly moved in to do counter protest. The governor of Rivers State, Siminalaye Fubara, is not spared. Dokubo threatened him the other day, saying a clash between him and Fubara would make Boko Haram attacks in the North-East a child’s play. How can we have this type of superman in Nigeria and a tiny Niger will be insulting our President anyhow?
Was it not former President Olusegun Obasanjo who once advocated using our juju to deal with South Africa in the heyday of apartheid? Since we have a man who has supernatural powers like Dokubo, we should not waste time to deploy him and his men.
The Ijaw warlord can be assisted by Oluomo, another good friend of our President. During the last general election, Oluomo did a good job for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He threatened Igbo in Lagos who would not vote for the APC, to stay at home and not venture coming out to vote. With the help of his own boys, he succeeded in isolating some of the strongholds of the opposition Labour Party and stopped many of its supporters from voting. Some were attacked and seriously wounded. Until date, nothing has happened to MC Oluomo. Such a man has the capacity to deal with these Niger people.
Tinubu must send a clear message to our Senate that failed to approve his letter for the invasion of Niger through Dokubo and Oluomo. The Senators must be told in clear terms that lily-livered people don’t win war or political power. None of these two things is served à la carte, as our President would say. The soldiers in Niger snatched power from Bazoum and ran with it. We must snatch it back from them and return it to Bazoum. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Those who claim that Tinubu also snatched power in the February 25 presidential election are just being mischievous!
•Also published in the Daily Sun of Monday, August 7, 2023
