FORMER leaders of Niger Delta militants
have warned that they will go back to the creeks if the 2015
presidential election is manipulated to edge out President Goodluck
Jonathan.
The ex-militant leaders, who issued the
warning while speaking with newsmen in Port Harcourt on Sunday,
expressed sadness over an alleged plot to scheme Jonathan out of the
2015 race for the Presidency.
The former militants, who gathered under
the auspices of the Niger Delta Ex-agitators Forum and the Association
for Non-violence in Niger Delta, said they would see the outcome of the
election as an act of God if Jonathan genuinely loses out in 2015.
NDEF President, Mr. Amaibi Ombi,
cautioned that it was better to allow for a free and fair election than
to manipulate the process in order to scheme out Jonathan.
On the recent comments credited to the
Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Kingsley
Kuku, and Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, Ombi insisted that such
statements could not be a threat to Nigeria as a country.
Continue reading after the cut...
Dokubo-Asari had warned that Nigeria
would be history if he was arrested for threatening violence in the
whole country if Jonathan was not allowed to run a two-term tenure as
President.
But Ombi described Dokubo-Asari’s
stataement as no threat, but a statement to canvass the need for the
President’s critics to allow him (Jonathan) run for two tenures in
office.
“We will go back to the creeks if the
2015 presidential election is manipulated to scheme out President
Goodluck Jonathan. But if the election is not manipulated, and Jonathan
loses out, we would see it as the handiwork of God,” Ombi stressed.
The former militant leader claimed that
some politicians, especially those from the North, were using Boko Haram
to intimidate Jonathan out of the 2015 presidential election.
“They have been sending Boko Haram to
harass and intimidate President Jonathan so that he will withdraw from
the 2015 presidential race. Asari’s comment was not a threat; he
(Dokubo-Asari) just wanted Nigerians to know that there is a need for
Jonathan to go for two tenures,” the ex-fighter emphasised.
In his remark, ANND President, Mr.
Kenneth West, cautioned Kuku and Dokubo-Asari against making
inflamatory statements but warned against any move to arrest them over
their comments on the 2015 general election.
West said some well-known political
leaders in the northern part of the country had made similar comments in
the past without anybody suggesting that they should be arrested.
He alleged that the corruption began in
the North and wondered why nobody raised any dust on corruption when the
northerners were in control of government.
“Asari only warned that in 2015, if
Jonathan is not elected President, Nigeria will not be one. He was only
warning; he was not threatening. If we are talking about corruption, it
started from the North,” he said.
-Punch
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