Jonathan may not rule beyond 2015 – Dokubo-Asari …says quarrel with Obasanjo unnecessary

Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteers Force, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has declared that President Goodluck Jonathan may not rule beyond 2015.

Dokubo-Asari based his statement on the facts that the President had lost the support of his political stronghold-South/East and South/South, going by the result of the 2011 presidential election.

The Ijaw activist had in March this year declared that Jonathan would occupy the Presidential Villa for eight years from 2011.

But at a news briefing on Friday in Abuja, he made a U-turn and declared that it would be difficult for Jonathan to go beyond 2015 because of the ‘greedy’ people around him.

He said these people were responsible for the current rift between Jonathan and ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He said, “We have continued as Ijaw people and the entire Niger Delta and South-South to support President (Goodluck) Jonathan, but the time has come when silent cannot be golden. We must speak out on issues that are very critical for the survival of our people, the survival of the people of the South-South and the South-East, which is the political base Jonathan.

“Jonathan is surrounded by very greedy people who are only in the Presidency to enrich themselves at the expense of the President himself.

“This brings us to another Kalabari proverb which says: ‘Where there are elders, a goat cannot be allowed to deliver while tied to a stick.’ If we don’t talk and we continue to brush it aside, tomorrow we will be blamed and people will say: ‘Mujahid Dokubo-Asari was around when Jonathan was President, and he didn’t talk;’ then I will be an accomplice and accessory after the fact.”

Asari, who said he had benefited from Jonathan, stressed that whatever benefit he had gained from the President was not enough to silence him.

Culled: Punchng