Jonathan: Ex-militants threaten to resume violence in 2015

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.
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.