Nigeria: Fresh Storm Over Dokubo-Asari

SHOCK waves ran across the Niger Delta, Nigeria's main oil and gas region, on Thursday afternoon, following claims by the high command of the militants network that there was an attempt to assassinate their detained ''Supreme Leader'' Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari.

Spokesperson for the militants' Joint Revolutionary Council (JRC), Cynthia Whyte, claimed in a wired statement that they received an intelligence report on the murder plot. She did not, however, disclose the source of the information.

The JRC which parades most of the dreaded militia groups, said in their statement, ''there was an attempted to murder in cold blood, the flag bearer of the Ijaw and Niger Delta struggle Dokubo-Asari, on April 19, while in solitary confinement in the gallows of the satanic Nigerian state''.

According to them, ''this murder attempt which was created in the style adopted for the killing of General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua by the Abacha administration was orchestrated by the Secretary to the Bayelsa State Government, Boladei Igali,the so-called Honorary Presidential adviser on Niger Delta Matters and a man in a hurry to please retired General Olusegun Obasanjo''.

Continuing, they added, ''this attempt was masterminded via a conspiracy between hired assassin medical doctors of the Nigerian state led by Boladei Ogali.
After long minutes of intense resistance, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari was assaulted by about four armed guards and severely battered''.

''This act by the government of the Nigerian state might be the straw that will break the camel's back. We have in the past few months been as restrained as any people can be. At this point in time, we wish to state that the Nigerian state and its citizens therein must be ready for whatever happens. The hornet's nest has been stirred'', they said.

Meanwhile, the JRC is calling on all ''heroic combatants of the Ijaw and Niger Delta struggle to rise up and carry the torch of battle to the corridors of the enemy. This is one too much''.

From Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, top government officials who do not want their names in print told our correspondent that the alleged attempt on Dokubo-Asari's life could be part of a plan to disrupt the presidential election in the oil and gas region.

In the mean time, they are suing for calm, promising that the state governor and vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Goodluck Jonathan, will wade into the matter.

ENDS

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