Asari's Prison's notes 

Prison Notes of Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, Leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force & Chairman, Niger Delta People’s Salvation Front

November 24, 2005

Dear Comrades,

It has become necessary for me to send you this note because of conflicting and disturbing signals I am receiving from outside. I chose to be in prison to demonstrate to the whole world that what we have is not in any way or sense a democracy, but a full blown iron fisted dictatorship. I have elected to follow the due process of the law if there is indeed any due process at all. I willingly submitted myself to the police. I was never arrested. If I had wanted to return back to the creeks, I could have done so because three days to the invitation by the Nigerian police, I had been informed by one Mr Steve Davies, an American agent working with the Obasanjo regime. It was Steve Davies who together with Judith Asuni (another American formerly married to a Nigerian).

Mr. Davies informed me that he had just left Obasanjo in London where Obasanjo had informed him of his decision to arrest and try me for treason. My reply to Mr. Davies was simple “I am ready to face the due process of the law IF the due process would be truly respected”.

On Monday, 19^th September 2005, I went to the Rivers state police headquarters. I was informed that the Commissioner of Police was not on seat. On the morning of 20^th September 2005, I again went to the Commissioner of Police in the company of Ms Cynthia Whyte, Onengiye Erekosima, Engr. George Kerley and Mr Fubara Duke. We were denied entry to the police headquarters by a police inspector. Even when Mr Fubara Duke explained to the police inspector that he is an Assistant Director of SSS & Officer-in-charge of the peace process in Rivers State, we were denied entrance into the police headquarters.

Before I arrived at my office at #13 Agudama Street, I received a call from the Commissioner of Police and Mr. Duke to come back. I went back and was informed that I am being invited by the Inspector General in Abuja. I asked them to allow me go home and pick up one or two things including my medication for malaria and some other drugs prescribed for me. My request was rejected.

I was taken through a staircase behind the CP’s office to a waiting vehicle downstairs. I was driven away from the police headquarters in the CP’s vehicle sandwiched between the CP and another police officer. We drove out through the back gates used only the CP. I noticed that we were followed by a joint task force of heavily armed personnel drawn from the armed forces, mobile police and some other security operatives.

On arrival at the airport, there were more soldiers and policemen on ground. The police commissioner was jittery and afraid. Over police radios, messages were sent to police positions that youths were being mobilized and moved to the airport. The CP asked me to talk to my men not to do anything. I refused. Feeling jittery and loosing composure, the CP decided to not wait for the 2:30 pm Sosoliso direct flight to Abuja and instead opted for an ADC flight billed for Lagos. On arrival at the Lagos airport, we were met by a detachment of mobile police led by the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Lagos State in of Operations and the Lagos state Police Public relations officer. We were hurried into the now ill-fated Bellview plane to Abuja. We took off and arrived in Abuja airspace where we were suspended in the air for over 45 minutes because a VIP airplane was to land. Every body was praying. Maybe Obasanjo would have terminated my life on that flight. When we finally landed, I discovered that a sizable crowd of Ijaws and other Niger Deltans including my lawyer Barrister Uche Okwukwu who had arrived in Abuja via the 2.30 Port Harcourt – Abuja Sosoliso flight. Barrister Okwukwu came forward and introduced himself as my legal counsel and wanted to board the vehicle which was taking me to the Louis Edet Police Headquarters in Abuja. The request of Barrister Okwukwu was rejected. He however followed us behind in a rented cab.

On arrival at the Louis Edet Police headquarters, I was ushered into the office of the Inspector General of Police, Mr Sunday Ehindero, who was there with a compliment of police management team. One of the deputy inspector generals (DIG) was asked to vacate his seat for me and I sat down. The Commissioner of Police Rivers state and the other police officers who had accompanied me from the airport were left standing as I asked the DIG if I was being arrested. He said no. He said it was just a routine invitation and that once I was through, I would be allowed to go. The first question he asked was what my reaction to the arrest in London of Governor DSP Alamieyeseigha was. I told him that I have no business with Alamieyeseigha’s arrest as I do not recognize Bayelsa or Nigeria. He then brought out a file. In it was a newspaper cutting and an unsigned press statement by PANDAC (PAN Niger Delta Action Council). The newspaper cutting was from The Daily Independent. I admitted that I granted the interview and that there was nothing wrong about granting the interview. I then demanded that my lawyer be allowed to come in to which they obliged me. He showed me the press statement and I pointed it out to him that the press statement was unsigned. He then called Police commissioner Opaleke of Force CID and Deputy Commissioner of Police Alhaji Bello Amusan. I was taken from there to the office of the Commissioner of Police. From CP Opaleke’s office, myself and Barrister Okwukwu and other police officers went up to the cozy IG’s penthouse where we sat down for the interrogation. The first question that was asked was what my reaction to the arrest of Governor Alamieyeseigha was. I told them that I was not ready to answer questions on the arrest of Alamieyeseigha since it was none of my business. I was asked why I held the opinion that Nigeria must disintegrate and I told them that from the legal point of view, Nigeria does not exist in the Ijaw territory since the treaties that our forebears entered into with the British Crown did not make any reference to Nigeria. As such, Nigeria is an illegal imposition and an occupation force on Ijaw territories and so I would do anything to get rid of them. I was also asked my views on the government of General Obasanjo, on whether it was legitimate. My answer was that following the foregoing, General Obasanjo’s regime is illegal in Ijaw land and aside from that, General Obasanjo did not win any election in 2003, since there was no voting in any part of Ijaw land, that he usurped the mandate of the people fraudulently and the people would be mobilized across the various nations that were forcefully conscripted into the Nigerian state through civil disobedience and democratic mass action to overthrow this dictatorial government, and its place, set up a provisional government of national unity whose sole business will be the convocation of a sovereign national conference after which a referendum will be held for the ratification of the resolutions arrived at the sovereign national conference. If the Ijaws at the referendum choose to leave Nigeria, I will be very pleased with it BUT if they choose to remain within the New Nigeria, I would peacefully take my exit. I also told them that I would not answer any question about the process that lead to the peace deal in 2004 since I was granted amnesty by the regime of General Obasanjo. After the interrogation, when Barrister Okwukwu wanted to leave, Police Commissioner Opaleke persuaded him to remain with me. Later, Barrister Okwukwu was called and his telephone confiscated from him. I asked why his phone was being confiscated from him. They replied that it was just police routine. I then demanded that Barrister Okwukwu be released and allowed to go to town and find accommodation for himself to which Barrister Okwukwu agreed, but the police insisted that Uche cannot leave since he too was under arrest. I asked why he was under arrest. I was told that his name was also on the PANDAC communiqué. I countered by asking if they could arrest someone (and a legal counsel to a suspect at that) on an unsigned statement. We were detained that night at the IG’s penthouse/apartment of the Louis Edet House. The next day, another team of SSS interrogators came. I told them that I was not ready to make any statement to them since I was under police custody. They left. On the 21^st of September, Barrister Donald Ariku arrived from a prominent indigene of Rivers state who had offered to take care of our legal expenses. There was no other event other than discussions between me and Uche Okwukwu. On the morning of the next day, 22^nd of September 2005 on African Independent Television (AIT), I watched the Minister of Information of the Obasanjo regime, Frank Nweke announce that I was being held for treasonable felony along with Barrister Uche Okwukwu. At about 11.00 am that morning, we were taken in a vehicle to a remote and under-developed area of Abuja. Before then, PRONACO had sent a team of lawyers led by a Barrister Tony to take up our legal defense. He was denied access to us. We arrived at the center of nowhere in the forests and there was the Dudu High Court, Abuja where a female judge was seating. Even in the court premises, Barrister Tony and his legal team were not allowed to talk to us. Apparently before our arrival, the government had arranged its electronic/print media to ambush us at the court premises. General Olusegun Obasanjo’s Attorney General & Minister of Justice Bayo Ojo had already come to court without the court taking pleading from us and without mentioning the name of Uche Okwukwu. We were remanded in prison custody on holding charges. Without taking charges from us!! Now this is reminiscent of the dreaded Decree 4 of the infamous military regimes. That same night, I was moved from the IG’s penthouse to the IG’s Guest house, Asokoro where I was detained in a room vacated by Tafa Balogun, the immediate past IG of the Obasanjo regime who has now fallen from grace to grass in the courts of his master General Obasanjo.

To be continued.