By Sam Nwaoko

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Asari Dokubo o’clock! You are welcome to the Asari Dokubo republic. Fasten your seatbelt because we’re about to cruise at an inestimable altitude in this curious ride. We have all been freely awarded the citizenship of a country owned by Alhaji Mujahideen Asari Dokubo, the man all of us see as a Niger Delta militant. If he has any other identity yet, you may let us know. By the way, if you have grudges, just park well. Besides, you don’t even have to like it or desire it. You may wish it was not real or that you were dreaming. You might not even have imagined it was happening, but it is here already and we are all serenading in it, willy-nilly. We are in Asari Dokubo Republic. Simplicita!

It may appear like an awkward proposition we have found ourselves in, but only a few things surprise Nigerians now. So, Dokubo is our new position and some Nigerians are already asking questions. To you, how does it sound to be resident in a republic like the one the title of this opinion article portrays?

The thinking in some quarters earlier in the week was that the embattled Godwin Emefiele was the issue. The suspended governor of the Nigerian Central Bank (CBN) was seen for the first time since his arrest on June 9 as he was brought to court. His arraignment in Lagos came as a relief to many. They felt that, at last, they are now beginning to see a semblance of democracy and the rule of law in the country. Emefiele was charged and was granted bail by the court. Then, trouble started. The prosecutors, the State Security Service (SSS) and the Nigerian Correctional Services (NCoS) which the court said should hold him until he completed his bail processes, descended into a free for all.

The SSS/NCoS debacle simply proved that the more things change, the more they remain the same. It showed that we have assumed a new dangerous dimension in our acclaimed impunity. On another plane, Emefiele is fast becoming the Sambo Dasuki of the Tinubu era. Sambo Dasuki was in detention for nearly all the time Buhari was in government and Nigerians can still not clearly explain why. He was taken to court and charged… with what now? Emefiele is part of the new conversation. He is on the front burner especially whenever he appears in public from the detention of our lords. Many people have refused to see Emefiele as the unfortunate spurtle which the Yoruba usually lambast as one who does not know how to reject an errand to dip his head in boiling water.

That dishonourable sight of a public brawl between armed officials of SSS and NCoS was the reigning issue until the Nigerian Senate gave us a new version of the definition of corruption. For another chunk of the Nigerian population, that defence by the Senate of the act of looting as described by one of them, and amplified by the Senators themselves during a sitting, was the issue for them. However, it was only until it was dwarfed by the Asari Dokubo video. The senators were stirred by the disgust expressed by a new among them, Mr Adams Oshiomhole. A former governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole had said on a national television programme that he saw the real meaning of looting when he tried to settle into his office in the Nigerian Senate.

Oshiomhole said: “I was shocked at the level of vandalisation of properties of the National Assembly. Televisions were carted away, carpets were carted away, and senators’ chairs were carted away. I had to use my money and someone also decided to deliver me a printer, to give me a laptop to use in my office. I had to buy the carpet and pay the cost of fixing it. I had to pay some young people to clean the office to restore the new carpet. I had to pay to repaint my office. People told me there is also the same level of vandalisation in the House of Representatives.” (sic) .

The experienced ones among them had risen like billowing fire against the naïve Adams Oshiomhole. He had ‘misjived’ and injured the reputation of the senators in the 9^th Assembly. He called it vandalism but said things were “carted away”. There are euphemisms for everything good and bad. One dictionary meaning of ‘cart away’ is “transport or remove in an unceremonious manner”. Oshiomhole did not lie. It is just that the senators were angered that Oshiomhole did not know that they had legitimised what he was condemning. The distinguished people were also unhappy that the new man didn’t know how they were doing it and sadly had not asked questions. Oshimhole did not know that what he saw as looting was properly approved by the 9^th Senate. It was not pillaging, going by the rules of the 9^th Senate, it was the senators helping themselves to the property of the Nigerian Senate armed with the rules they made themselves.

But, one of them said they were not helping themselves but rather helping Nigeria. According to our lords, we should be thankful to them because what they did was to help us clear the national assembly of debris. Only that the debris they took were TV sets, chairs, tables, carpets, electrical fittings, electronic gadgets and so on. They also educated us that the rule of the house, as regards how those items degrade, is way different from what we might be familiar with. They said the 9^th Senate agreed that a TV or a computer system or a refrigerator depreciates by 25 per cent every year. Thus, by the time the senators spend four years in the Senate, the equipment would have completely lost its value because 25 per cent per year for four years brings the items to zero in value. The chairs and tables in our Senators’ offices, after four years, have become of zero value; same with the TV sets, the carpets and even water dispensers.

It’s enough to ask whichh of the occupants of those offices is of greater value to Nigerians: the man or the equipment.

However, all these are child’s play when compared with the power Asari Dokubo has displayed. Dokubo is the commander-in-chief of his own armed forces. He bestrides the Nigerian polity with the temerity of a commander-in-chief. He has an opinion on Biafra, even if it is a double speak of his ‘Biafraness’ or otherwise. He visited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, emerged from the historic visit and addressed the press like a commander-in-chief. Part of the things he told us was that his Niger Delta Volunteer Force is in charge of security on the Abuja – Kaduna highway and not the Nigerian armed forces.

While he was telling us that his boys were the ones in charge of security somewhere in the north, he also told us that the soldiers who were supposed to be providing security for our oil were the ones stealing it. To understand the power Asari Dokubo wields, check the reaction of the Nigerian Army to his grave allegation. It was a feeble statement that came like a queer whimper in the face of a roaring Dokubo. And it ended there.

The same man has talked down on the governor of Rivers State and got no reaction. He acts like he owns the ‘meat pie’ and its fillings. Wake up, it is indeed Asari O’clock. (Saturday Tribune)

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