Editor’s note on verification: the allegations reported below are those of Mr. Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, made in a video that has circulated online. He produced no documentary evidence for the figures he gave. The persons he named have not responded publicly. The broadcaster that reported the video, RNN TV, stated expressly that the claims “have not been independently verified,” that the 2.7 trillion naira figure “remains an allegation attributed to Asari Dokubo, not an independently established fact,” and that “the people and organizations mentioned should also have an opportunity to respond.” TheNigeriaLawyer adopts those qualifications and reports the matter on that basis.
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The former President of the Ijaw Youth Council, Mr. Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, has accused the Olu of Warri, a businessman he identified as the son of the late Captain Hosa, and others of collecting 2.7 trillion naira for pipeline surveillance, while a critic of Mr. Government Ekpemupolo, widely known as Tompolo, had singled out the Ijaw leader alone for attack.
“You’re talking about Tompolo what of the Olu of Warri and Osawa, the son of Captain Osa, that are collecting two point seven trillion every month for guiding pipeline?” he said. “Why didn’t you call them out? You didn’t call them out because they are Bini people and they’re Itsekiri people.”
Moments later he restated the period of the payment. “Two point seven trillion annually. Annually. You didn’t see him. You didn’t see Osawa Idaosa. Pipeline infrastructure. You did not see the Olu of Warri. You didn’t see them. They are collecting two point seven trillion a year.”
He added: “You are calling Tompolo, who is collecting less. I’m not in that contract.”
“I’m Not Going To Defend Tompolo. I’m Not Tompolo’s Lawyer”
Asari-Dokubo made the allegations in a video responding to a critic he named repeatedly, and whose ethnicity he speculated about, in the course of which he directed sustained abuse and imprecations at the man and his family. TheNigeriaLawyer has not reproduced those passages.
He framed his intervention as a statement of position rather than an advocacy.
“I’m not going to defend Tompolo. I’m not Tompolo’s lawyer. I’m not his advocate. I am going to state things the way they are,” he said.
He said he had declined an invitation to attack the Ijaw leader. “When they said, ‘Come and talk against Tompolo,’ I said, ‘No be me. I’m not.’ I have agreed with the Itsekiri that I will not talk against Tompolo or Tantita.”
He also said he was not a beneficiary. “I’m not part of the largesse,” he said, adding later: “My contract that I do have nothing to do with pipeline. I do contract to defend Nigeria.”
“Pipeline Contracts From Time Immemorial Were Done By Igbos, Yorubas And Israeli Contractors”
The central plank of his argument was that pipeline surveillance work had historically gone to people outside the oil-producing region.
“Pipeline contract from time immemorial were done by Igbos, Yorubas, and Israeli contractors,” he said. “Pipeline contract were done by Igbos. The Igbo big, big businessmen, you are hearing billionaires, were doing this pipeline contract. Yoruba people were doing the pipeline contract. Israelis were brought to do pipeline contract.”
He said no one from the region had objected at the time. “At that time, it was not the money of Niger Delta. Meanwhile, no Itsekiri person, no Ijaw person, no Bini person came out to fight with us. We put our life on the line.”
He argued that the objection to Ijaw participation was therefore selective. “So because I am fighting for freedom, [another man] can do a contract, have money, but Tompolo cannot do the contract and have his own money.”
And he made the same point about regional origin cutting both ways. “So other people from other regions should come and take the contract. When they take it, it is not Niger Delta money. It is [his] money.”
He returned to it at the close. “Tompolo has every right. He has every right to go and seek for any contract he wants. And if he’s given, he has every right to do it. It is not Niger Delta money.”
“It Was During The Time Of Diezani As Minister”
Asari-Dokubo gave an account of how the current generation of surveillance arrangements began, placing their origin in a meeting convened by a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.
“It was during the time of Diezani as minister that Diezani said, ‘All these monies are flying over our head.’ And she called a meeting, and we went to that meeting. And at that meeting, she said we should form companies,” he said.
He said companies were then formed on a state basis. “Tompolo formed a company for Delta. [Others] formed for Bayelsa. Myself, Ateke, Farah and others formed for Rivers State, ADEF Energy Services Limited.”
He said the exercise revealed the scale of what had gone before. “That was when we knew that almost all the billionaires that we are hearing in Nigeria, where they were getting their billions was through pipeline contracts.”
He said only one beneficiary had any proximity to the producing area. “None of them was from the region, except Captain Osa. Except Captain Osa is the only person that was close to the region. He’s from Benin. He’s not from an oil-producing community.”
He added: “And Diezani gave the contract. And after that, the contract ended.”
He also said the earlier arrangements had been concealed. “Almost all the billionaires you know in Igbo land and Yoruba land did this pipeline contract. They were doing it over the years, hiding it, collecting free money, guiding nothing. Until Diezani came and opened the Pandora’s box, and all the something start coming, we start seeing.”
The Vessels
Asari-Dokubo made a further set of allegations about shipping in the region’s waters.
“Yesterday, I saw a vessel owned, on it was written OUK. Two vessels operating in our waters,” he said, attributing the vessels to a named former governor. He said he had seen “the one of Ibeto, another Igbo man, seized by Koluama youths.”
He put the complaint as one of unequal access. “He has the right to be in our waters. We don’t have the right.”
In reporting the video, RNN TV stated that he “claimed that he saw a vessel operating in Nigerian waters bearing the initials OUK, which he associated with former Abia State Governor Orji Uzor Kalu,” and that the claim “was not independently verified from the information available.”
“Where Were You Then?” — The Pedigree Argument
A substantial part of the video was given to Asari-Dokubo’s account of his own background and record, offered in answer to his critic.
“I’m not just Dokubo Asari. I have a pedigree. My father was Honourable Justice Milford Goodhead,” he said. “My father’s brothers were kings. And today, I sat on the stool, the second stool of King Amachree, the first treaty king in the whole of West Africa. The first treaty king — go and check it, October second, eighteen fifty.” He said Bonny’s treaty was dated 3 October 1850, and that “at that time, Opobo was not even created.”
He then listed a sequence of offices: student union leader and President of the National Union of Rivers State Students at the University of Calabar; member of the Politburo of the Movement for Progressive Nigerians, which he described as “a Marxist-Leninist movement”; member of the Committee of Collective Conscience; secretary of a Nigerian-Palestinian liberation movement; vice president of Students Against Apartheid South Africa; vice president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta (MOSIEND); a founding member of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), of which he said, “Before MOSOP was formed, they came here and met us. Of all the Ijaw people, I was the only person who decided to be part of MOSOP”; leader of what he called the de facto government of the United State of Biafra; Amir of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria, Rivers State Area Unit; chairman of the Student Christian Movement; and vice president, deputy president and president of the Joint Youth Council.
“How many things will I call?” he said. “We see hypocrisy sticking out.”
He asked, repeatedly, where his critic had been. “Son of a high court judge, a student unionist — why would I go to the creek and fight? Where were you then? You have the temerity to come here to talk.”
“I Was Detained Seventy-Three Times. I Stood Trial For Treason”
Asari-Dokubo set out his record of detention.
“We fought. I went to prison. I was detained seventy-three times. I stood trial for treason. I was put underground. I was buried alive. I was accused of plotting a coup against General Olusegun Obasanjo. Where were you? Where were your fathers?”
He described the conditions. “Obasanjo buried me alive three storeys underground. I was alive, but I was dead. I did not know when there is night, when there is day. That was how I lived my life.”
“Go And Read My Case”
In the most legally consequential passage of the video, Asari-Dokubo invoked his own litigation.
“In Nigeria, my cases are locus classicus. Go and read my case. Dokubo-Asari versus the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Go and read my case,” he said.
“My case make democracy become useless in Nigeria, because it said that when there’s a threat, the Supreme Court — the Supreme Court of Injustice — said that when there’s a threat to the unity of Nigeria, the constitution can be suspended, and that was why I was left in prison.”
“It’s a locus classicus. It’s a locus classicus.”
The Lawyers Who Bailed Him
Asari-Dokubo recounted being bailed on several occasions by a lawyer he named, now an All Progressives Congress candidate, and said this now constrained him in Rivers State politics.
He said that as Ijaw Youth Council president he deliberately presented himself for arrest in place of others. “In IYC, any time there’s going to be arrest, I tell my president to go away, to stay away. I will put myself in front and be arrested. I say, look, in revolution, they can’t cut all of us off. You stay, go underground, I’ll be arrested. I am the one who is always arrested.”
He described one such occasion. “One of the days I was arrested, they said my lawyer was around. I don’t have any lawyer oh. I did not call any lawyer oh. I went out. I saw” the man who is now the APC candidate. “‘Ah, president, I came to bail you.’ He bailed me.”
He gave another instance after members were arrested on a journey to Bayelsa State, saying a Divisional Police Officer “begged me almost kneeling” because he had a commissioner’s order to make arrests and could not arrest the crowd. “I volunteered myself and walked into the cell. I said, allow the others to go. Me, I will go into the cell.” He named a former local government chairman among those who joined him, and said that after some time, “they say your lawyer has arrived oh. In my mind I say, ‘He has come again oh.’ I went out. It was” the same man. “He bailed me and I left. I think he bailed me about three times. Pro bono, nothing.”
He said another lawyer “came to bail me, that they put in prison, and he stayed in prison longer than myself.”
He said this created a political difficulty. “So today in Rivers State maybe some people will abuse me, [that] Wike has bribed him. Wike cannot bribe me. Tinubu cannot bribe me. They know me. I’m not as cheap as you people who are looking for relevance.”
“I cannot come out and oppose” the candidate, he said. “If I come out to fight him today, and Chinda said, ‘What are you fighting me, because I’m an Ikwerre man?’ — when I was coming to bail you, you didn’t know that I’m an Ikwerre man? Were there no Ijaw lawyers? When [the other lawyer] went to prison with me, were there no Ijaw lawyers? I cannot defend myself. So I tell people, I cannot come out and oppose him now. I cannot do it. If because of that you don’t want to be my friend, don’t be my friend.”
“About 13 IYC Members Were Killed”
He said members of the council were killed and others prosecuted during that period.
“In my darkest period, let me tell you, some IYC members were shot dead and pronounced armed robbers,” he said. “Do you know how many IYC people were killed? About 13 IYC members were killed.”
He said others “were taken to court and they were charged as sea pirates in Yenagoa under military government. They were being tried.” He said he intervened personally: “I went to court. When the judge was sitting, everybody was sitting, I went to court and released them and went away with them. IYC members.”
On Tinubu: “When I Was Buried Alive, Tinubu Stood With Me”
Asari-Dokubo said his support for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was a matter of personal debt rather than patronage.
“I am a supporter of Tinubu. Tinubu is my friend. And when I was buried alive, when there was nothing, Tinubu stood with me in my period of darkness,” he said.
“And to leave Tinubu because you want to put yourself inside, you will fail. So if supporting Tinubu — and this Tinubu government, they have done nothing for me. But at the time he did something for me, I have done nothing for him.”
He said the obligation was reciprocal and limited. “What does he want from me? To campaign, to convince people to vote for him, and on the day of voting, to take my card to go and vote for him. Why will I not do that? Is it as much as standing by me, saving my life? I’m not saving Tinubu’s life. He has been senator, he has been governor, he has been president. I’m not adding any value to him. But if he were not around, I would have been dead.”
He said he believed the criticism was really about that support. “Our crime is that myself and Tompolo were openly supporting Ahmed Bola Tinubu.”
The Security Contracts He Does Hold
Asari-Dokubo distinguished his own contracts from pipeline surveillance, describing them as security work outside the Niger Delta, and said payments were outstanding.
He said the arrangement began with a request from the late President Muhammadu Buhari. “When I broke with the Biafran agitation, and General Buhari called me — I was one of the greatest enemies of General Buhari. When he called me, he said, ‘Mujahid, can you go to Anambra State and make sure election holds?’ I said yes.”
He claimed credit for securing a major corridor. “Today, people travel freely from Abuja to Kaduna, from Kaduna to Abuja. Who did it?”
He then listed outstanding liabilities. “Anambra just terminated our contract, they could not pay. We left. As I’m talking to you, money worth 52 months has not been paid by Imo. Fifty-two months’ money for over 400 men has not been paid.”
He said his men remained deployed regardless. “We stay because when you see the atrocities that go on in this place, except you are Shaytan, you will weep for what is happening.”
“As I’m talking to you, our people are dying in Niger. Our people are dying in Plateau. Our people are dying in Imo,” he said. “Today we’re in Plateau. This morning, we had a confrontation. I am a Muslim, but the people that were being attacked this morning were a Christian village. We went to stand there. We are paid peanuts.”
“Tompolo Fought. His Father’s Leg Was Nearly Amputated”
Asari-Dokubo contrasted what he said were the sacrifices of the Ijaw leader with those of the men he named.
“You did not call the Olu of Warri an Itsekiri man, who is taking unmerited — he never fought anywhere — 2.7 trillion a year,” he said. “Tompolo fought. His father’s leg was nearly amputated. His families were destroyed. What did their father fight for? What did you fight for?”
He said his critic’s medium was easy. “Coming to talk on social media is very cheap. I’ve been talking on social media before you came.”
“I Said I Don’t Want It. Now I Want It”
In a passage that amounts to a change of position, Asari-Dokubo said he had previously declined a pipeline arrangement and would now seek one.
“When I went to the president, he had to — I said, ‘I don’t want it.’ Now I want it, because you, with that mouth,” he said.
He repeated it later: “The contract I do today have nothing to do with Niger Delta, but now it will do. It go do oh.”
On The Kalabari, And A Lesson On Opportunity
Asari-Dokubo turned to the argument that only an Ikwerre person should govern Rivers State, and answered it against his own people.
“Let me tell you, I’m a Kalabari man. Kalabari had their opportunity that they threw away. So we should learn from Ikwerre people. We had opportunity that we threw away. As you make your bed, so you are going to lie on it.”
He said the Kalabari had held the highest offices. “There is no sub-nationality in the whole country — Kalabari can compete with Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo in holding federal position. Attorney-General, UN Under-Secretary. What have we not produced? What did we do with it? Let’s for once tell ourselves the truth. What did we do with it?”
He attributed the loss to internal division. “So we had opportunities, we did not use it. We were bickering. This one is hating this one. When we were growing up, we hear all this rubbish. And now, this chicken have come home to roost. And then we are crying. The consequences of our action is tearing us on the face. And that’s why a child must learn.”
His Family
Asari-Dokubo listed his siblings and children in support of his claim to standing: a brother who is an associate professor in the United States, a sister in the House of Representatives, two lawyers, a brother in London, one working with the United Nations in South Sudan and another in Addis Ababa, a daughter at ECOWAS, and a daughter in Dublin working for a pharmaceutical company.
“You don’t know my family? You don’t know my pedigree?” he said. “Those are children of Justice Goodhead.”
The Threats
In several passages Asari-Dokubo issued warnings to those he was addressing, including a woman he did not name.
“Come to my front and ask me, and you will know. Talk is easy. Come to my front and ask me, and you will see what will happen to you,” he said.
Of the woman, he said: “They brought one Yoruba woman insulting people in my domain. She go see pepper. Mark it oh, she go see pepper. Nothing go carry her leg run. No be me go push her. When the time come —”
He also said of his critic’s family: “May God punish all their generation.”
What The Broadcaster Said
RNN TV, whose presenter was Ms. Esther Olatunji, reported the video while repeatedly qualifying it.
The broadcaster said Asari-Dokubo “did not present documentary evidence in the video to establish the two point seven trillion naira claim,” and that “the individuals he mentioned had also not publicly responded to the allegation at the time of the report.”
It placed the matter in a wider frame. “Pipeline surveillance has become an important part of Nigeria’s efforts to protect oil infrastructure and reduce pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft. But whenever billions or trillions of naira are involved, questions about who receives the contracts, how much is paid, and what results are being achieved naturally become important.”
It noted that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar “has separately called for greater disclosure of spending on pipeline security and the beneficiaries of such contracts.”
And it concluded: “For now, however, the two point seven trillion naira figure remains an allegation attributed to Asari Dokubo, not an independently established fact. The people and organizations mentioned should also have an opportunity to respond.”
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