The comment purportedly credited to a former Niger Delta activist, Mujaheed Asari-Dokubo, over the Chibok abduction has been faulted.
Asari-Dokubo had allegedly accused Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima of staging the April 14 Chibok abduction of over 200 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok , Borno State to score a cheap political goal against President Goodluck Jonathan ahead of 2015 general elections..
But faulting the comment and slamming Asari-Dokubo on Monday was the Special Adviser to Governor Shettima on Communications, Alhaji Isa Gusau, who also described the former Niger Delta militant as a jester.
Maintaining that his boss will not trade words with “a jester like ex Niger Delta Militant leader, Asari Dokubo,” Gusau said: “Governor Shettima is too serious-minded to reply Asari Dokubo who is just a joker as most Nigerians regard him. “
According to Shettima’s aide, “As a one-time journalist covering the Niger Delta, I had come in direct contact with Asari when he organised a rally in support of late Gaddafi in Port Harcourt and also when he organised the 2011/2012 Isaac Boro lecture in Port Harcourt which he kept interrupting, taking over the microphone from people like respected lawyers like Festus Keyamo, intermittently speaking without protocol and without shame like a child.”
Slamming Asari-Dokubo further, Gusau added: “He is just a joker, no reasonable Nigerian takes him serious. He was reported as saying that Chibok abduction was a sham; I won’t be surprised if by next week the same Asari Dokubo leads another rally to counter the one he just held.
“Last year, Asari was reported speaking against Presidency, then he changed tune now; we don’t know what happened but that is how he is, he uses the media for personal interest and some sort of blackmail.”
Gusau stated further: “He (Asari) wants to be regarded as a hero but I tell you that no one sees him as such in the Niger Delta that I had covered. He is trying to force unwilling public to see him different from who he is but like a say goes, ‘you can fool some people all the time, you can fool all the people sometime but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Recalling his days as a journalist covering the Niger-Delta, Gusau alleged that “Asari dubiously took advantage of Isaac Boro event which attracts participants to say what he said so that the procession would seem like a support base for his isolated opinion.”
According to Gusau, “I saw some pictures of some girls in one house displaying some placards. From the faces, I think he probably assembled some of his immediate and extended family members and gave them placards. One person wrote on all the cards, the same writing, all of which look like a sort of Mickey Mouse scene in cartoon series.”
Maintaining that his boss does not have time for a person like Asari-Dokubo, Gusau said: ” How can Governor Shettima reply a jester, how can he respond to such a play by Asari that falls far below the standard of Nollywood when he is busy working very hard with all relevant bodies finding ways on how to secure the freedom of his and Borno’s precious daughters in captivity?”
He dismissed Asari Dokubo as one of those attracting negative impression against the Presidency, warning that the “earlier the Presidency distances itself from Asari, the quicker his childish views don’t do further damage to those he tries to please”.
