MEND’s Mendacious Claims

MEND’s Mendacious Claims

By Sam Onimisi

Mr. Henry Okah, the self-proclaimed leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) has claimed responsibility for the October 1, 2010 bombing of Abuja. He also claimed that the President, Goodluck Jonathan, through a presidential aide, urged him to declare that Northern political figures were behind the blasts. Beyond the claims of Henry Okah and the denials of the Presidency, Nigerians must dig deep to know the brains behind the blast and their motives. We must nut allow the political class alone to do the claims and counter claims, or else the truth may never be known.
If Henry Okah is resident at far away South Africa, how was he connected to the bomb blasts in Abuja? Is Okah a fugitive or a businessman? What is his residency status in that Country? If he was a part of the amnesty plan of the late President Yar’ Adua, at what point did he fall out? Is he in position to control or command a militia while domiciled abroad? Who are his foot soldiers in Nigeria and how does he communicate with them? Why did Okah choose a faceless interview with Aljazeera TV instead of a video taped one, given the wide reach of the Arabian broad-casting network? Perhaps we should leave these questions for the security agencies handling the investigation. But can we afford to overlook the political implication and consequence of the blasts? In my humble view, we cannot and should not, if only to establish the truth and for the sake of a peaceful polity.
Now, we all know that since the implementation of the amnesty programme began, the Niger Delta has been relatively peaceful, except for isolated skirmishes which are normal in the aftermath of war and disorder. We also know that the skirmishes were confined to Niger Delta and between the various militant groups. Given the successful rehabilitation of the first batches of the militants, there seems to be no reason why MEND would want to revive the fight, and escalate it to Abuja. Even at the heat of the crisis between 2007 and 2009, Henry Okah was not a significant force in the struggle, except as arms supplier. I mean to say that he was not one of the commanders of MEND.
What is possible or discernible is that Henry Okah may have become jobless since the cessation of the crisis. Since no one has any more use for his weapons, his gun running enterprise has dried up, or so it seems. It is also possible that as an arms merchant, patronage for his business has dwindled and profits has also nosedived and so, he could no longer support his life of luxury and opulence. Meaning that if he wants to continue to maintain his high taste for comfort, he is a willing candidate for hire by those who wants political power by all means. Together, they (I mean Henry and his patrons) could easily assemble some malcontents who would assume the pseudonym and nomenclature of MEND. In this case, Henry Okah may actually be the foreign-based agent of a group based in Nigeria whose primary aim is to intimidate the rest of us to surrender power to them – with little or no contest.
If that is the case, it is futile to blame President Jonathan either for sponsoring the terrorists and even idiotic for calling him a spokesman of the terrorists. This is because the President is bent on contesting for power and has made it public. He could not, in the wildest of imagination assemble terrorists to disrupt the electoral process in which he is a beneficiary. That he rushed to exonerate MEND may be an indiscretion or a product of his vast knowledge of the characters in the Niger Delta struggle and the security facts at his disposal or both. Until the bomb blasts, there were two running security breaches for which Hausa/Fulani Islamic militants were responsible: the Jos ethno-religious massacre and the Boko Haram heinous activities in the North East/North West axis. It is remarkable that the Northern G-15 never saw an opportunity to ask the Governors of those zones to resign, except that they wanted a state of emergency declared in Plateau State, they were completely silent on the Boko Haramites’ terrorism. So, if Henry Okah is to be held out as a Niger Deltan who doesn’t want Jonathan to run for the Presidency, his opponents in the race has the Boko Haram and Jos massacre as their disqualification. The October 1 bomb blasts may very well be an extension of the zoning war of the PDP in which one side decided to take the fight to his opponents –using familiar but fake tools for disguise!
I am reminded that some months ago, we had a ‘Cabal’ in the Federal Executive Council that held Nigeria captive to their group interest, using the illness of our late President as a shield. I have also not forgotten as you remember, that a faceless voice was video-taped by BBC who was purported to be the voice of our President but whose face was meant to be a forbidden sight to behold. May be a new MEND of the Cabal felt that if BBC with its world acclaimed reputation was discredited and disgraced by the purported Yar’Adua interview, a different channel with near similar reputation such as Aljazeera TV should be used for the supposed Henry Okah’s faceless interview. E-e-m-m-m, do you understand? Of course, Dokpesis’s A.I.T. also have a world-wide reach as Aljazeera. When I asked why they did not fetch out Henry Okah for the interview, then I was reminded why N.T.A was not used for the infamous Yar’Adua audio-video interview. I s-e-e!!
In a recent Press statement by the Presidential Campaign Organization of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Alh, Atiku Abubakar, Gen. Aliyu Gusau and Dr. Abubakar Saraki, the quartet recalled that on 1st September 2010 (exactly one month to the bomb blasts), Dr. Dokpesi’ had raised alarm that attempts will be made on his own life, among other allegations. Fortunately or unfortunately, the bomb blasts could not locate Dokpesi as he was not anywhere near the scene of the blasts. But if High Chief Dokpesi had a premonition of attempts on his own life, is the lives of other Nigerians not worth the effort of A.I.T. to have sought out Henry Okah for a video interview? Or is it that his alarm was a red-herring as a camouflage for what he knew was to come? You see, questions are loaded with answers and there may be as many answers as there are respondents. Whoever arranged the controversial Yar’Adua audio-video BBC interview could also have arranged the Henry Okah audio-video Aljazeera interview. If the arrangers are not the same, it is not for you and me to tell. I suppose that job belongs to the investigating authorities. All we care for is that the mendacious claims of MEND must be verified and the instigators visited with appropriate punishment as a deterrent.