Asari Dokubo’s Unquiet Reemergence

The leadership of the army and navy immediately refuted Asari Dokubo’s allegation, challenging him to provide evidence. While the navy claimed the latest operation by the service had saved the country from losing N71 billion to oil thieves, the army insisted that it had zero tolerance for any compromise on the part of its troops and would not condone such acts of economic sabotage.

Tinubu’s meeting with Asari Dokubo seems to be part of a larger attempt to protect Nigeria’s oil interest and address the problem of oil theft. According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Nigeria, from 2009 to 2020 lost N16.3 trillion to oil theft. A week ago, presumably to resolve the oil theft crisis, Tinubu had met with the former managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Timi Alaibe, and the former director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, Dr Dakuku Peterside.

While Tinubu might be concerned about protecting Nigeria’s oil assets, his meeting with a known former militant has raised eyebrows. In 2004, Asari Dokubo founded the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, a militant organization that terrorized the Niger Delta region in its battle for resource control. Conflict in the Niger Delta goes as far back as the 1990s, when tensions emerged between foreign oil corporations and several Niger Delta minority ethnic groups who felt exploited, particularly the Ogoni and the Ijaw. Against this backdrop, the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force grew to be one of the deadliest groups in the region. In 2004, Nigeria’s waters were ranked the most deadly in the world due to the activities of militants who attacked foreign ships, oil installations and vandalized oil pipelines. Despite efforts by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration to prevail upon Asari Dokubo to stop the vandalism including a one-on-one meeting between Asari Dokubo and President Obasanjo in Abuja, the militant leader and his group continued their operation. This led to Asari Dokubo’s arrest in 2005, after he was charged with treason. Asari Dokubo remained in detention until 2007 when the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration, as part of an amnesty arrangement, agreed to his release.

The federal government’s amnesty programme agreement meant that the militants were required to give up their guns and to agree to end the violence in the Niger Delta in exchange for cash rewards and oil protection contracts. According to the Wall Street Journal, Asari Dokubo was promised an annual cash payment of $10 million a year as ‘pipeline security protection fee’. Although Asari Dokubo kept a relatively low profile, between 2007 and 2013, he was arrested multiple times for violence-related charges in Nigeria and the Benin Republic, the West African nation that has been his second home, and where he owns a university and other investments.