Special adviser on Communications and spokesman to Governor Kashim Settima of Borno state, Isa Gusau has described the ex Niger Delta militant, Alhaji Asari Dokubo as a jester with whom his boss will not trade tackle.
Gusau who reacted to some media reports yesterday quoting Dokubo as alleging that no girl was abducted in Chibok, Borno state and that Governor Shettima and his party, All Progressives Congress (APC) staged a political scam on the kidnap to hit at President Goodluck Jonathan ahead off 2015 elections said the ex militant is only trying to be a hero by default.
“Governor Shettima is too serious minded to reply Asari Dokubo who is just a joker as most Nigerians regard him. As a onetime journalist covering the Niger Delta, I had come in direct contact with Asari when he organized 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. He was intermittently speaking without protocol and without shame.
“He is just a joker. No reasonable Nigerian takes him serious. He was reportedly saying that Chibok abduction was a sham. I won’t be surprised if by next week the same Asari Dokubo will lead another rally to counter the one he just held. Last year, Asari was reportedly speaking against Presidency. Now he has changed the tune. 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 said that Dokubo wants to be regarded as a hero, adding: “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 the saying goes, ‘you can fool some people for sometimes, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,’ Asari dubiously took advantage of Isaac Boro event to say what he said so that the procession would seem like a support base for his isolated opinion.
“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.
“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 acting when he (the governor) is busy working very hard with all relevant bodies to find ways to secure the freedom of his precious daughters in captivity?”
