Abducted girls: Asari Dokubo is a jester - Shettima replies

By Ehi Ekhator

The executive governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima has said that he would not trade words with a joker like the ex-Niger Delta Militant, Asari-Dokubo who said that the governor knows where the abducted girls are.

Shettima spoke through his spokesman, Isa Gusau yesterday.

Shettima

The spokesperson responding to some media report quoting Dokubo  alleged accusation on the person of Shettima and his party that the abducted girls in Chibok  were staged, and what he referred to as a political scam to scandalise the name of President Goodluck Jonathan ahead of 2015 elections.

Gusau said“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 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 peole like respected lawyers like Festus Keyamo, intermittently speaking without protocol and without shame like a child.

“He is just a joke,no reasonable Nigerian takes him serious. He was reported saying 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.

Dokubo

“He wants to be regarded as a hero but I tell you that no one sees him as such in thhe 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’. Asari dubiously took advantage of Isaac Boro event which attracts participants to make say what he said so that the procession would seem like a support bases 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 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?.

Gasau added that Asari Dokubo is one of the negative influence creating bad impression on the Presidency, adding that  “earlier the Presidency distances itself from Asari, the quicker his childish views don’t do further damage to those he tries to please”.

The abduction of the students of Chibok has attracted a lot of criticism on the Presidency and Dokubo has stood his ground that the abduction was orchestrated by the governor of Borno State and his political party, to discredit the Presidency in order to stop him from re-contesting.

Dokubo stressed that, no girls are missing but a complete scam, accusing the governor of knowing the whereabouts of the girls shown on the video by the leader of Boko Haram, Shekau.

Abducted girls: Asari Dokubo is a jester - Shettima replies