Jubilee day bomb blast at Abuja

Source: independent
By Willy Bozimo

Un-believable. That a group of mindless butchers peddling  dangerous wares such as car bombs found it convenient to display their animalistic and barbaric instincts on the day Nigeria was celebrating its well deserved 50 years of independence and nationhood, is highly reprehensible.

It is more perturbing in view of the fact that the whole world was at the Eagle Square, hoping, that we had overcome our years of political rascality and the now discredited self centered politics where the winner takes it all and the loser in self righteous indignation, says, ‘If I can’t get it I will bomb the nation out of existence’

Rationally, one finds it inconceivable and rather preposterous for a group that had moved away from acts terrorism fighting after late president Umaru Yar’dua declared and granted amnesty to Niger Delta youths  to be remotely linked with the bomb blasts that shook the innocence of Abuja. 

The loss of lives of innocent Nigerians who were within the periphery of the Eagle Square has thrown the country into avoidable disharmony along political divides. Some see it as a deliberate ploy to create a climate of fear by political agents such as  MEND, a former activist umbrella grouping under which, most Niger Delta freedom fighters had operated to free the oil producing belt from the stranglehold of the lopsided federal government which had remained impervious to decades of cries of marginalization of the crude oil and gas owners of the Wetland.

The president’s first reaction to the bomb blasts  when he went to condole the victims at the Abuja national hospital was a belief that the bombs ‘were not planted by MEND but were acts of terrorists. We are on the trail of the perpetrators and we know who their sponsors are.’ His cocksureness about the people behind this monumental attack on Abuja initially appeared slightly too fast but as the commander in chief of the armed forces and president of the federal republic of Nigeria, he definitely had access to other facts   from sources not immediately available to  most Nigerians.

Dr Jonathan, whose seeming docility could be mistaken for weakness appears on the surface not to be capable of handling serious security breaches as some former self- styled military presidents and military heads of government would have us believe. But in a democracy where the rule of law excels, things are not done in the way and manner of the former military rulers, rashly and ‘with immediate effect’.

If it were possible for a civilian president to handle the bomb blasts suspects in the same way that the some former military dictators are known to have  done  , he would have arrested not just Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, the Director General of the IBB campaign organization, but he would have sent security operatives  to Agenebode, Dokpesi’s village in Edo state to arrest all of his sisters, brothers and anybody remotely or distantly connected with him  and thrown them into detention camps under the pretext of carrying out an attempted coup d’tat.

One is saddened to see my good friend, Dr. Raymond Dokpesi, being picked for routine questioning by the SSS because of some text messages from some of those arrested in connection with the bomb blasts. From the moment he agreed to work for the former military president IBB, one knew he, perhaps, took a wrong decision in view of his earlier pro South South activism and the aspirations of the Niger delta, not just as a Media guru with A.I.T and RAY POWER at his beck and call, but he has also being also a credible south south leader, whose contributions in the past can not be under rated or dismissed with a wave of the hand.

I do not think Nigerians should politicize the issue of the tragic two bomb blasts on Jubilee day in Abuja. For MEND to be associated with the blasts sounds rather spooky especially in these heady-days of a dragon -ridden presidential campaign, within the scenario of a gang up and conspiratorial theories surrounding four candidates of northern extraction namely, - IBB, ATIKU, GUSAU,and Dr. SARAKI.We are  observing very grave signs that ambitious politicians are resorting to ethnic and religious  sentiments to achieve their aims.

One sore point that continues to bother one  is the MEND  claim and counter claim by Henry Okah in far away South Africa to the effect that some close aides within the presidency had appealed to him to  retract  MEND’s claiming responsibility for the Independence day bomb blasts. The matters arising are neither here nor there, as it seems like one man’s viewpoints against another , with no independent source to sort out   whose claims are authentic or faked.

One is likely to see a disturbing trend in the months preceeding the presidential, Gubernatorial and other primaries in which a group outside of the control of MEND could create a scene and attribute it to MEND, in these high wire political times where anything goes, it is not impossible for MEND to be faked by other miscreants who then place the blame on MEND.

We know that Nigerians have been known to fake  drugs and other food items, alcoholic beverages, such as STOUT, STAR and even Paints., It could therefore be that MEND  had been ,’Taiwanized’ and repackaged for purposes of  giving the Niger Delta activists a bad name  and.  The most realistic and practical way  for the former militants, who have been refurbished and born again,to enhance their credibility, is to console the president , and make it clear that they had no hand in the two jubilee bomb blasts.

All those home based former freedom fighters who had benefited from the Amnesty should evolve a new spokesperson amongst themselves, either Asari  Dokubo, Tompolo or Ateke Tom or Boyloaf, People we can identify as Rebranded Freedom Fighters working for the peace and development of the Niger Delta and Nigeria. 

To continue to allow a GOMO JOMO to send text messages to media houses and people in authority on behalf of MEND would jeopardize the true  face of  the born again militants, who now see  one of their own as the President in waiting in 2011 and are therefore not into further mischief.