Asari Dokubo: Biography, activism, net worth, family
Asari Dokubo, formerly Melford Dokubo Goodhead Jr. and commonly known as Asari, is a political figure of the Ijaw ethnic group in the Niger Delta, Nigeria.
Beginning in 2001, he served as the Ijaw Youth Council’s president. Subsequently, he founded the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, becoming one of the most well-known armed organisations operating in the Niger Delta.
He is a Muslim with populist beliefs and an anti-government posture, which have helped some locals regard him as a folk hero.
Table of Content hide 1Biography 2Career 3Activism 4Net worth 5Family 6ConclusionBiography
Asari Dokubo was born in 1964 into a middle-class Christian household that included four other children and was headed by a court judge in Buguma, Rivers State. He attended both basic and secondary school in Port Harcourt.
He was admitted to the law school of the University of Calabar, but he left after just three years in 1990, claiming issues with the institution’s administration. He made additional attempts to finish his study. However, he quit again st the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, citing the same reason as when he was in Calabar.
Career
After quitting school, Asari Dokubo converted to Islam and changed his name to Mujahid Dokubo-Asari to reflect the shift.
He became actively interested in politics in the 1990s and ran unsuccessfully in 1992 and 1998 for two positions in Rivers.
The Niger Delta’s Ijaw ethnic minority created the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) in 1998 with the main goal of advancing their interests. Asari was chosen as the organisation’s vice-president because he was a founding member.
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Activism
Asari left school and later changed his name to Mujahid Dokubo-Asari to commemorate his conversion to Islam. He attempted to get active in local politics during most of the 1990s, seeking unsuccessfully in 1992 and 1998 for two posts in Rivers State.
In 1998, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) was established, and Asari was chosen as one of the founding members to serve as the group’s vice-president. In November, the group released the Kaiama Declaration, which expressed long-standing Ijaw worries about losing sovereignty over their homeland and their own lives to the Nigerian government and nearby oil firms. Oil corporations were urged to halt activities and withdraw from the declaration, and a letter was addressed to them.
As part of its commitment to fight peacefully for freedom, self-determination, and ecological justice, the IYC prepared ‘Operation Climate Change,’ a campaign of celebration, prayer, and direct action, starting on December 28, 1998.
The Nigerian government reacted by immediately cracking down on the organisation.
In 2001, Asari was elected president of the IYC, guiding the organisation toward its Resource Control and Self Determination By Any Means Necessary goals.
Asari had vanished from view by 2004. He would later establish the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDPVF), a significant cause of disturbance in the Delta area. A militant organisation called the NDPVF was largely supported by local and regional politicians looking to make significant sums of money off the oil wealth in the area. The Niger Delta Vigilante (NDV), a rival organisation also vying for control of the Delta’s oil riches, and the NDPVF swiftly escalated their armed battle. Combat was mainly confined to Warri, formerly Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil hub, and regions southwest of the city. Both organisations participated in illicit local resource exploitation, such as bunkering, for oil.
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Former financial backers of the NDPVF withdrew their support due to the organization’s shift in political philosophy, and they started sending money to the rival NDV instead. The Nigerian state was then declared to be under “all-out war” by Asari’s NDPVF.
Although Asari has made it plain that he does not support any specific Biafra independence group, he has previously attended events alongside Ralph Uwazurike of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). He had also lauded Nnamdi Kanu of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) until recently.
Net worth
Asari’s net worth is estimated at N622.5 million ($1.5m). He is one of the rich and famous political figures in Nigeria.
Family
Boma Dokubo and Asari Dokubo are married, and they have four children together: Amirah, Hassan, Hussain, and Osama. Alhaja Zainab Asari Dokubo, his first wife, was killed in a car accident in 2016 while travelling to Ibadan.
Asari moved his assets out of the Niger Delta in Nigeria and into Cotonou in 2013, where he built several schools, colleges, and a university for the city’s students and schoolchildren. In 2014, Asari was granted citizenship by the Benin Republic.
Conclusion
Due to the NDPVF’s threats to destroy oil wells and pipelines, local businesses withdrew most of their employees from the Niger Delta, drastically reducing oil production by 30,000 barrels per day and sharply increasing the price of petroleum globally. Olusegun Obasanjo, the President of Nigeria, summoned Asari and the NDV leader, Ateke Tom, to Abuja for peace talks, which were largely unsuccessful due to the crisis this caused.
Asari was detained and accused of treason by the Federal Government after he refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and for publicly supporting the right of his native Ijaw people to self-determination and independence of the Niger Delta. Asari was granted bail on June 14, 2007, as part of Umaru Yar’Adua’s campaign promise to restore peace to the Niger Delta.
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