Asari Blasts Jonathan For Placing Higher Value On Buhari's Life

Ex-militant leader Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, on Tuesday slammed President Goodluck Jonathan over his comment that Nigeria would have boiled if former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari had died in the Kaduna blast that targeted his convoy.

He also exonerated himself from the allegation that he paid the alleged masterminds of the Kaduna blast N5m to carry out the attacks, saying people were out to tarnish his image.

Asari said, “I do not work for Jonathan. What the President said was wrong. The life of Buhari is not more important than 87 people that died in that blast. It is unfortunate that the President made such a statement. I wonder why the President will be promoting one person above other Nigerians. That statement from the President was very unfortunate. I do not have the capacity to tell the President to apologise, but I still insist that he should not have made such a statement.” 

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday in Abuja, he described the President’s comment as unnecessary, because to him the idea of placing the life of one man above the over 80 persons who died in the incident was wrong.

He recalled that, “Soon after the blast, a cross-gender person came out and was arrested. Even the mother of the person arrested said he was insane. Social media reports said I gave them N5m to carry out the attack. These things are masterminded. The first one is against President Jonathan and the other one is against me.

“I did not pay anybody to carry out any assassination attempt on Buhari. I do not have anything against him. He is not a threat. He will fail in 2015. For the records, I do not operate a Twitter account and anyone saying I tweeted that there would be more attacks is only using my name.”

Dokubo-Asari also raised the alarm that all the calculated attacks on him were geared towards shutting him up ahead of the 2015 presidential election.

He said, “They want to silence me because they know the role I will play in 2015. They have also sponsored reports in Benin Republic that I am the person financing Boko Haram. Another Islamic scholar also said I am the one sponsoring Boko Haram to destroy the North on behalf of President Jonathan."