The president, Customary Government of Biafra, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari has said that the illegal refining of crude oil in the Niger Delta popularly known as Kpo-fire is not illegal as he supports its continuity in the region.
Asari who made this known while fielding questions from journalists said he is only against the destruction of the environment occasioned by Kpo-fire.
He said, “our people should keep collecting the crude oil from the pipeline until it equates the amount of crude oil the federal government has collected from the region since 1956.
“I am only against Kpo-fire when it destroys our environment, killing our aquatic lives.
“Our people should look for better ways of collecting crude oil from the pipeline in a manner it will not damage our environment.
“As for Kpo-fire, I don’t see anything illegal there. The crude oil is our own and we have the right to collect it as we like.
“I have not done bunkering before and I will never do bunkering but I support that we take anything that belongs to us.
“In Zamfara State, the people there are selling the gold because they believe it is their own since the gold is on their land.
“And same to us here in the Niger Delta, the crude oil is on our land and therefore belongs to us.”
The Niger Delta freedom fighter also denied being an ex militant saying that he has never been convicted before.
“I dragged the federal government up to Supreme Court through my lawyer, Festus Keyamo (SAN) and the FG could not convict me of any crime.
It was the late President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua who went about criminalising Niger Deltans by calling them militants and later came up to say he had given them pardon by granting amnesty.
I never accepted amnesty because it was illegal for the federal government to pardon someone who has not been convicted of any crime.
The federal government only has the right to exercise its constitutional power of prerogative of mercy on a convict or withdraw case against an accused person in court through nolle prosequi.
“I didn’t fall in any of those two categories, so I was never a militant and cannot be addressed today as an ex militant,” Asari said.
