Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson

Alex Ferguson will retire as Manchester United manager at the end of the season, the Premier League champions announced on Wednesday.

Ferguson, 71, guided United to 13 Premier League titles and two European Champions League crowns in the 26 years he was in charge at Old Trafford.

“The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not taken lightly. It is the right time,’’ Ferguson said in a statement.

Ferguson, who will remain at United as a director and club ambassador, said he was confident he was stepping down as manager with the squad in good shape.

“It was important to me to leave an organisation in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so,’’ he said.

Reps, Niger gov want Dokubo-Asari, Kuku arrested

The House of Representatives on Tuesday asked the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, to quiz ex-militant, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, over his latest comment that there would be no peace in Nigeria if President Goodluck Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015.

In a separate statement, Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu also asked security agencies to arrest Dokubo-Asari for alleged treasonable offence.

In a resolution in Abuja, the federal lawmakers said Dokubo-Asari’s statement was “capable of causing disaffection in Nigeria.”

Dokubo-Asari is the Leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force.

Dokubo-Asari threat came on the heels of a similar statement credited to the Presidential Adviser on Amnesty, Mr. Kingsley Kuku.

Both Dokubo-Asari and Kuku are Jonathan’s kinsmen from the South-South zone of the country.

The Reps said the police authorities should interrogate both men to clarify their statements.

The House resolution also mandated its Joint Committee on Police Affairs/Internal Security to investigate the matter and produce a report.

A member from Kano State, Mr. Ali Madaki, had drawn the attention of the House to Dokubo-Asari’s comment under matters of urgent public importance.

Madaki called on the Federal Government to “check the utterances of some Nigerians capable of causing disaffection in Nigeria,” citing Dokubo-Asari and Kuku’s statements as examples.

He noted that the threat and the reference to the 2015 presidential poll could heat up the polity, “thereby causing unnecessary tension and anxiety in this country.”

The motion was not debated at the Tuesday’s session presided over by the Speaker, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, but lawmakers endorsed the motion in a unanimous voice vote.

Dokubo-Asari, while addressing journalists in Abuja, had threatened that the country would not know peace if Jonathan was not re-elected.

He was also quoted as saying that militancy and struggle for control of oil and gas resources in the Niger-Delta region would be re-ignited after the Jonathan presidency.

According to him, the relative peace in the region is due to the fact that Jonathan is the President and not the amnesty declared by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

Dokubo-Asari had said, “I called this briefing because of events that are unfolding in the polity.

“Recently, the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, made a statement in the United States of America, that the peace being enjoyed in the Niger Delta will not be guaranteed if President Goodluck Jonathan is not returned as President of Nigeria in 2015.

“This statement has been supported by several groups from the region.

“Also, the statement has been attracting reactions from several quarters, expectedly from the Action Congress of Nigeria and others.

“I want to go on to say that, there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015, except God takes his life, which we don’t pray for.

“Jonathan has uninterruptible eight years of two terms to be president, according to the Nigeria constitution.

“We must have our uninterrupted eight years of two tenure, I am not in support of any amendment of the constitution that will reduce the eight years of two tenure that Goodluck Jonathan is expected to be president of Nigeria.”

While receiving members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education, led by Honourable Aminu Sule, who visited him in Minna, Aliyu described the statement credited to Asari Dokubo as “unfortunate and inciting,” saying “by now the security agencies should have arrested him for treason”.

He said, “You don’t win election by frightening people and even if you win, the victory will be pyrrhic”.

While asking politicians to advise their supporters to watch their tongues, the Niger State governor said some statements were capable of causing disunity in the country.

“We should bring discipline to our politics; we should be a nation of rules, so that our country would move forward,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kuku on Tuesday denied reports quoting him as having said that there would be violence in the country if Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015.

Kuku said that the statement he made at the American Department of State was wrongly reported by a section of the media.

The President’s aide said that he made a call on Nigerians to give yet another opportunity to the President to continue in office to ensure implementation of agreements reached between the leaders of the Niger Delta ex- militants and the late President Umaru Yar’Adua that offered them amnesty.

He said that the Yar’Adua administration repeatedly assured the leaders of the various militant groups in the region that the government would take a conscious step to develop the Niger Delta.

That promise, according to him, has not been fulfilled.