Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
Ex-agitators under the third phase Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) have called on administrator of the scheme, Col. Milland Dikio (Retd) and National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, to overhaul the amnesty office.
According to them the immediate overhaul of the programme was the only way to salvage it and sustain the peace in the Niger Delta region as the current structure made it impossible for the programme to perform optimally and deliver its mandate.
The ex-agitators under the aegis of the Niger Delta Reformed Force (NDRF) disclosed that those creating problems in the office and making it impossible for the scheme to succeed were not from the Niger Delta region. In a statement, the group’s leader, General Osama, asked Dikio and Monguno to immediately disengage all non-indigenes of Niger Delta working in the office to allow people of the region manage their scheme.
The group commended President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing Dikio, an Ijaw to head the programme and expressed confidence in his ability to deliver the huge expectations of all stakeholders in the region. It also hailed Dikio’s strides since he resumed office, especially his efforts to clear outstanding contract payments, stipends of ex-agitators and verification for payment of fees of students of the amnesty programme.
“We urge the NSA and new administrator to as a matter of urgency remove all those who are working in the Amnesty office who do not have any relationship with the Niger Delta region. It wil be easier to hold our brothers and sisters accountable if there are lapses in the system because if they fail to deliver they will not be able to come back home and experience peace. But those from other regions as we have seen over the years are not committed and because they know we can’t reach them, they have mismanaged what should have been one of the best intentions of the Federal Government since we became a sovereign nation.”