From Tony John, Port Harcourt
The Presidential Amnesty Scholarship Alumni (PASA) has disowned the self-acclaimed President of the National Association for Presidential Amnesty Students Worldwide (NAPASW), Lucky Ukueku, for his failed attempts to undermine the achievements of the Interim Administrator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col Milland Dixon Dikio (retd).
PASA, who described Ukaeku’s remarks in a statement that all was not well with the amnesty programme as cheap blackmail, said it was unacceptable, illegal and irresponsible for him to be parading himself as the leader of NAPASW despite completing his scholarship programme with PAP.
PASA, in a statement signed by its coordinator, James Warigo, insisted that Ukueku had no locus to speak for the amnesty scholarship students as he was no longer part of them.
Besides, Warigo recalled that at different fora, genuine scholarship students of PAP had poured encomiums on Dikio describing his administration, style and reforms as exceptional.
Warigo recalled that in September 2020, when Dikio took over PAP from the Caretaker Committee after the closure of admissions, he inherited a debt burden of N71.4 billion for a programme with an annual budget of N65 billion.
He said with prudent management of scarce resources, Dikio had been able to keep the programme afloat by ensuring prompt payments of stipends, school fees and other allowances.
Warigo observed that in 2022 alone, PAP under Dikio was able to deploy 1,700 students to various institutions to make up for lost time despite restrictions imposed on such deployment.
On the complaint by Ukueku that under Dikio, laptops had not been given to students, Warigo said his findings revealed that Dikio inherited a laptop scam and had put measures in place to clean up the rot before issuing new laptops.
He said Dikio would have since cleared the rot but was hindered by multiple lawsuits that had slowed down the process making the matter subjudice.
Warigo cautioned the likes of Ukueku against turning their attention-seeking and self-serving enterprise into a collective agitation, adding that Ukueku should have leveraged on the academic training he got from PAP scholarship to be an ambassador of good character.
He said the entire PAP’s alumni were ashamed and highly embarrassed by the statement signed by Ukueku, who desired to remain forever a student that begged for favours and when denied would resort to all manner of subterfuge and blackmail.
He said: “The Presidential Scholarship Alumni (PASA) condemns in strong terms the statement credited to Ukueku, who has graduated from the PAP scholarship scheme and lacks the locus to speak for the current scholarship students.
“The current scholarship students have only but kind words for the Interim Administrator, Col. Milland Dixon Dikio (retd) for reforming, repositioning and reorganizing all departments in PAP including the PAP scholarship scheme.
“The students at various fora wished that the Federal Government will extend the tenure of Dikio and make him a substantive coordinator of the scheme in the interest of education, development and peace of the Niger Delta and the country.
“We know for a fact that Ukueku has been constantly harassing the interim administrator and other key officials of PAP for a foreign scholarship to pursue a master’s degree after enjoying four years of full scholarship to bag his first degree.
“He fails to realize that scholarship is a privilege and not a right and there are thousands of Niger Delta youths who will do anything to get the opportunity he has been given.”
“We want to profusely apologise to Dikio for the irresponsible utterances of Ukueku and appealed to him to continue in his determination to actualise the real mandate of PAP.”