From Okwe Obi, Abuja
Former agitators, under the auspices of Niger Delta Integrity Group (NDIG), have condemned a petition presented to the National Security Adviser, against the Interim Administrator, Barry Ndiomu, of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), by some contractors over alleged graft.
A coalition of former militants leaders had raised the alarm over an alleged diversion of funds allocated to PAP.
But NDIG convener, Boma Horsfall, in a statement, yesterday, described the allegations as untrue, baseless, unfounded, and a clear case of a sponsored attempts to distract the PAP boss from the good works of the new administration.
Horsfall noted with dismay, how some people from Ijaw would choose to remain non-futuristic, disunited and sticking to the culture of pulling down one other.
He recalled how the likes of Paul Boro, the late Charles Dokubo and others who are of Ijaw ethnic extraction were pulled down by their own people while heading the agency.
“It is sad that our people have maintained the trend of writing petitions to drag each other down, rather than focusing on things that will move the Niger Delta region forward.
“The NDIG recalls there was a time when a northerner was appointed on interim basis to head the PAP. Did they write petitions at the time?
“PAP receives a monthly budgetary allocation of N5 billion. Out of this amount, over N3.8 billion is exhausted on paying monthly stipends of former agitators with bulk payments to their leaders, who are called the ‘Big Five’, educational scholarships are also facilitated from this monthly fund. Unpaid contractors are settled from same fund, the day-to-day running of the PAP office, stakeholders engagement meetings, salaries of staff, are all sorted from this fund. So what remains to be diverted?
“Given this huge monthly expenditure of the PAP, the said sum of N12 billion being diverted is laughable and unrealistic,” he said.