New Telegraph

Awaiting new coordinator for Presidential Amnesty Office

It has been more than five months since Prof. Charles Dokubo was removed as the coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Office. He was suspended and an Interim Management Committee was put in place. Since then, Niger Deltans have waited to see his replacement to no avail. PAULINE ONYIBE in Yenagoa, reports that nerves are already being frayed over the matter

Before the initiation of the Presidential Amnesty Programme for militants in the Niger Delta region, there had been a lot of agitations by indigenes, ranging from discontent against neglect by the government and oil companies to their quest from resource control.

Earlier before the amnesty programme, there was so much poverty in the area where barrels of crude were exploited on daily basis without any form of development to show for the billions of naira that comes from the area. That made the youths to start agitating, starting from the 12- day revolution instituted by the late Isaac Adaka Boro. Starting from then till when the amnesty was granted to the militants, who continued the agitation from where Boro and his team stopped, it was another round of battle between the boys, the Federal Government and the oil companies who were the alleged major culprits.

The boys busted pipes and kidnaped the expatriates among other things but the region didn’t find it funny as many of the oil bearing communities were destroyed, women killed, raped, while children were not left out. But fortunately, the late Umaru Musa Yaradua, the then president of the country through the vice president then, Goodluck Jonathan, mediated and the boys agreed to lay down their arms and that was it. Peace returned to the Niger Delta and oil started flowing again without any disturbance.

The presidential Amnesty Programme commenced on Thursday, July 11, 2009 when the late Yar’Adua opened a window for a period of 60 days for the agitators to lay down their arms. Prior to the proclamation of amnesty, when guns boomed in the creeks of the Niger Delta, Nigeria was said to have lost millions of barrels of crude oil per day estimated to be about N8.7 billion as at May 2009. Between August/October 2009 all known militant groups in the Niger Delta, with 20,192, 6,166 and 3,642 ex-agitators disarmed in the first, second and final phases respectively.

The post amnesty period:

The programme seemed to have made impact on some of the youths involved in the programme as many have now been reintegrated into the society precisely 11 years after amnesty was granted to them. Of course, a total of 30,000 enlisted militants were supposed to be trained at the end of the programme and many of them, especially from Bayelsa State. Most of the militants were trained in wielding, piping, fishery, while many were empowered after being trained with tools for tailoring, baking, hair saloon, among others. Today, most of them, especially the women among them can beat their chests and thank the programme for what they have become.

Right from the day the amnesty office was established, there have been series of coordinators starting from Major General Godwin Abbe to Timi Alaibe, Kingsley Kuku to Paul Boro and to Charles Dokubo, all indigenes of the Niger Delta. Ironically, all have been accused of one form of corrupt and sharp practices to another, the reason they were booed out of office incidentally by the people of the Niger Delta.

Recently, precisely on February 28, 2020, Charles Dokubo was removed following numerous allegations and petitions surrounding the office while the National Security Adviser (NSA) set up a Caretaker Committee to look into the activities of the programme, on the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari. Part of the Committee’s task was to ensure that allocated resources were properly utilized in consonance with government’s objective of alleviating problems in the Niger Delta region and stamping out corruption in the Amnesty Programme. Consequently, the NSA recommended to the President that the Coordinator of the Amnesty Programme, Professor Charles Dokubo be suspended, a recommendation that was approved and which took immediate effect.

The President also directed that the Caretaker Committee set up to review the programme oversees the running of the programme with a view to ensuring that government objectives were achieved. Since that time till now, there is no coordinator to oversee the activities of that office while the ex-agitators have been left to their faith. That has ran into five months now with that office not having any body at least from the Niger Delta region. That has also generated a lot of tension as the militants feel that is a means of or plans to wind up the programme as rumored before.

Call for a new coordinator:

The people of Niger Delta, especially the ex –militants, are calling for a coordinator whom they said must surely come from Niger Delta. Reacting to the delay in appointing another coordinator from the Niger Delta region to man the presidential amnesty office, Prince Layefa Tomkumo, also known as Three Lions of the Niger Delta, noted that one Lawal has been acting for five months now, disclosing that they have been fighting to get a coordinator. He continued: “This amnesty programme belongs to Ijaw people.

It is not even meant for any other tribe in the Niger Delta. Other tribes were quiet when we were carrying arms. “Our people died. They arrested our people, destroyed our communities. We did not see any other community being destroyed. All the communities destroyed were Ijaw communities because it was the Ijaw that carried arms against the Nigerian government to take control of their own wealth. “Nigerian government at the same time was planting criminality to the people that have the wealth. They started maiming us and killing us, destroying our communities.

“If you talk, they labelled you a criminal and put you in prison until amnesty came when the Late Yaradua and Jonathan moved with us to the river and there was proper discussion and amnesty came on board. “Today, people want to hijack the amnesty programme. The amnesty was meant for the Ijaw people.

Now, we need somebody from Delta to coordinate amnesty office. “I mean an Ijaw speaking per-son from Delta. Buhari had a committee with Mongonu leading the committee after Charles Dokubo was sacked and since then, this Lawal and his seven-man committee have been there. No report.

“We don’t know what has happened. Even though our payment was at stake; the stipend will enter two months before they will pay one month. We are tired of that criminality. We are tired of that committee. We want the Ijaw speaking person to coordinate the amnesty office. “If anybody wants to stop the amnesty, then what I have said is true. The Nigerian government has totally disappointed the Niger Delta and we are going to reject the shutting down of the programme. Once they stop amnesty, they have invited war and we don’t want to go to war again.

“If they want Nigeria to grow, let them leave the amnesty programme. Amnesty according to my own dictionary is to closing our mouths so that oil will flow. Amnesty is just a security money. They are rubbing our palms for oil to flow. Once they stop it, the oil is at stake. Operation no mercy to the oil companies and oil companies should be ready to pack away from the Niger Delta.” Also, a group known as Reformed Niger Delta Avengers, lobbying for Charles Dokubo to be returned, said Dokubo is the only amnesty coordinator that has engaged the exmilitant leaders from phase I to phase 2 and phase 3 without neglecting any.

“It is on record that Professor Charles Dokubo is the only amnesty coordinator that has extended the presidential amnesty program to accommodate women empowerment and to train them in different skills like mechanized agricultural farming, fisheries, poultry on fowl egg laying, animal farming with poultry, welding fabrication, among others.

“The RNDA wants to use this medium to call on Mr President to call on the NSA, Maj. Gen. Babagana Mongonu to urgently reinstate Prof Charles Dokubo back to the amnesty office to resume duty as the coordinator in order to enable him finish the good job he has been doing so far in the amnesty office. “The amnesty program cannot be taken over by Northerners who did not have any knowledge on why the amnesty program was established in the first place and the same time, the NSA should not turn this President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government to Hausa/Fulani tribal government.

“RNDA is therefore calling on Mr President to as a matter of urgency call on the NSA to disengage the caretaker interim committee who are all appointed by the NSA from the northern part of the country to manage the amnesty program and reinstate Prof Charles Dokubo back into the amnesty office without any further delay. “It is important to allow the existing sustained and maintained peace in the creeks, devoid of any bombing of oil pipelines and without destruction of any oil facilities at this critical Coronavirus pandemic era.

“Since Buhari is a man of peace and an incorruptible leader of high integrity and a detribalized leader devoid of ethnicity, he should urgently call on the NSA to disengage the activities of the unrecognized illegal interim committee that has been constituted by the NSA to take away what rightfully belongs to the people of the Niger Delta.

“The NSA should know that it is good to allow the sleeping dogs lie and that he should not allow us to wake the calm cool waters in the creek. He should not take our silence and our patience for granted a word is enough for the wise.” The group warned. Ibiba Don Pedro, an award winning journalist, a writer and an Ijaw woman activist, in her reaction, maintained that the office was set up to address the agitations in the Niger Delta. She said: “What has a northerner got to do with it? It is none of their business. Youthful Ijaw blood was shed for that programme to be set up. There is no reason why they should politicize that office.

That office was an outcome of discussions and negotiations with the Federal Government and mostly the Ijaw youth under MEND. “So people should not forget that and nobody should muddle up the programme. They have muddled up that programme already.

There is a lot of corruption there. You have aged men, who are not even ashamed to destroy a programme through which young people lost their lives. They should be ashamed of themselves. They had better get that programme back working. “The government should hasten up to appoint another coordinator and the person must be an Ijaw person. If you look at all the agitations, it is spearheaded by Ijaw people. We should discourage the habit of people always seeking to reap where they have done nothing. Ijaw blood was spilled. “I know that other Niger Delta people were involved but the vast landscape of the agitation in the Niger Delta has been Ijaw people leading the agitation because a lot of people know what is wrong. They feel it but easily shy away from taking control of the situation.

“Ijaw people have paid too heavy a prize for tension to be brought down in the Niger Delta. Let the president appoint a coordinator for the programme and a coordinator and special adviser to president on the Niger Delta matters. “Charles Dokubo messed up the programme.

In the last two years people should ask him how many people he has sent on training whether in Nigeria or outside the country or how many have they trained. They were busy giving all sorts of fictitious contracts and then the place became a bazar for people and everybody goes there to collect money.

“It is a shame. It is a disservice to the memory of people who lost their lives during the MEND agitation; all of the young people who were killed by soldiers before that programme was set up.” Dr Konrad Ekiyor, a public affairs analyst from Byelsa State, said that there was a lot of corruption in the office, adding, “What we should ask ourselves is, has the amnesty office lived up to its expectation from day one? “From day one, every coordinator has been corrupt. For me, that office should be looked at again.

The programme is a beautiful one and it has gone very far. We must remove that possibility of coordinators enriching themselves, so that the benefits of that office should go to people that deserve it not to the coordinators. “The Federal Government should do a detailed study on how they can eliminate this element of coordinators being corrupt and stealing the money that should go to the people.

“For now, nobody is stealing Niger Delta money. Right now, anybody that is agitated is being selfish. “Do you know the level resources Federal Government has pumped into the Niger Delta that would have transformed the whole area but what happens? It goes to individual pockets.” He said. When South South Focus contacted Murphy Ganagana, the media person to the office through the telephone on the latest development at the office, he said: “Nothing is happening. The committee is working” and he quickly cut off the call.

Read Previous

COVID-19: Edo intensifies contact tracing of 4,327 suspected cases

Read Next

Bruised, battered, destroyed by their madams

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *