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Ex-militants under the Amnesty Phase II today called on the Federal Government to relocate oil facilities from the Niger Delta before terminating the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
In a statement signed by Ex-Militant leader, Ambassador (Chief) Kingsley Muturu, the ex-militants said they can no longer guaranty the safety of oil installations in the Niger Delta region.
In the a reaction to the planned termination of the Amnesty programme, the ex-militants said,“Accordingly, before terminating the PAP, we advise the Federal Government to kindly relocate all oil facilities from the Niger Delta region to another safer haven. This advice is intended to avert consequences of sure military deployment by the FG which unfortunately believes more in thrust of physical force to spill innocent blood of people of the oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta”.
Instead of leveraging on relative peace in the Niger Delta from leadership interventions for development and reintegration of ex-militants with jobs, the ex-militants claimed that the amnesty programme suffered declining fortunes under Gen Paul Boroh who was arm-twisted by agents of the FG to the detriment of Niger Deltans.
“The idea of peace and deserved development of the Niger Delta for which Late President Musa Umar Yar’Adua laudably offered and implemented the Amnesty programme remains far from being achieved”.
“With recent denials of Niger Deltans in educational programmes of the PAP, is the FG not orchestrating the denial of Niger Deltans from the prospect of being in the commanding heights of political and economic decision making in the Nigerian nation that has so held us down?”.
“It is disheartening that even those interested in the Agricultural trainings and whose trainings were supposed to last longer were reduced to 2-weeks training or less. The implication is that they were not trained at all while the vendors (contractors) of such programmes smile to the banks with huge amounts”.
The ex-militants further claimed that politicians and bad advisers were preventing Gen Boroh from meeting with leaders of the militants for which the programme was designed so they may offer suggestions for continued improvement.
They said budgetary constraints disabled payment of a housing allowance of N150, 000.00 per year paid once under Kingsley Kuku as Coordinator of the PAP.
The ex-militants said: “Several militants that we have engaged and who are undecided as yet to embrace amnesty for the good of the nation are turning around to mock us over the FG lacklustre disposition to the PAP. We had thought that an amnesty programme that is progressively better sponsored, not terminated, would take the wind off the sail of those still bent on vandalism as a means of agitation”.
“The planned termination of the Amnesty Programme gives THE LIE to the impression the current FG had given that it needs peace upon which it may execute its avowed development agenda for the Niger Delta”.
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