Niger-Delta ex-agitators protest negligence by Amnesty Committee

…Call for appointment of new SA on Amnesty programme

The leaders of ex-agitators in the Niger Delta region have frowned at what they describe as negligence of their members by the Amnesty Programme Committee.

The ex-agitators said since President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Amnesty Committee, the leaders of the ex-agitators in the Niger Delta had not met with the Committee to chart way forward.

The ex-agitators’ leaders said currently, names were being sent for scholarships in various universities without them (ex-agitators leaders) being carried along.

The ex-militants also called on President Buhari to appoint a Special Adviser on Niger Delta to allow them have easy access to the Presidency.

Addressing journalists during a protest in Abuja, one of the leaders of the ex-agitators, General Aso Tambo said the protest was to send a signal to the committee to arrange a meeting with them as soon as possible.

General Tambo who is also the National Chairman to 6166 ex-agitators which formed the Presidential Amnesty phase 2, said the 30,000 ex-agitators were being sent to schools but the leaders of the program in the Niger Delta were not being carried along.

“What we want to do right here is to send a signal to the committee that as they are working, there are people that own this program, there are people that brought about the existence of this program, the people that were agitating in the Niger Delta creeks bearing firearms to ensure that our region is developed the way Lagos and Abuja is. Those where the people that the federal government negotiated with the offer of amnesty.

“The message we want to send across through this medium to the Committee is for them to book an audience for them to see with the leaders of the ex-agitators so that they can hear us out”, he noted.

He commended President Muhammadu Buhari on the creation of the Committee to investigate the Amnesty Office.

Another ex-agitators leader, General Olotu Wanemi said the Committee should as a matter of urgency arrange a meeting with the leaders of the ex-agitators because the program was designed for the ex-agitators.

He said over 90 per cent of the leaders of the ex-agitators and their followers were not those deployed to schools in the recent deployment.

“This Amnesty office was not just created like that, so many things happened, people died, there was marginalisation, fortunately this office has been created, we the ex-agitators do not know what is happening in the office, no inclusion in anything.

“Fortunately, there is a committee now managing our program for over a month now, we have not met with the committee which is very wrong.

“We do not see it as right thing for people managing your program, you don’t know them. Before now when we had a Special Assistant to the President of Amnesty, we channel our complaints through the office.

“Just of recent, they deployed some people to school and 90 per cent of the leaders and followers were not included, we are appealing, we don’t want to take the laws into our hands, that’s why we have been this patient” he said.

While appealing to the Committee to have audience with the leaders of ex-agitators, he called on President Buhari to appoint a new Special Adviser on Niger Delta so that they can always pass their complaints swiftly.

“We are begging the committee to call us as soon as possible so that things will go as expected.

“We have done everything possible to see the committee but they are not in the Amnesty Office, we were told they were at National Security Adviser office, we went there, serve them letter, the refused, and we have been making efforts to have audience with them because we are the owner of this program.

“When they called us from the creeks, the Federal government agreed with us that they would educate us and our followers, they have deployed some persons to schools, the Special Adviser was about to deploy some ex-agitators to school before he was removed.

“As I speak, the private universities that the Amnesty office is working with are now calling that they are waiting for these students to be deployed, unfortunately, there is no Special Adviser to send them.

“So, we are appealing with the committee to give us audience, we want to see them especially for this deployment, for these people to go to school because they said that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, so we want them to be busy, studying so that they won’t think of going back to the creek”, he added.