Stakeholders in the Niger Delta have agreed that the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) should end immediately after the integration of all the beneficiaries of the scheme.
The stakeholders such as traditional rulers, political leaders, past and present officers of the Ijaw National Congress (INC) and the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide reached the decision when they met with the Administrator of PAP, Col. Milland Dixion Dikio (rtd) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, last Wednesday.
Some of the leaders urged the Federal Government to ensure that the programme was given the needed financial support to execute its reintegration phase so as to bring it to an end.
But the stakeholders insisted that the Federal Government should achieve all conceptualised benefits for PAP before bringing it to the end.
They thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for appointing Dikio as the interim administrator, and expressed optimism that with him PAP would realise its objectives.
The leaders also called on Dikio to clean the Augean stable in the amnesty office by identifying and firing all the persons that had used the PAP as a conduit pipe.
They observed that the bad eggs in the amnesty office had derailed the programme because of their greed and fraudulent activities, stressing that without removing such officials, PAP would continue to have crisis.
They appealed to all the people in the region to support Dikio to succeed, and commended the administrator for taking the programme back to the original owners.
On the issue of reintegration and empowerment, they advised the administrator to consider agriculture as a major component of his plans, and to revive the training centres of the PAP.
In his remarks, an elder statesman and nationalist, Chief Edwin Clark, urged the Federal Government not to rush to end the amnesty programme.
Clark said: “I and other elders from the Niger Delta will continue to work with you to ensure your tenure succeeds. I want to urge all to continue to do all that is possible for us to keep the peace as we continue to fight for justice, equity and fairness in Nigeria.”
Also speaking, the host and Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, represented by his Commissioner for Ijaw Affairs, Mr. Patrick Erasmus, said the government was willing to make available office to house the Amnesty programme in Yenagoa.
He expressed delight at the summit being held in the state, saying that the amnesty was a programme that should be owned by all Niger Deltans.
In his goodwill message, an Ijaw leader, Mr. T.K. Ogoriba said, “I don’t want to believe that the Amnesty programme is a scam, we are hopeful that our aspirations and dreams will come through.”
Also, a former President of Ijaw Youth Council, Mr. Udengs Eradiri, said Dikio had good plans and programmes in place but prayed God to help the administration to deal with the politicians that had consistently frustrated the former coordinators.
In his remarks, Colonel Milland Dikio said he convened the stakeholders’ summit to interact with the custodians of the region.
He said the meeting afforded him the opportunity to understand some of the plights of the people, and promised to quarterly hold similar engagements in the region.
The amnesty boss said his vision was to capture all beneficiaries of PAP and integrate them into the scheme, urging the region to support him to achieve the mandate.
Dikio advised ex-agitators not to make protests a culture of pressing for issues in the Niger Delta, noting that after 11 years of the programme, the approach in passing out message was not yielding the desired results.