FG To Restructure Amnesty Programme

The Special Adviser to the President On Parastatals, Statutory Bodies on Government Affairs, Deacon Bariye Ekiye, says the Federal Government plans to restructure the amnesty programme as part of efforts to properly integrate the ex-militants in the main stream of government activities.

Deacon Ekiye in an interview with The Tide at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa stated that the Federal Government targets to ensure in no distant time the ex-militants who are currently undergoing different training programmes in foreign countries would soon become citizens that cannot be used for nefarious activities.

According to him, the new Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Amnesty Matters, Kingsley Cookey has set a new agenda for the improvement of the amnesty programme, saying:  All we need to do now is to make sure that whatever programme set for infrastructural development in terms of rehabilitating the ex-militants is carried  out decisively.

He said the programme was committeed in ensuring that any project earmarked to bring these people into the centre stage of development are realised, pointing out that “ in no time, you would see them become useful citizens and unbendable commodities.

Deacon Ekiye, a one time Deputy Editor in the state newspaper corporation expressed the belief that there was a great improvement in terms of militancy in the Niger Delta region, describing as untrue insinuation in  some quarters that militancy was still in the region.

“There is peace and security in the Niger Delta apart from little schemishes and flash points here and there, but you cannot generalise it and say thing are so bad, he emphasised.

He said that the amnesty programme had brought some measures of stability in the region and “you can now see oil companies operating freely and the production of oil has risen to a quantum that the budget had increased in a way.

So today, I don’t think militancy is a problem now in the Niger Delta”.

The special Adviser expressed optimism that Nigeria would achieve credible free and fair elections in April, but reminded Nigerians on the need to see themselves as having a stake in creating the enabling environment for the success of the polls.

“It is you and I that would protect our votes to make the election credible. Jonathan is committed to the cause of the Nigerian project and that is what he is projecting right now at the campaigns”, Ekiye declared, adding that the President was prepared to give a new lease of life to Nigerians.

Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Engr Tele Ikuru (right) with Minister of Women Affair and Special Development, Iyom Josephine Anenih (middle) and wife of Rivers State Governor, Dame Judith Amaechi, during the 13th regular meeting of National Council of Women Affairs and Social Development in Port Harcourt, recently.