Ex-Militants Protest Delayed Payments Of Stipends

Motorists and other road users were on Monday trapped in a traffic gridlock as ex-militants from Bayelsa and Delta states staged a peaceful protest over delayed payment of their five-month amnesty stipends by the Federal Government.
The protesters during the protest, blocked the Mbiama-Yenagoa section of the East-West Road, a major expressway linking the South-South with other regions of the country.
It took the personal intervention of the Commander of the Joint Force in the Niger Delta, Operation Delta Safe, Rear Admiral Joseph Okojie, for the former agitators to back track and open the road to traffic.
Okojie urged the ex-militants to be patient with the authorities, assuring them that their stipends would be paid to them.
It would be recalled that the Bayelsa State Governor, Hon Seriake Dickson had last Sunday, appealed to ex-militants to be calm and exercise patience with the Federal Government over the delayed stipends, while also calling on the Presidential Amnesty Office to urgently pay whatever was due the ex-agitators.
Reacting to the protest, the Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Brigadier-General Paul Boroh (rtd), said the delayed stipends of the ex-militants would be paid this week.
Boroh said it would be counterproductive for ex-agitators to take to the streets at a time the government was making serious efforts to resolve some of the issues confronting the programme.
He called on all agitators in the Niger Delta region to shun acts that were inimical to public peace, as such street protests could be hijacked by hoodlums to cause mayhem and discredit the programme.