The leader of the National Coalition of Niger Delta Ex-Agitators, (NCNDE-A), Eshanekpe Israel, a.k.a Akpodoro, has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government not to wind down the Presidential Amnesty Programme but rather appoint a substantive Coordinator to manage the intervention agency.
Akpodoro’s call is coming at the heels of the sack of the Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Charles Dokubo by the federal government and subsequent establishment of a Committee to manage the agency and probe its activities since 2009 when it was created by the late President Umar Yar’Adua, to douse the tension created by armed insurgency in the delta region.
The core aim of the federal government among others was to integrate and empower repentant ex-militants who surrendered their arms to government but Akpodoro noted that the remote causes of the insurgency then in the region were still there as it was yet to be developed while the number of idle youths increase everyday and this group his noted are potential militants in future.
He reasoned that winding down the programme at this point in time will be counter productive as the majority of the youth population in the region were still unemployed, they live in squalor, they are not meaningfully engaged…saying they are idle hands available for their would kingpins to use for committing sundry crimes.
Akpodoro who doubles as the national Coordinator of the Urhobo Youth Forum for Change, (UYFC), challenged the Buhari-led government to point at any meaningful achievement of the Presidential Amnesty Programme in either the life of ex-militants, youths or persons in the region.
Pointedly the former warrior stressed that a honest assessment of the programme in the lives of the people it was set up to develop would reveal abject poverty, misery, pains and sorrow as a result of gross mismanagement occasioned by misdirection and poor monitoring of the activities of the managers of that agency by successive governments.
On the need to appoint a substantive Coordinator, Akpodoro averred that it was the only way the government can instill confidence in the Niger delta population and earn their support for a better amnesty programme noting that by so doing the people will be rest assured that President Buhari’s government was not subtly winding down the programme.
He however suggested some personalities in what he described as in good faith to the President through the National Security Adviser, NSA, Babagana Monguno, from whom to appointed the next Coordinator of the Programme.
They include: Chief Daniel Ekpebide, Chief Michael Johnny, Denis Otuaro and Chief Michael Oyibo.
Others are: Hon. Henry Baro, former Commander of the Joint Task Force, (JTF), General Enang Ugagu, rtd and Engr. Jator Abido.
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