NEWS AGENCY OF NIGERIA
Participants at the interactive session with Delegates of the Presidential Amnesty Programme

Ex-agitators laud Ndiomu’s innovations, reassure of commitment to peace in Niger-Delta

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By Ehigimetor Igbaugba

Niger-Delta ex-agitators under the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) have commended retired Maj.-Gen. Barry Ndiomu, the Interim Administrator, PAP, on the ongoing reforms in the programme.

The ex-agitators, who gave the commendation during an Interactive session with Ndiomu and other officials of PAP in Calabar, said they remained committed to sustainable peace in the oil rich region.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the ex-agitators are former militants who were granted amnesty by late President Musa Yaradua in 2009 after they surrendered their arms.

The former agitators appealed to President Bola Tinubu to reappoint and confirm Ndiomu as the substantive administrator of the programme.

They said the call for the reappointment and confirmation of Ndiomu became necessary because of the effort he had put in to ensure peace in the region.

Speaking to journalists after the interaction, Mr Olori Wanemi, National Leader of Phase Two of the programme, said that Ndiomu had ensured peace in the region by creating a platform for leaders in the region to interact on issues.

Wanemi said through the interactions with the leaders of the region, 80 per cent of the region’s problems had been solved.

“From the inception of the PAP, we have been interfacing with different bosses of the programme but none of them had the target of empowering the entire 30,000 members of different camps in the Niger Delta region.

“They only empowered leaders of the camps, not the followers; but when the present interim administrator came, in his first two months in office, he told us not to rely on the N65,000 monthly stipends and set up a cooperative loan scheme.

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“For this, I appeal to President Tinubu to reappoint him for the next four years for his in-depth capacity to manage the affairs of the Niger- Delta ex-agitators effectively,” he said.

On his part, Ndiomu said the interaction with the leaders of the ex-agitators became necessary to get feed-back from them to make the programme better.

Represented by Maj. Marshall Akpor, Chief Security Officer of PAP, Ndiomu said the programme had also opened a portal for the ex-agitators or their wards to apply for the programme’s scholarship initiative.

“This is to ensure that real ex-agitators or their wards benefit from the scheme,” he said.

Similarly, Head of Reintegration in PAP, Mr Wilfred Musa, said the programme offered the most robust scholarship scheme in the nation because it accommodated tuition, accommodation, medical and monthly stipends.

Musa said they reminded the ex-agitators to make good use of the opportunities they had and position themselves appropriately in the society as the opportunity would not last forever.

While calling on the indigenes of the region to come together and participate in the developmental plan, he added that until it was done, there would always be complaints of favouritism among the camps.

It would be recalled that former President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2023 appointed Ndiomu as the Interim administrator of the amnesty programme. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

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Edited by Kabir Muhammad and Chijioke Okoronkwo

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Afonne Emmanuel
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