There’s plan to destabilize Amnesty Programme – Ex-militants

The Forum of Niger Delta ex-militants said they have uncovered a plot by some former staff of the amnesty office to distabilise the Presidential Amnesty Programme and its coordinator, Prof. Charles Dokubo. 

The ex-militants who have been enlisted in the second phase of the programme, urged the retired military major not to derail the peace process in the Niger Delta.

The ex-agitators in a statement signed by the Public Relations Officer of the Forum, Mr. Augustine Egba on Friday in Abuja, said they have reliably found out that the retired Major, who only recently was falsely parading himself as the Chief of Staff in the Amnesty Office before he was eased out by the new Coordinator of the Programme, has been “concocting falsehood and devising all manner of subterfuge,” in his bid to return to the Amnesty Office. 

The statement cautioned that all the ex-militants enlisted in the Amnesty Programme were vehemently opposed to the return of the retired Major to the Amnesty Office, given his antecedents when he served as the Head of the Education Unit of the Amnesty Office during the tenure of the former Coordinator of the Programme, Brig-General Paul Boroh (Rtd).

“This retired Major was among those who ruined the Amnesty Office under the former Coordinator, Paul Boroh. He was the Head of the Education Unit where all sorts of scam where perpetrated. Towards the end of Boroh’s disastrous era, he began pretending to be opposed to Boroh. It was all a show. They ruined that office together and the new Coordinator, Professor Charles Dokubo, since his appointment has been working round the clock to fix the place and this retired Major thinks we will sit back and allow him return to mess up the place again? We will not allow him to work in that Office again.

“This retired Major is a chronic liar and he is fond of using the name of our beloved NSA, General Babagana Mongonu. But we have since found out that he does not have the support or any form of backing from our dear father, the NSA. In fact the NSA does not even know this retired Major that well. Some of us have better access to the NSA than this impostor. All we know is that there are some persons in the NSA’s office who indulge him and we are warning them too to desist.

 “There is also the matter of 140 Itsekiri students illegally placed in Novena University in Delta State. The Itsekiris have 500 slots in the Amnesty Programme and these 140 persons are not among the enlisted 500 Itsekiri delegates on the Programme. Itsekiri Stakeholders are planning a major protest to the Amnesty Office in Abuja. Their grouse is the modus adopted in including these 140 persons in the amnesty Programme without consulting the usual leadership structure in that axis of the Niger Delta. Meanwhile it is only the President and Commander-in-Chief that can authorize the inclusion of additional persons in the Amnesty Programme. This retired Major carried out these dangerous and illegal acts while he served as Head of the Education Unit under Paul Boroh

“These persons were never enlisted in the Amnesty Programme and they are unknown to the Amnesty Office. They were just picked unilaterally by this retired Major and placed in these schools by this after collecting huge sums of money from their unsuspecting parents. Just because he wants to cover up his nefarious acts, he is scheming his way back to the Amnesty Office, we will resist it.

“The most annoying crime this retired Major is currently committing is his denigration of the Office of the NSA. He is now all over town boasting to all and sundry that the inter-agency team investigating Boroh is in his pocket, that he tells them who to investigate, that if they don’t allow him to return to the Amnesty Office, he will tell them to start investigating persons close to the new Coordinator. The NSA is a very good friend of the people of the Niger Delta and we have been working very closely with the NSA to support President Buhari, he should not allow this retired Major who worked in the Amnesty Office and whose ways are not clean, to continue to sully his good name.”