No More New Beneficiaries Under Amnesty Programme – FG |The Source

By Ayodele Oni

Eleven years after it was launched, the Federal Government has concluded arrangements to take stock of beneficiaries under the Amnesty Programme.

The Amnesty Programme is one of the measures introduced under the  Late  President Musa Yar’dua  to give soft landing to some militants that laid down their arms at the coastal region of the country.

Already, the Presidency has approved the decision of the Presidential Amnesty Office to conduct verification on about 30,000 ex-agitators captured under the programme in the last 11 years.

A member of the think tank, in the amnesty office, Mr Tonye Bobo, disclosed in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state while fielding questions from Journalists.

According to him, the interim  administrator of amnesty,  Col. Milland Dikio, (rtd) has constituted a 10-man committee of Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) think-thank.

The Committee, he said, would enrich, monitor and propagate the new PAP roadmap of the amnesty to reposition and ensure that the new policies are close and in tandem with the Niger Delta communities.

Mr Bobo explained that the verification was not to witch hunt anybody, but ensure proper verification of those that are captured and those still left out of the Amnesty programme.

He said that the verification has also received the backing of all the ex-militant leaders in the region.

“The Amnesty office does not have the capacity to admit new beneficiaries and we agreed.

“Now we also agreed that we should know those 30,000 beneficiaries, for us to know how to conduct the verification.”

Mr Bobo also promised that as a member of the new think-thank of the Amnesty office, the Committee would engage every critical stakeholder from the grassroots to the top, to offer advice for the affairs of the region.

He said that the new Committee set up by the Interim Administrator was also saddled with the responsibility of sustaining the prevailing peace in the region.

He noted that the issue of PAP has to do with the re-integration of 30,000 ex-agitator captured and the development in the region.

“As one of the change-agents of PAP,  I am ready to bring to fore ideas that will help to achieve the desire and anticipated transformation in the region.”

Mr Bobo, also an Amnesty beneficiary under the third phase, commended the interim administrator for the new assignment.