Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
Major General Barry Ndiomu (retd) has handed over leadership of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) to Dr. Dennis Otuaro, after an 18-month stewardship.
The Technical Assistant to the former Interim Administrator, Ita Henshaw, handed over the notes to Otuaro in a brief ceremony at the PAP office in Abuja on Monday.
In his remarks, Otuaro assured he will not betray the trust reposed in him by President Bola Tinubu and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.
He said his mission in the Presidential Amnesty Office was to render quality service to the Niger Delta region and the nation, stressing that there would be no room for failure.
He urged the members of staff to be focused and give him the requisite cooperation to move the office forward, while assuring that he was not in the Amnesty Office to pursue personal gains even as he urged the members of staff to embrace his principle.
“I need everybody’s cooperation here to take this programme to greatness. My appeal here is as from today we should back the crowd and face the job. I need everyone’s cooperation so we don’t disappoint the President, the NSA, the people of the Niger Delta and Nigeria as a whole.
“I believe in this country. Everything about me is in this country and it is also in the Niger Delta.
“We will streamline whatever that we know that is giving us the load to provide excuses, we must streamline some things and we’ll work together,” he asserted.
It would be recalled that Tinubu had approved the appointment of Otuaro as Interim Administrator of the PAP last Thursday.
Given Ndiomu’s footprints including,resuscitation and training of type-rated as pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers, to the Presidential Amnesty Cooperative Scheme, and sustained scholarships, Niger Delta youths will be expecting Otuaro to raise the bar further to address the issues in the Niger Delta, as it concerns the PAP and the struggle to better the lives of beneficiaries.
The Presidential Amnesty Programme was initiated and signed into law in 2009, to stem youth restiveness, agitation and ruination of oil processing infrastructure in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region. The mandate was to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate ex-agitators back into society.
