Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Major General Barry Ndiomu (rtd), recently engaged newsmen on the major achievements of the Amnesty Programme as well as his programme of action, among other issues. Segun James brings excerpts:
It’s almost 15 years since the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) kicked off under President Umaru Yar’Adua. Would you say we have achieved the aims and objectives of this program since its inception?
I’d rather say partially. They have recorded normal successes, particularly in the area of education. We have had the Amnesty Program that produced approximately 3,000 graduates and among these graduates, we’ve had about 200 graduates in the first class and another 300 in the second class upper, so to that extent I believe tremendous success has been recorded.
In the area of capacity building as well, the Amnesty Program has produced many pilots in their hundreds, we have also trained people in various vocations and they’ve acquired skills in welding fabrications, deep sea diving, and several other specializations. So I believe, as regards training and education, there has been a normal success.
There’s this school of thought that this program is not all about taking out former agitators from the creeks, what about those who were not part of that agitation, how has this scheme touched their lives?
Yes, that is why, if you recall, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the whole process, it started with the armament demobilization, and of course, we’re now in the reintegration phase of the Amnesty Program. When they disarmed and were eventually demobilized from 2008 right up to 2015, that process continued and the numbers began to swell from the initial 20,000 that were captured rising to 30,000 at some point.
Between 2010 and 2015, a concept of impacted communities was introduced, now with the introduction of the impacted communities, it has caused the beneficiaries of the Amnesty Program to rise beyond the 30,000 initially captured by the program. And then it was possible to send young boys and girls who were qualified and serious about being educated in tertiary education, both at home and abroad and that’s how come we’ve succeeded in training as many as 3,000 students in our local universities and also in institutions in Europe and the United States of America and generally across the world.
There was this rumour about the planned discontinuation of this Amnesty Program and all of a sudden the rumour died down, what happened in between?
Yes, at the time I was appointed interim administrator, the clear directive to me was to “wind down the presidential amnesty program” there was a basis for that.
When the program was initially conceptualized, the idea was for it to run for about 5 years and so 2015 was the terminal date for the program. However, it became clear, like I said earlier, with the expansion of the program beyond the initial 30,000 ex-agitators and extending it into the impacted communities, it became impossible to meet up with that date, coupled with the fact that the process of capacity building for the ex-agitators have not been concluded and so it became inevitable to extend the program beyond the agreed date.
And by the time I was appointed, it has gone beyond the 2015 deadline and the government was dead serious about winding it down justifiably too because if they had kept up with the directives they would expect that by now we should be winding it down.
However upon my assumption of duty, I undertook an engagement of the stakeholders across the region talking directly with the militant leaders across the region and discussing also with elders, monarchs and the feedback I got was that first of all, the program had not quite carried out the objective of which it was established, many of the ex-agitators informed me that they’ve neither been trained nor have they been empowered and we now have to reconcile this with what was on the data delivered to mean I was able to corroborate what they had told me when I had the engagement with them and the numbers had shown that the significant number of the ex-agitators had neither been trained nor empowered and we must also realize that this program was put in place specifically for this ex-agitators and not even the impacted communities that came later on.
And I had to make that representation to governments that we would have to do what have been agreed between the government and the ex-agitators before we begin to talk about winding down the program and the government was magnanimous in listening and responding positively and for that reason and the reasons i have enumerated and the winding down of the program was suspended.
How many more years are we looking at for it to wind down?
To be honest, I’ll be careful not to put a deadline and fix the data back to ascertain the number of ex-agitators that have neither been trained nor empowered.
We also have several undergraduates in tertiary institutions within the country and outside Nigeria, all of which will have to be factored in. The cost implications for what we would have to do will also be factored in, and so to make a categorical statement at this point that it is possible to wind down the amnesty program will be difficult for me. And I do not know if the funds will be available when they’re required.
What are the challenges of this program from your perspective?
Well, to be honest from what I have seen so far, I believe that those who conceptualize this program have very good intentions and if the milestones that were set are put in place rigidly, we won’t be where we are today.
And that is one of the issues I think I must address if we are to carry this program into a logical conclusion.
The first challenge is the issue of data; the data I inherited is very inaccurate. What I was told constituted the number of the ex-agitators is 30,000 from the beginning and by the time I took over we still had 30,000 on the data list, which means over this period of 12-13 years nobody died, nobody dropped out of the program, nobody was empowered, possibly nobody was trained and nobody was employed and you and I know that it is just impossible.
Well, looking into all of that, we have detected a number of flaws and of course, you know that it is difficult in our country. Upon assumption of office I was confronted with some issues, I carried out an internal audit and I did find out certain disturbances. For example, in the Amnesty Program, there are scholarships for approximately 400-500 non-Niger Deltans, I do not know how that came about. Of course, there are allegations that money was paid by these individuals to get the scholarship awarded to them, but I’m not in the position to confirm or deny such allegations. There are also allegations that the Niger Deltans also will have to pay money to get these scholarships awarded but I have no evidence of such practice, an audit is ongoing and we will await the outcome of the audit, they should be able to come back to us to tell us if there were indeed such malpractices but at the moment I have no evidence to substantiate those allegations.
When I assumed office I was told that we had a debt of N4.5 billion on ongoing vocational training but I took a closer look at it and I directed the head of reintegration to review the amount of the contract because I felt, from the figures I was shown, that they were a bit too exaggerated.
For instance, it was costing almost N11 million to train one person in welding, and I thought that wasn’t acceptable for about seven months. And I ordered a review and we were able to make a saving of about N1.3 billion, so what we were indebted to pay them at the moment is a little over N2 billion, the second aspect is probably inflated or exaggerated there’s a likely look at the data.
How would you rate President Muhammadu Buhari on the various intervention programmes in Niger Delta?
To be honest, I think Mr President has done very well for the Niger Deltans and I say so for a number of reasons.
Let’s take the Amnesty Program. The Amnesty Program has never been “short-paid.” We have received our allocation as at when due, even in the time of my predecessors up to the present date, all approved budget envelope for the amnesty program was met and so if we have not utilized the opportunities given to us properly, then we shouldn’t be blaming anybody but ourselves.
And I believe the same goes for other institutions that are supposed to be major developmental institutions that should have an impact directly on the youth of the Niger Delta. These institutions are headed by Niger Deltans, they’re not headed by foreigners, and they’re not headed by Nigerians of other ethnic nationalities, I believe it is our responsibility and I believe that we should be in prospect if we love ourselves and love our people and love the part of the country we come from, then I believe we’ve been given adequate opportunities by the government to develop that part of Nigeria. Anybody saying anything to the contrary is only just making excuses.
By the time you run out your tenure as the Interim Administrator, what are those legacies that you want Nigerians to look up to?
As soon as I assume office and got myself properly briefed on the activities of the presidential amnesty program, I quickly took stock of the particular areas that I needed to inform immediately, and one major area is the issue of vocational training, we have five vocational training centres across the Niger delta that are at various stages of completion, it’s unfortunate that from the time construction was started none of these projects has been completed, neither of them is up and running. These are projects that are very essential to the capacity-building aspects of the amnesty program and I have made a vow that for as long as I remain here, I will do all that is within my power to ensure that those vocational training centres are completed, equipped, with capable instructors trained and will get all the collaboration that it requires to ensure that they’re up and running, that I believe at the end of the day would be my legacy.
