The Ex-Militants leaders who accepted the Federal Government’s amnesty offer observed that measures put in place by the programme’s Interim Administrator, Col. Milland Dikio (Rtd) has ensured probity and accountability..
The National Secretary, First Phase Ex-Agitators, Mr Nature Dumale, explained that Dikio had not awarded new contracts since he came on board because he was interested in sanitising the process to actualise the reintegration phase of the program
Dumale
spoke to nrewsmen in in Yenagoa on Tuesday after accompanying Dikio to
inspect commercial farms in Uyo, Akwa Ibom, as part of arrangements to roll out
trainings for ex-agitators on agriculture.
He said
the amnesty boss inherited many ex-agitators, who went through various training
programmes without empowerment noting that Dikio had evolved a new strategy of
Train, Employ and Mentor (TEM) to deal with the shortcomings.
Dumale
said that Dikio has insited that under his watch, only contractors whose
proposals and facilities were in line with TEM template would be considered for
fresh jobs in PAP.
“It is no
longer business as usual. You will not get any contract from the amnesty
office except due diligence are properly carried out to the satisfaction of
procurement, legal, project and account departments including the Interim
Administrator himself, who is a diligent man.
“The
amnesty boss has come up with the vision of TEM, Train, Mentor and
Employ. It is a process where any person that comes up to do a contract will
know it is not business as usual.
“You are
going to do a presentation showing statistics, evidence and proofs of the fact
that you can take delegates to your company, get them trained, employed and
mentored so that at the end of the day they can get job somewhere because they
have been properly mentored.
“After
you have done a presentation, the entire amnesty team will also do a practical
inspection of your facility.
“So the
Niger Delta should know there is hope for the region, that is why we are
supportive and happy” Dumale said:.
He
explained that Dikio’s main focus was to address the challenges of
reintegration, Dumale said the amnesty boss had already identified food
security, waterway security and waterway transportation as areas of
interests.
“We are blessed
with so much fertile land and that is why he wants to concentrate on
agriculture. We can make more than N65, 000 monthly by planting only maize and
cassava.
“It is
safer and easier to travel by water. So, waterway transportation is very
profitable. Look at Port Harcourt to Calabar; it will take you the whole day to
travel by road from Uyo to Calabar now.
“ But
that same journey by water is less than one hour. The amnesty boss took
responsibility to go through the same route by water himself last week Saturday
to see things himself.
“The
Chinese people make billions of dollars annually from fishing in our own
coastal lines. Why can’t we go into fishing business? Why can’t we buy trawlers
and go into fishing ourselves?
“Even in
waterway security, we are the best people to secure our environment because we
know our environment. So, these are the visions of the amnesty boss in the
reintegration phase”.
Dumale
appealed to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Ministry of Environment to partner with
the Amnesty office to tackle the challenges of the region.
He urged
civil servants in the amnesty office frustrating the efforts of Dikio to actualise
the mandate of the scheme to steer clear.
He said:
“PAP is a security programme and should be treated as such. Salaries and
finances should be released as at when due so that the office can run.
“The
civil servants there should know that it is not civil service work and must
cooperate with the leadership of that office so that they will be able to carry
out their projects and operations.
“They
should not be a barrier to the vision of leader the amnesty boss”.
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