Ndiomu; FG Has No Immediate Plan to Wind Down Amnesty Programme
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 UmaruYar’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.