[PENPOINT Charles Dokubo’s sack: Weep more for Niger Delta

If this column were a human, the subject matter of this piece would have remained one of the most painful issues that ever came its way. This is courtesy of the recent development whereby President Muhamadu Buhari reportedly approved the suspension from office of his Special Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Professor Charles Dokubo. According to media reports the President acted on the recommendations of a Committee set up by the National Security Adviser Major General Mohamed Babagana Monguno (rtd), to suspend the PAP boss. The confirmation of this development came in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity Femi Adesina, which cited the reason for the action as the series of petitions against Dokubo, bordering on alleged official corruption and administrative issues. Going further, Adesina stated that the President had also approved the appointment of a Caretaker Committee to address among other things the allegations and petitions levelled against Dokubo.

The pain of this column hinges on the fact that the hopes and dreams it shared with millions of Niger Delta indigenes and their sympathisers across the world, at the advent of Charles Dokubo as the PAP boss, may have come to an unedifying, premature end. Writing on the appointment of

Charles Dokubo on April 15 2018, this column PENPOINT had in its characteristic forthright, detached and impersonal manner, welcomed him with the article ‘Niger Delta Amnesty Programme: Time For Game Change’. The article had commended President Buhari for bringing the professor from the academia where he was supposedly a scholar on conflict resolution and related matters. Since the amnesty programme had the future of the ex-agitators as its primary focus, Dokubo was seen by many as a square peg in a square hole.

Beyond this column, his advent enjoyed commendations from a plethora of other stake holders in the affairs of the Niger Delta region. In no small measure did his tenure build expectation that a new dispensation in the leadership of the programme would be imbued with a dose of critically needed academic puritanism. With his sack now there is unmistakably a flow of mixed feelings which include those of sadness at his exit. However if there is any cause for weeping, such should be more for the Niger Delta region itself.

The Presidential Amnesty Programme was started in 2009 under the administration of late President Umaru Yar Adua, with its pioneer boss as Major General Godwin Abbe (rtd), who was succeeded in turns by Timi Alaibe a banker and politician, Kingsley Kuku a politician before Brigadier – General Paul Boroh (rtd), who was followed by Professor

Charles Dokubo.

Given that Dokubo’s immediate past two predecessors (Kuku and Boroh) suffered from controversial exit circumstances, Dokubo’s suspension and investigation has largely established a semblance of incompatibility between this all important programme, and its leadership style of sole garrison commander, which the government has been foisting on it since inception. Given the misfortune of his immediate past two predecessors in unedifying circumstances, can it also be said that his tenure failed to manifest the expected game change in the affairs of the region?

Now that he has come, served and been eased out of office in equally unedifying circumstances, there is a temptation to judge him based on the presumption that the Presidency has cited yet to be proven allegations and petitions against him. However such presumptuous and therefore jaundiced pontifications on his guilt or otherwise at this stage, should remain mere hasty conclusions that may not enjoy the credit of infallibility as truth; at least until such are proven by the Caretaker Committee set up by the Presidency as credible, and so in the eyes of the country’s laws.

However, of more significance is the dispensation which the sack of Professor Charles Dokubo, has launched in the region which inevitably comprises a fresh scramble for a new leadership for the PAP. Once