We cannot guarantee the safety of oil installations in Niger Delta - Ex-militants issue warning to FG

macfranc007 February 04, 2018 Nigeria News today & Breaking news ▷ Read Nigerian newspapers 24/7 Nkem Ikeke

- Ex-militants under the federal government amnesty programme are not happy over reports of plans to discontinue the programme

- The leader and chairman, Amnesty Phase 11 in Delta state, Ambassador (Chief) Kingsley Muturu said the safety of oil installations in the Niger Delta cannot be guaranteed if this happens

- He called for the relocation of oil facilities from the region

Some former militants have opposed reported plans by the federal government to terminate the Presidential Amnesty Programme in 2018.

The ex-militants under the federal government amnesty programme advised the government against making such a provocative move, Daily Trust reports.

Ex-militant leader and chairman, Amnesty Phase 11 in Delta state, Ambassador (Chief) Kingsley Muturu, said the objectives the initiative is far from being achieved.

He advised that before such action is taken, the federal government needs to first ensure the relocation of multinational oil companies and facilities to other regions.

Muturu said: “The ideal of peace and deserved development of the Niger Delta for which Late President Musa Umar Yar’Adua laudably offered and implemented the Amnesty programme remain far from being achieved.

“With the groundswell of anger in the land, we wish to humbly serve notice that we cannot guarantee the safety of oil installations in the Niger Delta. Accordingly, before terminating the PAP, we advise the federal government to kindly relocate all oil facilities from the Niger Delta region to another safer haven.

"This advice is intended to avert consequences of military deployment by the FG which unfortunately believes more in physical force to spill innocent blood of people of the oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta.”

The creek ex-warlord who was conferred with “ambassador of peace” title by his people, claimed that Gen Paul Boroh, the special adviser to the president on Niger Delta and coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, was arm-twisted by agents of the federal government to the detriment of Niger Deltans.

According to him, the amnesty programme has suffered declining fortunes under Boroh.

He also alleged that politicians and bad advisers were preventing Gen Boroh from meeting with leaders of the militants so they could offer suggestions for continuity.

“With recent denials of Niger Deltans in educational programmes of the PAP, is the FG not orchestrating the denial of Niger Deltans from the prospect of being in the commanding heights of political and economic decision making in the Nigerian nation that has so held us down?

“It is disheartening that even those interested in agricultural training, whose training were supposed to last longer were reduced to two week training or less. The implication is that they were not trained at all while the vendors (contractors) of such programmes smile to the banks with huge amounts.

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"We had thought that an amnesty programme that is progressively better sponsored, not terminated, would take the wind off the sail of those still bent on vandalism as a means of agitation,” he lamented.

NAIJ.com reported earlier that some former Niger Delta militant leaders, on Thursday, February 1, raised the alarm that powerful northerners have allegedly taken over the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

The leaders alleged that the northerners swapped names of ex-agitators captured in the programme with Hausa/Fulani names as benefactors at most of the training institutions.

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