Ex-militants call for review of amnesty programme

Aggrieved Members of the Niger Delta Peoples Democratic Front (NDPDF) have faulted the Federal Government Amnesty Programme and called for its review.

Leader of the group, Precious Iyoyo (aka Commander Playboy), stated this in an interview with Daily Sun in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, saying that his group rejected amnesty because it was not meant to address the causes of their agitation in the region.

Iyoyo maintained that federal government had wasted billions of naira in training some of the repentant Niger Delta warlords abroad, without providing jobs for them at the end of the training.

He said that government should have invested the money in building manufacturing industries to create job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youths in the region and reduce restiveness.

“This is a clarion call on the federal and state governments to take a second look at the way and manner the amnesty programme is presently structured.

“Reason has been that the programme has not yielded the desired result of creating manpower and employment for the teeming youths of the Niger Delta, by empowering and stemming the sufferings and frustration of the youths of Niger Delta as promised by federal government in 2009″.

Iyoyo continued: “It is frustrating that, the ex-freedom fighters that have been trained, on their return, have no jobs to fall back to, after training. This, in all sense, is abnormal”.

The militant leader pointed out that reviewing the amnesty programme to accommodate the agitators was vital, in order to address issues of marginalization, joblessness and frustration, as wlll as to forestall being used by politicians to ferment trouble in the forthcoming general elections.

“We are calling on the federal and state governments to create job opportunities for the teeming youths through people-oriented policies and programmes.

“The federal government should in the same vein, integrate those freedom fighters, who did not take amnesty in 2009, into productive empowerment schemes, thereby meeting the promises it made to the people and freedom fighters in Niger Delta in 2009; so, that, the boys will not go back to the creeks, or be used by politicians to ferment trouble as agents of election thuggery and rigging in the 2015 general elections”.