Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Presidential Adviser on Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta, Brig. General Paul Boroh rtd has slammed the the Niger Delta Avengers, the militant group sabotaging crude oil pipelines as criminals, who would not be captured in amnesty programme.
General Boroh who spoke to a cross section of journalists in Port Harcourt in the early hours of today on the sidelines of the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to flag-off the clean up of Ogoniland and the implementation of United Nations Environment Programme UNEP, report said: “All ex-agitators captured in the amnesty programme have all dissociated themselves from the criminal activities of the Niger Delta Avengers. Amnesty office has dissociated itself from them. We are going to work with the security agencies to fish them to face the law.”
Asked if there is possibility of negotiating with them. He said: “That is not the subject matter. We have all dissociated ourselves from them. Even the upcoming ones have no room in the amnesty programme. We have no room for the Niger Delta Avengers in our programme.
On the threat by the militant group to continue the bombing the national assets and talking tough to the Nigerian military as if they have the wherewithal to confront the Nigerian military the retired General said “One of the strengths of criminal gangs is propaganda. Let them continue to propagate falsehood.”.
He said that contrary to the views of sceptics about the success of the Amnesty programme, the federal government has benefitted tremendously from the peace it had engendered in the region and the ex-agitators captured in the programme are happy.
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Let me point out that the struggle for niger delta emancipation was not for self enrichment, but for the collective empowerment and infrastructural development of the region. But the amnesty program had forgotten the pains felt by the rural communities were oil installations are situated. Paying ex-militants will in no way ameliorate the suffering of the Niger Deltans, but encourage oppression of the vulnerable and the poor whose livelihoods has been destroyed by the oil companies. This divide and rule tendency must be stopped if we ever need development in the oil rich Niger Delta. Resources should be channeled to developmental purposes and to enhance human capital development and not to end in the hands of dubious politicians and ex-agitators.