EX-ODILI's AIDE OPPOSES AMNESTY TO MILITANTS, HAILS AMAECHI

AN executive aide to former Governor Peter Odili of Nigeria's Rivers State, a major oil-producing state, on Special Projects, Mr. Lamb-Caleb Fubara, says he is opposed to granting amnesty to militants, at least, in the Rivers state axis of the Niger Delta.

Fubara, who was speaking in an interview with our correspondent on Friday, said, ''let me say this, that the moment the government begins to talk amnesty with any of the armed groups, it should be ready to explain if it is not for the purposes of 2011 elections.

''So, i think it is not about amnesty, it is about government living up to its constitutional billing of maintaining law and order.  In other words, those calling for amnesty in this matter are a little unrealistic. And i don’t see the governor (Chibuike Amaechi) considering that option''.

According to him, ''the whole scenario tends to put a question mark on the effectiveness of our security agencies, even though it is difficult to put them down out rightly. You will agree with me that this is one area the governor deserves some kudos, even though the challenges are still very frightening''. 

Continuing, he added, ''the question is who ever gave out these guns, knowing the price of a gun and knowing the purchasing power of these hoodlums before 2002? Yet the perpetrators of these crimes will hurriedly point at oil bunkering as a cover up. Come to think of it, where were these bunkerers who later metamorphosed into cultists and now kidnappers before 2002 in Rivers State ?

''It is sad because the abominable has become the order of the day and, worrisome because the government and the security outfits now seem helpless. So far, the whole thing is like a game show, where the boys must continue to kidnap innocent citizens for ransom, while the Joint Military Task Force goes for the release of the victims. Whether ransom is paid or not is damn immaterial. Because, it beats logic that the hoodlums have continued to risk their lives on this thing call kidnapping only to release their captives a few days after just for the fun of it.

''I think these kidnappers are actually getting money from this unwholesome trade which has remained their source of inducement. Sometime last year I remember the immediate past commissioner of police parading some persons suspected to be kidnappers, but that was the last I have heard of them. What are the relevant agencies doing in prosecuting these felons? Is the judiciary on their own part ensuring that these persons are summarily tried, against the backdrop that kidnapping is a now threat to our corporate existence? At least let us begin to see kidnappers cooling off in jail''.