Ebikeme (not real name) successfully attended the Amnesty Orientation Camp
at Obubra in Cross River State some years ago.
Almost three years after, he has not been pencilled down for any of the
Presidential Amnesty Programme’s Skills/Vocational Training Programmes and
so he had no choice but fall to the advice of a friend who wanted him to
join a lucrative oil theft racket with a heavy but covert presence in the
Southern Ijaw area of Bayelsa State.
Ebikeme in turn, has enlisted more than fourteen (14) of his former Obubra
camp mates and today they live pretty comfortable lives working with their
non-Nigerian partners who provide them with the technical know-how and
technological tools to access crude oil through large pipes that pass
through certain strategic locations in their communities.
Ebikeme and his colleagues do not feel guilty in what they do. They
actually believe that ‘oil theft’ (as the government would like to call
it) is far better and more honorable than kidnapping and hostage taking.
They believe that they are from oil producing communities and since the
Amnesty programme is not ready to draft them for its ‘many training
programmes’, they should at least find a way to eke a living.
However, the truth is that before Ebikeme and his colleagues chose to go
to work on oil pipelines and channel its products for themselves and their
sponsors, their names had been replaced at the Amnesty office with people
who were not at all involved in the armed agitation in the Niger Delta
sometimes in connivance with some of the former militant leaders from
Bayelsa and Delta state.
In the end, non-militants are ferried to training institutions around the
world while the true ex-militants are left to their fate in their
communities. Little wonder they are all now heading for the pipelines and
Nigeria is again crying for it. Billions of dollars worth of crude oil has
been channelled away from pipelines in the creeks to waiting vessels
offshore.
Kingsley Kuku, head of the amnesty office, in active connivance with some
of the former militant leaders, replaces the names of the true militants
with non-militants including some from Non-Niger Delta communities and
then awards educational scholarships as well as training scholarships to
these non-militants. In frustration and having being betrayed by some of
their leaders, some of these young lads resort to oil facility sabotage so
that they can survive and sustain their families but we believe that some
are beginning to prefer it over the Amnesty Programme itself.
Fortunately enough, it is not all the militant leaders that have betrayed
those that they led. Some others have come out to publicly condemn the
hideous activities that have been going on at the Presidential Amnesty
Programme.
We commend our leaders Asari Dokubo, General Boyloaf, General Egberipapa
and the many others who have stood on the path of truth and have chosen to
speak up for their many members who have been cut off from a program that
was supposed to help improve their lives.
We condemn the ex-militant leaders assembly led Pastor Reuben which has,
for some time now, for a small fee, been used to blackmail legitimate
ex-militant leaders through paid advertisements and media interviews. In
the past few months, they have each enjoyed Five million naira (N5
million) cash payments and then all expense paid trips to South Africa
JUST so that they will be WILLING to fall to Kingsley Kuku’s efforts to
jaundice our cause. And FALL they did.
Posterity will indeed punish them.
We commend the leaders of the Niger Delta Awareness Coalition (NDAC) who
have for months now been assisting us on how to use the power of
Enlightenment, Awareness & Education to engage the media and alert the
public on the despicable fraud that now pervades the Presidential Amnesty
Programme.
We have nothing against President Goodluck Jonathan BUT it will be a shame
for the President not to see that there are leeches around him that work
hard to destroy every little success that he may have gained. These
leeches even blackmail the President behind his back. Yet the President
continues to keep them. How unfortunate.
Diepreye J Dikibo
Publicity Secretary
Ex Militant Leaders Forum