Our attention has been drawn to a report published on Sahara Reporters and
some online news portals credited to a shadowy group alleging fraud in the
Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) for former agitators in the Niger
Delta and calling on President Goodluck Jonathan to sack his Special
Adviser on Niger Delta/PAP Chairman, Hon. Kingsley Kuku.
Clearly, the report and, indeed, the allegations lack substance and can
easily be dismissed as the handiwork of and another futile attempt by
political jobbers bent on distracting Hon. Kuku, whose consistency and
successful implementation of the Presidential mandate on the programme has
brought pride to our nation.
We could have also elected to ignore it given that the signatory, one
‘Diepriye Jackson Dikibo,’ and the authors, the so-called Niger Delta
Awareness Coalition and Ex-Militant Leaders Forum, are faceless and
unknown to the Amnesty Office. Our records have no such entry as Diepriye
Jackson Dikibo as an ‘ex-militant leader.’ We challenge them to controvert
this and show proof if such a person exists.
As a responsible interventionist government agency, deploying public funds
in the training of Niger Delta youths whose violent agitation almost
brought our country to a standstill economically just a few years ago, we
deem it absolutely important to always keep the records straight and to
dispel the concocted tissues of lies and misinformation in such kind of
reports.
In their haste to tar the chairman of the Amnesty Programme with the brush
of corruption and fraud, the authors claimed that “Niger Delta youths are
shipped away to unaccredited training and educational institutions across
MOST of the THIRD World.” Unfortunately, they failed to mention even one
of such institutions.
We however urge them to verify whether the following institutions where
our delegates are currently training are unaccredited, are third-rate or
in the Third World.
In the United States of America, there are a total of 70 delegates on
government scholarship and undergoing various educational programmes at
these institutions: Alabama State University, Alabama A & M, California
State University, Salisbury University, University of Houston, Liberty
University in Virginia, and Tissin University in Ohio.
At the moment, there are 582 delegates in 58 institutions in the United
Kingdom alone. These include the universities of Birmingham, Manchester,
Kent, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Buckingham, and Swansea.
Others are Kings College, Anglia Ruskin University, Coventry University,
Dundee University, Robert Gordon University as well as the universities of
Plymouth, Portsmouth, Essex, Brunel, Liverpool, and Sheffield among
others.
Seventy-one (71) of our delegates are at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan
University in South Africa while 160 delegates are in Limkokwing
University (84) and Linton University (76), both in Malaysia, and others
in Belarus, Russia, Northern Cyrus, Ukraine, Phillipines, and Ghana (Cape
Coast University).
A robust selection and academic preparation process is also in place
through partnership with some reputable educational bodies that administer
foundational training programmes to these delegates before they are
offered admission into some of the aforementioned institutions. These
bodies include the Navitas Group (an Australian educational body that
administers foundation programmes for universities in UK, U.S, Australia
and Singapore), the Study Group in UK as well as the Washington Post-owned
Kaplan Educational Services in UK and U.S (It is currently preparing 180
delegates in Lagos on a seven-month foundational programme preparatory to
their entry into six universities in the U.S).
The petitioners equally faulted the aviation training programme, which has
today produced commercial pilots for Nigeria, on the premise that there
are no airlines or aircraft to engage them on completion of their
training.
Nothing could be more laughable! Do you wait until there are jobs before
you go to school or build the capacity of our youths? If that is the case,
all the universities should be shut down until the government is able to
provide jobs to accommodate the graduates.
The aviation training component of the amnesty programme is one of our
prime programmes that was borne out of a conscious effort to narrow the
global shortfall in qualified pilots and aviation personnel. At the
moment, 22 of those who qualified as Commercial Licensed Pilots in South
Africa are at the Lufthansa Training Institute in Frankfurt, Germany while
another nine are at the prestigious CAE Aviation Academy in Oxford on a
14-month jet/type-rating programme. On completion of the training, they
will be able to fly the Next Generation aircraft of either Boeing or the
Airbus.
Over 100 others training to become pilots and aeronautical engineers are
in Greece and Jordan and at the Fujairah Aviation Academy in Dubai (after
which they will proceed to the Emirates Aviation School also in Dubai for
their type-rating training).
Also, in the last two years, no fewer than 800 Niger Delta youths have
been trained in several fields in the critical maritime sector. About 100
of them were placed in seafaring programmes in the United States of
America, Vietnam, Italy, Poland, Ghana and in Nigeria. Nineteen of the
trainees who completed their training at the Gydirma Maritime Academy in
Poland have gone on board vessels to gain the requisite sea-time
experience.
The World Maritime Academy in Sweden will early next year commence the
training of our delegates while 30 other youths from the region will soon
be deployed to France for power technology training.
Over 1,000 of our delegates are also on scholarship in five private
universities in Nigeria undergoing various degree programmes.
In the last three years since the implementation of the amnesty programme
began in 2010, no fewer than 16,000 former agitators out of the 30,000
beneficiaries have been trained in various vocational skills and
educational programmes or are currently in training locally or offshore.
These are facts that are verifiable and the figures support our assertion
that the amnesty programme is not a drainpipe neither is it a fraud. The
lives of hitherto restive and disoriented youths in the Niger Delta are
being transformed through these carefully planned capacity building
initiatives undertaken by the President Goodluck Jonathan administration
as part of his Transformation Agenda.
In a few years, the positive outcome of the amnesty training programme
will be visibly felt in our nation and other parts of the world. Already,
30 of our delegates trained in welding and fabrication at the Proclad
Academy in Dubai have been gainfully engaged by the Proclad Group in the
United Arab Emirates while another 30 are undergoing training in France
under a partnership with Schlumberger, which will employ them on
completion of their training. Samsung is also set to engage another 1000
upon completion of their training in welding, fabrication and drilling
operations.
Let us clarify that the inclusion of some non-former agitators in the
programme, such as the 180 students in Lagos, a large percentage of our
aviators, and students under the Special Scholarship Scheme, is in
consonance with a typical Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration
(DDR) programme, which provides that while attempting to stabilise peace
and security in an affected area by educating, training and creating
alternative means of livelihood for ex-agitators, effort must be made to
side by side educate and train persons affected by the fighting forces.
These include internally displaced persons, adversely impacted communities
and vulnerable women and youths.
Indeed, what Hon. Kuku deserves are accolades and not the mudslinging and
wicked propaganda against him by some persons in the Niger Delta, who now
see the amnesty programme as their next target for reasons that are far
from being altruistic. To achieve this, they have commenced a ‘Kuku Must
Go’ campaign. It is regrettable that such persons still prefer the laissez
faire and business-as-usual approach to government business whereby they
see public funds as free money to be frittered away on frivolities.
In our country today, it is easy to make wild and unfounded allegations of
fraud and corruption by public office holders without any effort by the
accusers to prove such claims. The trite principle however remains that
whoever asserts must prove, and we challenge those opposed to Kuku’s
handling of the amnesty programme to OPENLY do so.
The bad news for them, however, is that the PAP Chairman remains focused
and cannot be distracted by the blackmail, subterfuge and antics of
political jobbers and professional petition writers whose stock-in-trade
is P-H-D (Pull Him Down). He is irrevocably committed to his mandate of
ensuring that the amnesty programme delivers its quota in the
Transformation Agenda of Mr President.
DANIEL ALABRAH
HEAD, MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS
PRESIDENTIAL AMNESTY PROGRAMME
ABUJA
NOVEMBER 17, 2013