Minister for State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu is advocating
\nfor the scrapping of the Amnesty Program in the Niger Delta, saying the
\nGovernment can no longer sustain payments to Ex-militants under the
\ncurrent economic situation.<\/p>\n
The Minister said about $40billion has been spent in the Niger Delta
\nregion in the last ten years with nothing on ground to justify the huge
\nexpense.<\/p>\n
Mr. Charles Achodo, Special Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs to the He said: \u201cThe amnesty is very clear, and it cannot be a solution to the “A situation where you are paying people N65,000 every month to keep Achodo also said the $40 billion invested in 11,000 projects in the Niger “The Niger Delta has become a cacophony of voices, but without a purpose,” “It has also become a region with a cacophony of all kinds of projects. If “That amount was basically what was invested through NDDC and the Ministry \u201cWhen you look at the Niger Delta Development Compact, which we have, Minister for State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu is advocating for the scrapping of the Amnesty Program in the Niger Delta, saying the Government can no longer sustain payments…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nMinister, made this known at the 7th Sustainability in the Extractive
\n(SITEI) conference organised by CSR-In-Action in Abuja\u00a0on Monday<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n
\nstate of insecurity in the Niger Delta. Rather, you use the amnesty to
\ncreate an asymmetrical environment. A fragile environment does not like
\nasymmetry; it likes more of a symmetrical response.<\/p>\n
\nquiet; that does not solve the problem. If you multiply N65,000 by the
\nnumber of militants and by the number of years the programme has been
\nrunning, you are looking at close to N50 billion. That is a huge amount of
\nmoney. It is not sustainable and it is not guaranteeing you what you
\nexpect in the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nDelta region over the last 10 years has been a waste. He pointed out that
\nthe money was spent without concrete evidence.<\/p>\n
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
\nyou look closely from the past 10 years, up to $40 billion has been made
\navailable for that region and you can never tour the Niger Delta and see a
\nN1 billion or a N500 million investment, but I am telling you,
\ncollectively, for the past 10 years, that was what has gone into that
\nregion.<\/p>\n
\nof Niger Delta. If you check them, for instance, the NDDC has close to
\n11,000 contracts. With these contracts, mostly owned and held by people
\nfrom the region, then you can understand that we are the ones doing
\nourselves in, for not implementing those projects. Eleven thousand
\ncontracts and if you distribute them all along, you are looking at close
\nto $40 billion in terms of investment. Go to the Ministry of Niger Delta,
\nit is the same thing.<\/p>\n
\nwhich covered the short term, medium term, from now till 2021, you are
\nlooking at a total investment of N1.7 trillion that is earmarked for the
\nregion and that covered what the oil companies are putting into the
\nregion, what government agencies are putting into the region and all kinds
\nof investments that are required in that region.\u201d<\/p>\n