N/Delta: No amnesty for ‘forgotten’ militants – Give us back our arms, ex militants tell FG

Recently, hundreds of ex-militants reportedly blocked one of the major highways linking the North and the South at a point in Lokoja, Kogi State on their way to Abuja to protest their non-inclusion and clamoring for an extension of the programme. The Federal Government on its part said the window period for admitting ex-militants into […]

Recently, hundreds of ex-militants reportedly blocked one of the major highways linking the North and the South at a point in Lokoja, Kogi State on their way to Abuja to protest their non-inclusion and clamoring for an extension of the programme. The Federal Government on its part said the window period for admitting ex-militants into the programme has closed, adding that those agitating for inclusion should seek other avenues for employment and empowerment. General Para Ekiyes, a leader of the ex-militants told Weekly Trust in Port Harcourt, Rivers State that about 7,000 of his members who have not been included in the programme want to be reconsidered. “We handed over our arms in January 2011. We supported Goodluck Jonathan as our own and decided to stop vandalizing pipelines and oil installations. But now, they have selected some people and ignored us, saying the amnesty period is over.  If that is the case, let them give us our arms so that we can go back to the creeks since they want trouble.”

Ekiyes also said: “We want to let them know that those being paid now will not solve the problem of militancy.” He also said they are still pleading with the government to reconsider its decision. “What Yar’adua did was a good thing and we thought Jonathan will do better as our own and supported him but now he is turning out to be something else. Let the governors in the Niger Delta region prevail on him to include us for the interest of peace.”

Comrade Idumange John, President of Niger Delta Integrity Group and a lecturer at the Niger Delta University, told Weekly Trust that those who are now agitating to be granted amnesty are those who were skeptical about the sincerity of the programme at the early stage and have now seen its success and want to cash in. “Some agitators had some misgiving about the sincerity of the policy earlier, so many did not embrace it. But now that it has recorded some success in the sense that relative peace has returned to the Niger Delta, the quantity of oil production has increased and there is some level of civility in our communities, those who had misgiving are now clamoring to also benefit.”

John called for the extension of the programme into the third phase to accommodate the agitating youths and he also advocated that the amnesty should be enlarged in terms of scope and quality to include agitators in the northern parts of the country. “As an analyst, I will not want to see a president who will say we have closed the doors of justice. Let the doors of justice remain open for those who knock at it,” he said.

Erekosima Onengiya is the president of Foundation for Peace and Non-Violence in Nigeria. He said the amnesty progarmme has been hijacked by individuals and some government officials for political reasons. “It has become selective. People are bringing in their family members, replacing names that had been brought by the actual militants. The real amnesty as it was introduced by lat Yar’adua, if implemented properly would have removed the guns in our societies. But our government officials want to make other parts of Nigeria to fear them, being that they have militants.”

Onengiya also told Weekly Trust that it is the greed of government officials who want to make money that is creating militants. “What kind of militants are they? Who are they representing or fighting for? The government is not being sincere with the amnesty progarmme. Government officials understand what they gain when there is militancy in the Niger Delta.”

Like their counterparts in Rivers State, ex-militants in Bayelsa State have vowed to fight for their inclusion in the programme even if it means doing so with the last drop of their blood. A cross-section of them who were among those that caused a traffic snarl along the Lokoja-Abuja expressway recently, spoke to Weekly Trust in Yenagoa. The group, which identified itself as belonging to the third batch of the programme, threatened to vandalize oil installations in Bayelsa and other parts of the Niger-Delta if government fails to absorb them.

The secretary of the group, who gave his name as General Atapo Omoh, said their position is sequel to the Federal Government’s stand that it is no longer admitting more ex-militants in the programme. He said the disarmament exercise in the region which led them to surrender their arms was meant to give room for their engagement in the process of learning trades and become useful to themselves and society, considering their plight.

The ex-militants, led by their Yenagoa secretary, Atapo Omoh, Commander John Henry and Secretary Ebiebimobo Master, argued that they would renew attacks on oil installations and that it would commence simultaneously in all states within the Niger-Delta, if amnesty is not granted to them. Henry said they can no longer hold their peace because a son of the Niger Delta specifically from Bayelsa is president. “Since he has refused to acknowledge our struggle, we don’t care anymore whether he is our brother,” he said.

The threats continued. Master said: “We were on our way to Abuja for a peaceful protest and were accosted by the police. Unless the government goes to Biseni clan of the Okordia-Zarama unit and employ our teeming jobless graduates, we will blow up the pipelines and cause major harms to the oil installations in the area.”

But Joint Task Force (JTF) spokesman, Lt. Col. Timothy Antigha, however said that the ex-militants should not employ any method that would endanger lives and properties in the region. He cautioned that any protest must be done within the law.

Omoh said they have lobbied enough and are ready for action: “We’ll not kill innocent people but will declare a tactical war that will cripple the economy.” The militants claimed that the Federal Government deceived them and collected their arms and went right ahead to refuse them inclusion in the programme.

Omoh, visibly upset, concluded: “We want them to give us back our tools because we know what to do with them in order to sustain ourselves. Our fishes, fishing ponds and farmlands are no longer yielding due to oil pollution and we have no other means of livelihood, yet, the federal government makes billions of money from our land every day.” In spite of the programme, kidnapping and widespread violence continues in the region.