Niger Delta amnesty programme: Beyond stipends and handouts

In the almost eight years of its implementation, the Presidential Amnesty Programme for the Niger Delta, which for this piece will be referred to as the  Niger Delta Amnesty Programme (NDAP) has unarguably redefined the Niger Delta conundrum. Whereas the region was characterised  by some of the most vigorous and persistent agitations for increased say […]

In the almost eight years of its implementation, the Presidential Amnesty Programme for the Niger Delta, which for this piece will be referred to as the  Niger Delta Amnesty Programme (NDAP) has unarguably redefined the Niger Delta conundrum. Whereas the region was characterised  by some of the most vigorous and persistent agitations for increased say in the control of the oil and resources of the zone by various indigenous groups, the picture has changed to that of relative peace in the region. Launched by late President Umaru Yar’ adua at the peak of the agitation, it was born in an atmosphere of war between the Nigerian military and the several armed militant groups who had effectively degraded the country’s oil and gas production, and thereby effected a strangle hold on the oil dependent economy. Its primary mission was therefore to facilitate a ceasefire under whose auspices the causative factors for the conflict would be resolved, top of which was accelerated development of the depressed oil and gas rich region. 

Among the reliefs offered by the government and accepted by the agitating youths in particular were training schemes in various areas of study in and out of the country for the so disposed, as well as monthly stipends and handouts for those without any visible means of livelihood and personal incomes, pending whenever such would have gained paid employment or self-employment. This situation has been the status quo all through the life of the NDAP. 

However after eight years of the programme, specific measures of its success or failure remain largely a matter of conjecture with some of the most significant indicators being the huge sums of money dispensed in its name, and an equally large number of agitators still in the business of discontent.  While the past administrators of the programme claim impressive outcomes from their enterprise, the swelling ranks of ex and current agitators, many of whom claim to have been by-passed in previous palliative considerations, has not helped matters.

 Besides the foregoing, there is a looming danger that with the onset of political activities pursuant to the forthcoming 2019 general polls, such aggrieved youth may remain available for recruitment by so disposed partisan political actors, and deployed to nefarious ends, to serve parochial and likely dubious interests. Typical of such nefarious activities is thuggery, and the attendant decimation of political opponents. In the context of national politics – especially as far as the forthcoming 2019 general polls are concerned and with respect to the NDAP,  Rivers State occupies a pole position. In one vein, the re-election bid by President Muhamadu Buhari is to be driven by Mr RotImi Chibuike Amaechi, as the Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation. A former two-term Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly  and equally a former two term Governor of the state, he is presently the Minister of Transportation with oversight of the country’s maritime sector, in which the critical development prospects of the Niger Delta region lie. In the other vein is the fact that the main opposition party – the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) has its National Chairman Prince Uche Secondus hailing from the same Rivers State. 

And given the acrimonious state of affairs between these two political dispensations, nothing short of a battle royal will feature as the contest for power between them, both in the state and at the national level, rages. Meanwhile Port Harcourt and Rivers State remain the epicenter of the country’s oil and gas sector as well as one of the hotspots of the region’s malcontent and agitation. As the duo of Amaechi and Secondus are sparing no effort in mobilizing their political machineries for the task ahead, little attention has so far been paid in the respective agendas, to the circumstances of the agitators, when such should have enjoyed primacy in the first place. Come to think of it, if such baseline consideration is not granted the agitators’ cause at this early stage of their political enterprise – even if it is in consideration of the cliché that ‘charity begins at home’, when would they do so? 

Infact beyond Amaechi and Secondus as key political actors of Niger Delta extraction in the coming days and months, is the case of the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Chief Odigie Oyegun, from Edo State –  another part of the Niger Delta. While tales of Oyegun’s likely ouster are flying around, there is also the likelihood that another Niger Delta indigene, former governor of Edo State – Adams Oshiomole may take over as APC National Chairman. Already the Edo State chapter of the APC has unanimously endorsed Oshiomole as their choice in replacement of Oyegun. Added to the script is the advent of Mr Festus Keyamo, a lawyer with career roots in the famed law chambers of the unforgettable human rights lawyer of blessed memory, Chief Gani Fawhenmi. He has just been appointed the spokesman for the Buhari Re-election Campaign Organisation. Hailing from Delta State – a part of the aggrieved Niger Delta region, is he also forgeting the pains in his roots and the plight of his kith and kin, one may ask innocently? At least his people are yet to hear something like suggesting some attention to their welfare, from him. 

In the final analysis, the fact remains that if the unsettled circumstances of both ex and current Niger Delta agitators are yet to feature as priority issues in the campaign agendas of these two political platforms – even with the relative dominance of Niger Delta indigenes at their respective driving seats, the situation calls for grave concern. This is with respect to the question of adequate representation of the core interests of the Niger Delta in the mainstream of the country’s political conversation. 

In the context of the foregoing, the temptation remains strong to conclude that the only value conferred to the youth of the region by even some of their leading political lights, is little more than as disposable agents fit only for political mischief, and not entitled to any other utility, especially one that would facilitate economic self-reliance and thereby meaningful self-development.

The more disturbing flipside of the situation is that some of the political elite in the region even goad their impressionable youthful followers to see the NDAP as a cure-all solution to the problems of the region, whereas this contention is as far from the truth as light is from darkness. It does not require any measure of clairvoyance to appreciate that sooner than later the NDAP require a re-evaluation that may invariably dictate culling of the stipends and handouts, which in any case remain far from providing a more enduring solution, to the region’s problems. 

 Hopefully the Niger Delta political elite can and should change the picture of region and in particular the syndrome of the latter’s dependence on the stipends and handouts, which are grossly inadequate in the first place. This can be facilitated by their extension of the hand of fellowship to the new Coordinator of the NDAP, erudite Professor Charles Quaker-Dokubo as he launches his vision of capacity building for the region’s youth. Only such initiatives can facilitate the emergence of the self-employed, self-assured Niger Delta young millionaires on whom the future of the region rests, after the Amnesty stipends and handouts would have ceased.