Amnesty: Where We Are Coming From

Walter Dadinson

The Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, a peace-building initiative by President Umar Yar’Adua heralded hope upon proclamation. For a nation already on the cliff, especially on the economic front, owing to militancy, it presented a glimer of hope.

With the key mandate of disarmament, training and reintegration, PAP was programmed to succeed.

With the size of the mandate, funding has been critical to the success of the scheme and this wasn’t lost on the federal government.

Since 2009, budgetary annual  allocations have been provided to ensure that all components of the programme are realised.

Past administrators of PAP worked within resources available to them to achieve the noble objectives of the scheme.

Given that up until recently, the number of agitators continued to increase from the original 30,000, the financial obligations of the programme grew as well.

Following the current efforts at eliminating all forms of inconsistencies in PAP’s data base, questions are being raised regarding the management of resources at PAP before now.

Such puzzles were informed by the need for the public to know where PAP is coming from and the direction it is headed.

Before now, stakeholders apart from  expressing concerns about the management of the scheme’s resources, they also made a case for transparency.

For instance, the House of Representatives, last year, said the agency was “grossly mismanaged.”

The House said this when it quizzed the then Interim administrator, Col Dixon  over N3.7bn paid to ex-agitators.

House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts had said that the Presidential Amnesty has been grossly mismanaged.

The committee made the allegation following alleged inability of the interim administration to account for monies paid to ex-agitators and contractors.

In a session with the officials of the programme arising from the audit query from the auditor general of the federation, the chairman of the committee, Hon. Wole Oke said the office could not account for the monies expended.

Taking three out of the 21 audit queries, Oke said that over N3.9 billion was reportedly expended by the Agency without proper documents to back up the expenditures.

The committee said that the Programme paid over N3.7bn for Ex-agitators and that the payments violated e-payment policy of the Federal Government as they were made into a single account instead of the individual beneficiaries accounts.

The Audit query had also accused the office of paying N136 million to two different contractors without proper rendition of accounts of the beneficiaries.

The committee further accused the programme of approving the sum of N79m to 11 individual as Cash advancement without retirement of the same.

In his response, Dikio pleaded for more time to organize himself for the answers, saying he was new to the office.

But the Committee frowned at the response, saying that government was a continuum, urging him to take responsibility.

The table later turned to the Director, Finance and Accounts, DFA, Mr Ityohume Isaac, who said the N3.7 billion was paid to Camp Leaders of the former agitators who in turn paid to those under them.

He added that not all the former agitators were on the Bank Verification Number, BVN of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

However, the Committee Chairman ruled that the Agency should provide the Committee relevant documents on the expenditures detailing the number of the beneficiaries, amount involved, their addresses and the names of the hotels used which they claimed issued them receipts

The Committee also ruled that the details of the beneficiaries of the programme should be published in three different national dailies, adding that the relevant documents should also be subjected to forensic investigation.

The House sitting, which was widely reported last year, apart from raising questions on how PAP was being managed at the time, also gave rise to doubt on the possibility of realising the scheme’s mandate.

Just recently, Niger Delta Integrity Group ,NDIG, while making a case for accountability at PAP, said any effort at ensuring same should be supported.

Dr. Boma Horsfall, NDIG’s Convener, in a statement to that effect, had urged Dikkio to rally round the new Interim Coordinator of PAP, retired Major General Barry Tariye Ndiomu and other stakeholders to fast-track moves at achieving the mandate of PAP, and move the entire Niger Delta region forward.

He said: “The NDIG, a leading voice in the Niger Delta, thus, urges Dikio to desist from reeling out false figures to the media, and instead rally round Major General Barry Tariye Ndiomu (rtd) and other stakeholdera to fast-track achieving the mandate of the PAP, and move the entire Niger Delta region forward.

“Therefore, for purpose of clarity and emphasis, it is worthy to note that: A debt liability of 49,995,480,634.49 representing monies for work done was outstanding. This quoted figure is the debt for the Reintegration Department Only.

“The Reintegration department of the PAP is the core driver of the PAP operations and directly oversees all matters associated with the management of Programme beneficiaries.

“The monthly subvention to the PAP stands at N5.4bn. Therefore, on his resumption as Interim Administrator, Ndiomu was to expect monthly allocations of four months to draw from i.e., September to December 2022 totaling N21.6bn.

“The Formal Education segment had been over-subscribed in terms of award of scholarships without due recourse to budgetary provisions. Between January 2022-August 2022 a total number of 1,662 persons were deployed to universities onshore (Mostly privately-owned institutions) this was for the 2021/2022 academic year.

“Also, between August 2021 and August 2022, fifty-three (53) persons were awarded foreign scholarships. The criteria for selection and eventual award of scholarships did not follow any laid down procedure. It was observed that children and wards of political powerbrokers, and other classes of influential persons formed the bulk of those who enjoyed the privilege. A scholarship programme of this kind is designed and meant for the indigent only.

“None of the 1,717 persons awarded scholarship and subsequently deployed to schools underwent any form of pre-deployment orientation of physical screening beyond the digital selection process conducted via the PAP web portal. Deployed persons were not made to sign a student sponsorship charter or code of conduct.

“The repercussion of this omission has resulted in the PAP having to deal with a plethora of cases of student indiscipline and character deficit. As a result of the oversubscribed scholarship program, the debt liability required to offset all expenses associated with the more than 3,000 sponsored persons in schools (onshore and offshore) for just October-December 2022 is N5,502633,219.21.

“The Train, Employ & Mentor (TEM) scheme may have been a smart model on paper however, it did not consider realities on ground. The tuition fee component of the various contracts awarded under the TEM scheme were evidently overpriced and didn’t emanate from any standard benchmarking markers or yardstick.

“This realization is what necessitated my directing the renegotiation of all the TEM contracts which was a very successful exercise that saw the PAP save approximately 1.3 billion naira.

“The ‘Employ’ component of the TEM model was faulty because a key feature of the ‘Employment’ offer was tied to a specific period i.e., 30 months and only available to 50% of the total number of delegates trained. Furthermore, the devasting effects of the flooding that ravaged some core states of the Niger Delta between September and October 2022, saw the destruction of farmlands and factory machineries.”

On the supposed 7.5 billion Naira “special supplementary fund to engage and train identified participants who had been involved in illegal refining”, the NDIG’s Convener said the supposed fund is yet to be recorded as a received inflow into the PAP financial accounts i.e. it never came.

“The data management system inherited by the new administration was fraught with all kinds  distortions. Persons other than genuine ex-agitators are listed as beneficiaries under a supposed ‘impacted communities’ rationale that was never properly articulated nor documented,” said NDIG.

––Dadinson, an activist and environmentalist, writes from Port Harcourt

pix: Ndiomu.jpg