PEACEBUILDING IN THE NIGER DELTA
The Presidential Amnesty Programme is making a difference
While taking the reins of office a year ago as the administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Dennis Otuaro pledged that he would render quality service to the Niger Delta people and ensure sustainability of the programme. One year on, there is still much to do to realise the founding purpose and vision of the programme. Indeed, many of the issues that gave birth to the Amnesty programme still stare the region, and indeed the nation in the face. But there is no doubt that some progress has been made under Otuaro’s stewardship.
With the discovery of fossil oil, the Niger Delta became the backbone of economy, and the main foreign exchange earner. Despite the huge benefits of the oil and gas economy to the Nigerian state, the region wallows in abject poverty, living from hand to mouth. Besides, the extraction and exploitation of oil has and continues to have an adverse environmental impact on the soil, forest and waterways of the Niger Delta communities, and creating diverse problems for the peoples’ primary means of livelihood.
The groundswell of popular anger among the large number of unemployed and frustrated youth eventually led to militancy, violence and the blowing up of oil and gas infrastructure. The politics of local resistance and the struggle for resource control mushroomed into full insurgency by 2006 involving broad militant alliances. The government eventually came to the realisation that military actions and brute force were not enough to combat the youth insurgency. One of the strategies to restore peace to the region is the amnesty programme.
Initiated in 2009 by the administration of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Ádua, the amnesty programme was set up essentially to stem violent protests by youths in the Niger Delta which portend grave dangers to the national economy. Over the years, the programme has yielded considerable outcomes as well as challenges. Critical issues such as marginalisation, unemployment and poverty are still rife, while the area is still largely deficient in major infrastructure. The programme is also not helped by the rapid turnover and instability around the tenure of it’s administrators. But there is also no doubt that the spate of violence – including kidnappings and killings – has been reduced drastically.
The critical issue of armed struggle is out, and many demobilised persons have earned various skills and others have become graduates in diverse fields of endeavour. Indeed, many of the ex-agitators have been reintegrated into mainstream society, and transformed into entrepreneurs or employable citizens who are net contributors to the economy of the region and beyond. Besides, the amnesty office is increasingly more strategic in its engagements.
Even with limited funds, the current administration is prioritising the welfare of ex-agitators with prompt payment of their stipends. In the last one year, the PAP has also increased the number of beneficiaries of its scholarships and training programmes for Niger Delta youths. Scholarship beneficiaries within a year have more than tripled from 500 to about 1700 students while the earlier suspended overseas scholarship scheme has been revived with 60 students already slated for study abroad in the critical areas beneficial to the economy. Perhaps, more importantly, for the first time, recipients were selected in an open, fair and transparent manner, and all the Niger Delta States were fairly represented in the number of recipients.
Due to the efforts of PAP and alliance with related agencies and security outfits, oil production has increased considerably, particularly in the last one year. Relative peace in the Niger Delta has reflected in Nigeria’s oil production output, which recently reached a record-level of 1.8 million barrels per day. As it is, there is still much to be done. But the new team is making a difference.
