‘I will address legitimate demands/past lapses’

From Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt and Okungbowa Aiwerie, Asaba

The Interim Administrator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col. Milland Dixon-Dikio (rtd.) has promised to address legitimate demands of the programme’s beneficiaries.

Dikio, who has been on a tour of the Niger Delta region, also vowed to tackle all past lapses that militated against the scheme.

The amnesty boss, who spoke after a close-door meeting with Delta State Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, said the programme had been restructured to positively impact on the people’s lives.

He said: “My mission in Delta is to brief the governor on the vision of taking the PAP back to the Niger Delta.

“The programme that I administer is a DDR programme -Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration.”

Dikio said the DDR policy of the Federal Government would receive a boost in his tenure, and called for support of all stakeholders to actualise his vision.

According to him, bursary payment to students from the Niger Delta in institutions home and abroad would be sustained, as well as other legitimate demands that would strengthen peace and sustainable development in the region.

On incessant protests by ex-militants, he said: “Protest is not the way to go. There are better ways of addressing grievances .

“We have to be clear that protests upon protests have a negative impact on the economy of the region and so our appeal is that protesters must be conversant with the effect of their protest on the region’s economy.

“A lot of them are talking about payment of allowances, but some of these allowances are not even documented. They talked about housing allowance that was not envisaged to be a long term thing.

“There are other legitimate demands which I am looking into. One of the important issues has to do with regular payment of stipends.

“In the last two months, we have been paying stipends to students in tertiary institutions home and abroad.”