Former militants from the Justice Camp in the Niger Delta have threatened to shut down legislative and all other activities today at the National Assembly complex in Abuja.
The aggrieved ex-militants, who claimed to have made other peaceful entreaties for Federal Government’s attention to their plight, said theyadopted the protest approach because their camp had been sidelined by the Amnesty Office in the Presidency.
They said the officce refused to document and integrate them into the third phase of the amnesty programme.
Addressing reporters at the weekend in Ughelli, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, General David Owhegbe, the State Chairman of the Justice Camp, alleged that his members had been deliberately excluded from benefitting from the programme.
He described the development as a daylight robbery.
Owhegbe said counsel to the former militant, A. Movie, in a letter about three months ago to the Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, regretted that the time they were promised for documentation and payment of stipends had expired.
The letter reads: “On the proclamation of amnesty by the Federal Government, our clients, with a retinue of militants under their authority, voluntary submitted arms and ammunition under their control and management to Sector 1, Joint Task Force (JTF), at the Effurun Barracks, Delta State, recently.
“Contrary to expectations, the express promise made to our clients that they would be paid stipends and documented at the slated period has elapsed and unfulfilled.
“Note that the caption date – July 14, 2014 for amicable resolution of the issue raised in the said letter further briefed us to remind you and request for your urgent reply to the said letter within 30 days of the receipt of their letter and that, our clients’ modest demand; an urgent integration and documentation into the amnesty programme, like other ex-militants, who keep to the tenets of militancy renunciation be granted.
“If the office of the amnesty fails or refuses to accede to our clients’ demands, then we will have no option than to institute legal action against you and federal government and also organize an unusual demonstration in every part of the Niger Delta region, beginning from Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, to district the sitting of national legislators and others until our demands are met.”
Niger Delta ex-militants have called on President Jonathan to support the creation of Toru-Ebe State.
Delta State Chairman, Amnesty Phase 2, Gen. Kingsley Muturu,
stressed the need for Jonathan to address the long-standing issue of Toru-ebe State, which will unite the balkanised Ijaws in Delta, Edo and Ondo states.
They said: “All we are saying is that Toru-ebe State creation is one thing we agitators have been fighting in order to unite our balkanized people. It is our home and we are calling on President Jonathan to look at this issue critically in the Confab report. He should not ignore it if we are creating additional states in this federation.
“Jonathan should revoke all oil licences because they were allotted by people for themselves without following due process. He should revoke and re-allot them according to due process with Niger Deltans at heart, because we suffer all the degradations and pollution in the area.”
Former militant leaders have raised a committee to resolve the dispute between Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson and one of them, Mr. Eris Paul, popularly called Ogunboss.
Ogunboss accused Dickson of working against President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election ambition.
He sent an open letter to the President, highlighting the governor’s alleged moves to scuttle his campaign.
Dickson said the ex-militant leader was angry because his administration’s intolerance of criminality ran him out of business.
Worried by the development, ex-militant leaders, under the aegis of the Leadership for Peace and Cultural Development Initiative (LPCDI), held an emergency meeting at the weekend in Yenagoa, the state capital.
After the meeting, LPCDI Chairman Pastor Reuben said the group raised a five-man committee to reconcile the governor and Ogunboss.
He said it was wrong of Ogunboss to have used their forum to write the President, adding that the ex-militant leader would be persuaded to embrace peace.
Reuben urged former militant leaders to beware of Abuja-based politicians, “who are only interested in creating confusion in the state”.
He said former militant leaders had resolved not to be used by politicians in the forthcoming elections, adding: “We don’t want Ogunboss to have a problem with Dickson. We supported the governor and we cannot turn our backs on him now.”
Reuben hailed the governor for appointing five ex-militant leaders as members of the 11-man committee set up to fight insecurity on the waterways.
He pledged their support for the president and the governor.
Niger Delta ex-militants have warned politicians against playing politics with security issues.
They are concerned about politicians’ handling of the Chibok girls abduction and the Boko Haram.
Delta State Chairman, Amnesty Phase 2 Ex-militants, Kingsley Muturu, spoke with reporters in Warri, Delta State.
He said the politics of Chibok girls and the Boko Haram phenomenon were orchestrated to frustrate President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2015 ambition.
Muturu said the foreign assistance to find the Chibok girls is not producing the desired result.
He added that efforts to stop Jonathan from seeking a second tenure would fail.
Nigerians, he said, have witnessed Jonathan ‘s efforts to improve the security of life and property.
He said: “A situation whereby a whopping number of girls abducted from a school without anybody knowing their whereabouts until now coupled with their states of origin, is appalling. Or are they all from Borno State? They should stop deceiving Nigerians and allow Jonathan to work for the people who voted him.”
The ex-militants said they would continue to stand by Jonathan, urging him to be courageous in tackling security challenges bedeviling the nation.
They called on the people of Niger Delta not to be deceived or used by desperate politicians.
“They do all these things because of 2015 elections. There is no information from the world powers that came for the rescue of the girls. Everybody is keeping mum over the issue, politicking and manipulating information. It is all a ploy against Jonathan and his government.
“We Niger Delta ex-agitators are solidly behind Jonathan for a second tenure. The insecurity situation in the country is a plan by a group of people, and Niger Delta agitators are keenly watching their diabolic activities against a President from the oil-rich Niger Delta region, and we say we are watching.”
For some time now, there have been complaints about the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Most times there are complaints, the leadership of the programme has always explained them away by saying the complainants were fake. Adediwura Aderibigbe tells yet another tale of aggrieved ex-militants who traced their woes to their camp leaders
The duo walked into The Nation’s headquarters in Lagos. The young men in their late 20s did not look an inch individuals who can foment trouble. Phillip Ukange and Avurakoghene Ogofotha said they are ex-Niger Delta militants, whose allowances are allegedly being owed. They presented identification cards to prove they were militants enrolled on the Amnesty Programme.
Ogofotha
Ogofotha said after laying down his arms following the offer of amnesty by the late President Umar Yar’adua, he enrolled at the University of Benin. Now, he is troubled that his education is under threat as the expected source of funding has dried.
Ukange said he was entitled to N65, 000 monthly allowance; he said he only got paid for six months.
The young men claimed they were victims of corruption in the Presidential Amnesty Programme having being enrolled in the 2012 phase two of the initiative.
Ogofotha said: “I want to do something meaningful with my life. I am an ex-militant of the second phase of the amnesty programme, I have not been paid since 2012 when they started paying money into the account of the second-phase ex-militants.
“As at the time, they gave us a phone contact of a man called Tony (he said he couldn’t recall Tony’s full name) who was said to be the paymaster. We called him but to no avail. We also tried to go to the office but whenever we attempted going there they would bar us.
“Although some other affected ex-militants have gone to lay complaints but nothing was done; sometimes we would be molested by the military men there.
“I am not the only one, we are over hundred. Some got their money for a number of months while others were partly paid. When we disarmed, I actually started school with the hope of using the allowance to pursue my education in the university but that was not the case. It became difficult for me to pay my school fees to the extent that I had to resort to menial jobs to remain in school. As it is now, my graduating from the school is hanging in balance; I may not be graduating with the right grade because of financial difficulties. All I want is to get paid in full from January 2012 till date.”
They said as militants they could afford all they wanted but not freedom to live and walk around. “There was money but we were not free to move around and enjoy the money. We were always staying in the bush,” said 28-year-old Ogofotha.
He went on: “Some of the repented ex-militants might have gone back. For me, I don’t want to go back; I want to go to school and live a different life but I need the money to complete my education. I may not be able to give you the exact number of the ex-militants affected by the unpaid allowances but I know we will be up to five hundred as it cuts across different states.
“They have influenced the list of the ex-militants, some of them have put their girlfriends in the position. They receive money that ex-militants are supposed to be receiving and they are even going for training abroad.
“When we took our protest to Abuja in 2013, they promised that they would send officials to come and rectify the problem in Warri. They did come to find out if we were the real people documented as ex-militants. And when they came, they found out that we were the real people because they came with their own list which tallied with what was on ground. They promised us that when they got back to Abuja they would rectify the problem but since then we have not heard anything.”
Phillip
Ukange said he got his first six months payments.
“When I noticed I stopped receiving money I called my Generale,George Esebaro. He is the leader of the group called Uti Camp which I belonged. When I called him, he said I was a very rude boy, that since I had been receiving my money I did not pay return, I did not call him let alone send him call cards so that was why he went to Abuja to block my account.
“He told me that the people that have been receiving normally paid him some money. So, if I could not do the same, then I should not expect to keep receiving money. Since then, he stopped responding to my calls; sometimes he would pick, he would warn me not to disturb him and hang up.”
Ogofotha offered more insight: “At the initial stage before they started paying into our accounts, the money was being paid through our leaders who were always deducting from our legitimate allowance; out of N65, 000 we were being paid, each ex-militant would pay their leader N25, 000 – sometimes we were not even paid anything.
“Meanwhile, at a point, some ex-militants refused to comply and all allowances were blocked by the leader of my camp, Abraham Ekokotu. He had gone to court to get a documentation to back his action which resulted in the blockade of accounts from my camp called Agbalakoko Camp.
“When the affected ex-militants stopped receiving money, they had to seek a way out and he forced them to sign an agreement even as some of them could not read, they had to sign. The accounts were later unblocked when the people succumbed to his demands.
“It has not been easy for me going to school though my brother has been assisting me in a little way and advising me not to get involved in anything violent. When they stopped my payment, my intention was to go back to the creeks but my father did not allow me to.”
The ex-leader of the Niger Delta Vigilance Movement, Ateke Tom, and ex-militants in their hundreds, yesterday took over the rally by the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, in Rivers State.
Wike, who is also the grand patron of a socio-political organisation, the Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI), declared Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi had left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The supervising Minister of Education stated that Amaechi, who is also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), wanted to cause confusion in the PDP. He urged his teeming supporters not to be distracted.
Wike spoke at the thanksgiving and inauguration of wards (12) and Okrika Local Government executives of the GDI at the playground of the National Secondary School, Okrika, the headquarters of Okrika LGA of Rivers state, where the wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience, hails from. Ateke Tom is also from Okrika.
Amaechi, however, asked the minister to face the problems in the Federal Ministry of Education, especially the strike by the members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), since July 1 and stop his 2015 governorship campaigns,
The Rivers governor, who spoke through the Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt, Chief Tony Okocha, also called on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, to call Wike to order, for flouting INEC’s rule of no campaign until 90 days to elections.
The NGF chairman, while commenting on the presence of Ateke and other repentant militants at the GDI’s rally, said: “Illegality is being legitimised. Nigerians are wiser,” insisting that he remained a member of the PDP.
The minister of state for education got to the arena at 2:50 pm, danced round to greet his teeming supporters, who were already seated under the canopies and he sat on the front row of the seats reserved for eminent personalities.
Ateke and the ex-militants stormed the arena at 3:10 pm, with the programme temporarily halted because of the loud noise, accompanied with drumming, singing and dancing round the expansive premises.
The former “General” then joined Wike; the Rivers PDP Chairman, Chief Felix Obuah, and other leaders of the PDP, while the patron of the GDI (Ateke) sat near the supervising minister of education.
When Wike was asked at 4:23 pm to address his supporters, the Master of Ceremonies urged Ateke to have handshake with the minister of state for education, which took some minutes.
The ex-warlord was also given a full page in the programme for the event, with his photograph with brown suit, white shirt and red tie on page 9.
Wike said: “All our leaders who are here, particularly the freedom fighter, Comrade Tom Ateke (followed with loud ovation by his supporters), let me sincerely thank everyone of you that has gathered here today. Do not be provoked. Be calm. Our time will come. Nobody will stop it.
“When you are provoked and you take action, what you may want to achieve, you may not realise it. I will continue to plead with all of you to be calm and be focused. Our agenda is to make sure that by the special grace of God, in 2015, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan returns to Aso Rock.
“They have told you that they will take away the party structure from the Chairman (Chief Felix Obuah) and his committee. If you have not done anything, let me tell you one thing that you have achieved. You have put the governor of a state to start making arrangements to leave the party.”
A group of ex-militants who claimed to belong to the Bakassi Freedom Fighters have protested the non-payment of their allowances since March 2011 by the amnesty office in Abuja.
They accused the leader of the BFF of conniving with Amnesty Office to short-change them.
The protesting ex-militants who besieged the Cross River State headquarters of the State Security Service in Calabar yesterday, where it was gathered, BBF was, said they were supposed to have been paid their allowances directly from the amnesty office but for some reasons, had to be paid by the BFF leader.
One of the ex-militants, Daniel Asuquo, who said he also goes by Commander Saddam, said: “We are all ex-militants of the Niger Delta, Bakassi Freedom Fighters. We are here for the fact that our general, is sitting on our allowances. For the past two years, we have not been paid our monthly allowances.
He said they had to mobilise themselves to the airport where they caught up with the BBF leader.
“Except something is done today we will not vacate this premises. If he does not give us our money, we are ready to fight him to the finish. We are ready to die. As you can see, the sun is beating us. Nobody on earth would stop the BBF leader from paying us our money. All our allowances, transition safety allowance, housing allowance must be paid. We caught him at the airport yesterday and brought him to the SSS office.
One of the protesting ex-militants, Victor Edet, accused Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Kingsely Kuku of not handling the situation well.
“We have been writing to Amnesty Office, but nothing has been happening. So that is why we brought him to SSS so that the agency can help us and do the job.
But the spokesman for the BFF, Nicholas Theophilus, told The Nation yesterday that they did not recognise the protesters as members of the BFF,” adding that “if they are aggrieved, they should channel their grievances to the proper channel and not take the laws into their hands.”
Tension has gripped Bilabiri, a community in Ekeremor Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, after aggrieved ex-militants laid siege in the area.
The angry warlords were said to have stormed the community with different types of riffles and terrified the area with gunshots.
Sources said two groups of the former creek warriors engaged each other in a gun battle that lasted for hours.
This is against the backdrop of alleged diversion of amnesty welfare of the ex-militants by their former boss.
Stacatto of gunshots were said to be so deafening that residents of the area flee to the mangrove swamp for safety.
The fear-stricken residents were said to have abandoned their homes to seek refuge in bushes during the shooting that occurred in the morning. Sources said there was pandemonium in the community.
At the centre of the crisis was a known former ex-militant leader who the aggrieved shooters accused of diverting their monthly stipends. The gunmen who stormed the coastal community in about two speed boats were after a former militant leader simply identified as ‘Gen’ Pius.
The militant leader was said to have been protected during the attack by some of his loyalists who returned gunshots against the protesters, identified as his former “boys.”
Indigenes of the area were said to have fled to avoid being hit by stray bullets.
The militant leader sources said is an indigene of Egbema-Angalabiri but that he grew up at Bilabiri II.
The gunmen were said to have arrived the community shortly after the generator that supplied electricity to the area was switched off.
But it was learnt that no life was lost in the attack.
When contacted on the development, the Joint Task Force (JTF) Operation Pulo Shield confirmed that there were gunshots in the area.
The Media Coordinator, JTF, Lt. Col. Onyeama Nwachukwu, said: We heard there was exchange of fire between ex-militants in the area.”
He said though operatives of the task force were not deployed in the area, they were monitoring the waterways to combat criminality.
The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) yesterday urged former militants in the Niger Delta to withdraw the threat to stop former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar from visiting the South-south.
The forum described the threat as counter-productive and an illwind that would do no one any good.
A Niger Delta youth leader, Comrade Timi Frank, also described the threat as empty, which falls flat of common sense.
The ACF cautioned the former militants in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Anthony Sani. It said threats and intimidation have no place in democracy.
Some former militants, who met at the weekend in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, under the aegis of the Leadership, Peace and Cultural Development Initiative (LPCDI), declared Atiku a persona non-grata in the Niger Delta.
The ex-warlords faulted Atiku’s alleged roles in the formation of a new Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faction.
But ACF warned the ex-militants against a recourse to intimidation.
The statement said: “The ACF has urged the Niger Delta ex-militants to withdraw the threat it issued against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in the interest of peace, national cohesion and stability of Nigeria.
“The ex-militants are by their misguided action crossing the fiducial mark that is alien to democratic tenets.
“Threats such as the one from the Niger Delta ex-militants is a negation of dialogue and the political process playing itself out on account of the breakup of the PDP into factions.
“The forum warns that the threat from the ex-militants is counter-productive and an ill wind that will do no one any good.
“This is because democracy is not a matter of threats and intimidation, but contest of ideas and reasons.
“Even as the crisis in the PDP rages, the Forum urges the promotion of democracy that is premised on the triple foundation of liberty, justice and common decency instead of resorting to threats and intimidation that have no place in democracy,” the statement said.
In another statement, Frank said the position depicted the ignorance of the group and only showed its total lack of understanding of the crisis in the PDP.
FORMER Vice PresidentAtikuAbubakar has been declared a persona-non-grata by leaders of ex-militants in the Niger Delta for threatening to stop the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 and spearheading the break-up of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The former warlords drawn from all nine states of the Niger Delta made the declaration after a meeting under the aegis of the Leadership, Peace and Cultural Development Initiative (LPCDI) in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State yesterday.
They said: “”It is unfortunate that Atiku, who has benefitted so much from the Niger Delta’s crude oil and gas, is leading dissidents in a political coup against the first Southerner to ever ascend the seat of President of Nigeria.
“We are aware of his vast business interest in the Niger Delta and we are warning him, in his own interest, to stay off the region.
“He cannot be enjoying our oil money and at the same time use the same money to fight against the owners of the oil.”
They added: “What we thought we would be hearing from the North was how the Federal Government would implement the spirit and letters of the amnesty programme.
“Before the former President, UmaruYar’Adua, died, he promised that as soon as we dropped our arms and allowed an unhindered flow of oil from the creeks, we would be given a lifeline.
“He also promised that we would be empowered, to live a new life from the resources of our oil.
“We have been waiting patiently for these to happen. Our acceptance of peace benefitted Atiku and his ilk. Why did he not lead a campaign for the Federal Government to provide the empowerment tools?
“Why has he found it convenient to distract President Jonathan from rendering service to Nigerians?”
They went on: “It is the same Northerners that vowed that they would make the country ungovernable for Dr. Jonathan. By splitting the PDP and causing further tension in the polity, they are demonstrating the agenda of giving President Jonathan sleepless nights, with the intention of taking over power in 2015.
The former freedom fighters also urged Jonathan not to be distracted by the antics of persons they alleged were fighting hard to distract him.
They added they were still waiting patiently for the Federal Government to fully implement the terms of the amnesty programme.
Atiku’s spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, however dismissed the threat.
He said: “Atiku has devoted his life to defending democracy in Nigeria and will not be prevented or deterred from visiting any part of this great country.
“Throughout his long career in business, he has maintained strong ties to the Niger Delta and employs thousands in the region. He will continue to passionately defend democratic values and his work to improve the dignity and lives of all Nigerians.”
