He is not a fictional character. He is also not afraid of being named. His story is one of those familiar stories in the Niger Delta. The man I am writing about is Adaka Paul. Sure his name does not ring a bell like that of Ateke Tom.
For a long time, he lived in a camp for militants. In the camp, they did nothing noble. Their actions were stuffs that only enemies of progress would envy.
Across such camps scattered in the creeks of the Niger Delta, the likes of Paul became government of their own. They had guns. Yet they were no police. They took royalty from oil giants. Yet they fif not represent the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). There was so much free money around earned from illegal sources. So much was the cash that they could afford choice wines, big girls and all the flashy things that money could buy.
The fiery business of illegal oil bunkering was a darling of these men. While the likes of Paul were anonymous until when it was time for repentance, the principal officers, such as Government Ekpumopolo, better known as Tompolo, Ateke Tom and others, were national figures. They were bold enough to issue threats to government through the national newspapers.
Their excuse for the illegalities they carried out was that government and the oil giants were not doing enough for them. No doubt, their pieces of land are being polluted. Their waters have become poisonous and dangerous for human beings and fishes. And daily, they live in hell while the workers of the oil giants live in heaven called Residential Areas.
Government sent the military after them but still nothing changed. The government lost so much to their activities and it got so bad that the late President Umaru Yar’Adua cajoled them into an amnesty programme. An Amnesty Office was created. A former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Timi Alaibe, was made the Special Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs and was in charge of the programme until he decided he wanted to be Bayelsa State governor and quit the job. Another Ijaw man, though from Ondo State, Kinglsey Kuku, an alumni of the Ondo State University, now known as Ekiti State University, got the mandate and is still in charge.
Guns and weapons of all shades were brought out from camps to beat the amnesty deadline. Once you brought out your guns, it mattered not how many people you had killed. It mattered not how many barrels of oil you had stolen. It mattered not how many girls you raped in the creeks; and it mattered not how much harm you had done to the economy. Just bring out your weapons and you were told: go and sin no more. But you also would not go empty handed. First, they were put into a camp where they were re-orientated and later sent for vocational trainings either home or abroad and placed on monthly stipends.
For the big boys, the civilian generals who controlled the camps, such as Tompolo, government knew the alternatives given to their foot soldiers would not be enough to get them off the illegal acts. So, they were rewarded with juicy contracts to protect oil pipelines. Whether this stopped or curbed oil theft while the contracts lasted is another matter.
For some time, it seemed all was well with the programme. Many were shouting eureka that militancy had been nipped in the bud. Many bad youths had been redeemed from the bad ways of the creeks, we assumed. But, signs that the programme has k-leg started emerging when some started complaining that they were not favoured. They blocked highways and so on. There were instances when others even captured in the programme complained of insincerity with their stipends.
Paul spoke with Niger Delta Report early in the week. His lamentations raised issues of transparency in the Amnesty Office. For instance, he alleged the names of some of the amnesty beneficiaries were removed and thus denied the N65,000 monthly stipend.
This, I understand, is causing
discontent within the rank and file of the ex-militants.
Paul was one of those who got N65,000 monthly until June last year, when his name and those of other colleagues were yanked off the list. Like his colleagues, he underwent disarmament, rehabilitation and reintegration training.
After the training, he was listed among those entitled to the stipends, which, according to him, are handled by ‘commanders’ from different parts of the Niger Delta.
These ‘commanders’ were their leaders in the days when they behaved like devil incarnates.
His own commander was reportedly killed last year and since then, he disappeared from the list of beneficiaries and efforts to find out what happened has yielded no result.
So, the question is: what has been happening to his payment since June 2013? Who has been collecting these money? Where has it been going and how many such cash is going unaccounted for regularly?
Kuku should be able to answer these questions. May be the Federal Government needs to investigate the amnesty programme.
Paul alleged that lots of irregularities and shoddy deals are being done as regard funds meant for ex-militants.
The leaders of the various camps are suspects in this matter.
We cannot afford to get these guys back into the creeks. Already, it is believed that some have gone back. Oil theft has gone up. Pirates have taken over the waterways too. Early in the week, a group hiding under the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility for an attack on a security patrol boat on a waterway in Bayelsa State. It said the attack was to remind government of its existence. It said the Saturday night attacks in the Nembe-Bassanbiri waterways were carried out by new fighters and threatened to reduce Nigerian oil production to zero by 2015.
The likes of Paul may be easily recruited into the fold. We must not allow this.
It must be pointed out that the lure of easy cash is tempting no matter the danger. Many like Paul really did not like what they were doing and will be content earning less, through non-risky means.
I tell you we are better off with reformed Pauls than angered Pauls, who will run back to the camps and make dangerous cash to the detriment of the society, which failed them in the first place.
