Tag: Kingsley Kuku

In spite of the introduction of the Amnesty Programme for ex-militants in the Niger Delta, there are still challenges facing the scheme. In this piece, Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation, examines the never -ending programme

When on June 25, 2009, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua invoked Section 175 of the constitution to proclaim amnesty for militants in the Niger Delta, he had proposed to bring “enduring peace, security, stability, and development to our nation’s Niger Delta.” The ex-President was also specific on the tenor of the amnesty programme by giving a deadline of between August 6 and October 4, 2009 to all militants in the creeks to renounce violence, surrender their weapons and accept the offer.

He had said: “It is my fervent hope that all militants in the Niger Delta will take advantage of this amnesty and come out to join in the quest for the transformation of our dear nation. The offer of amnesty is open to all militants for a period of 60 days.”

But almost four years into the proclamation and with the consequent return of peace to the Niger Delta as manifested in the increase in oil output from 700,000 bpd to 2.4 /2.6m bpd, the list of ex-militants keeps on growing. According to findings, more ex-militants have surrendered after restoration of peace to the region than during the militancy period which made Yar’Adua to take a courageous step to introduce the Amnesty Programme. At present, the enlistment figure has risen to 30,000 ex-militants including the 3,642 disarmed Niger Delta ex-agitators who President Goodluck Jonathan granted a waiver in December 2012 to be integrated into the Amnesty Programme. The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Kingsley Kuku said: “At the expiration of the 60-day grace period on October 4, 2009, a total of 20,192 Niger Delta ex-agitators had surrendered large number of arms and ammunition to the federal government and accepted the offer of amnesty. Another 6, 166 persons were added in November, constituting a second phase of the programme and bringing the number of the persons enlisted in the Presidential Amnesty Programme to 26,358.” Those in the third phase are about 3,642.

The gains of the amnesty scheme

At a recent briefing, Kuku gave a comprehensive brief on how the Amnesty Programme had been managed so far. He said: “The mandate of the Presidential Amnesty Office which is domiciled in the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, is three-pronged: Disarm, Demobilize and Reintegrate into civil society, the 30,000 former Niger Delta agitators enrolled in the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Pursuant to this mandate, the Amnesty Office has since achieved the disarmament and demobilization of the 26,358 ex-agitators enrolled in the first and second phases of the Amnesty Programme. The Demobilization exercise which was carried out in Obubra in Cross River State, entailed biometric documentation, wellness check, nonviolence transformational training, series of counselling and career classification for the ex-agitators.”

He listed some of the gains as “one of the few countries in the world that achieved a successful closure to the Disarmament and Demobilization phases of its DDR Programme. For your information, virtually all the 24 United Nations-piloted DDR interventions in Africa since 1992 are still battling to achieve full demobilization even with huge financial and technical assistance from the United Nations and several other international partners.” Some of the nations still battling to exit the Demobilization phase of their DDR programmes include Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kuku agreed that the most critical aspect of the DDR scheme is the reintegration and re-insertion of the demobilized ex-agitators into civil society. However, Nigeria has crossed this Rubicon through the rehabilitation of 13,747 already demobilized ex-agitators in either formal education or skill acquisition centres both within the country and offshore. So far 8,372 Amnesty Programme’s delegates have since completed their training and a number of them are now gainfully employed.

Savings for the nation

Kuku also spoke on how the Amnesty Programme had attracted savings for the nation. He said in 2012 alone, about N6.3trillion was saved. He added: “To further underscore the fact that the proclamation of amnesty for former agitators in the Niger Delta as well as the successful management of the post-amnesty programme saved the economy of the nation from a looming collapse, kindly note that with Nigeria producing 2.6 million barrels of crude oil per day as against the abysmally low 700,000 barrels per day at the peak of the Niger Delta crisis in January 2009, Nigeria and its Joint Venture Partners are currently making production savings of about two million barrels per day. If you compute these savings with prevailing exchange rate of N160 to $1, daily production savings for Nigeria and its JV Partners currently stand at N33.4 Billion per day. If you break this down further especially given that oil production in Nigeria hovered between 2.4 and 2.6 barrels for all of 2012, you would discover that savings for Nigeria and the Joint Venture partners for year ending 2012 is estimated to be at about N6.3 trillion.

“Conversely, but for the Amnesty Proclamation and the successful management of the post-Amnesty Programme by His Excellency, President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria and its Joint Venture Partners would have lost by year ending 2012, the staggering sum of N6.3 trillion or much more.”

What the scheme has not stopped

In spite of the Amnesty Programme, illegal oil bunkering is still prevalent in the Niger Delta leading to loss of revenue. In 2012, the Nigerian Army’s Joint Taskforce (JTF) on illegal oil bunkering said 4, 349 illegal refineries were destroyed, 1 945 suspects arrested and18 vessels seized under Operation Pulo Shield

The JTF commander, Major-General Johnson Ochoga expressed shock at the high number of foreigners involved in piracy, oil bunkering, illegal fishing, arms smuggling and other maritime crimes. He gave the list as 60 foreigners – 21 from Ghana, 10 from India, 15 from Russia, some Lebanese and a few from Asian and European countries. He said: “JTF conducted 7, 585 illegal bunkering patrols along the creeks of the Niger Delta in 2012 and destroyed 133 barges, 1, 215 Cotonou boats, 187 tanker trucks, 178 illegal fuel dumps and five surface oil tanks; 36, 504 drums of illegally refined oil products; 638 illegal pumping machines and 326 outboard engines used to power boats used by oil bunkerers and pirates.

The arrest of foreigners has also shown that illegal oil bunkering is not restricted to the Niger Delta militants, it involves a wide ring of foreign collaborators. According to the JTF commander, “The arrest of 21 Ghanaians and their five Nigerian collaborators, as well as the destruction of two vessels containing 1,300 tonnes of crude oil, is an indicator that there is a noticeable involvement of foreigners in illegal bunkering in the region. Another instance is the recent arrest of 10 suspects of Indian nationality and four Nigerians on board MT Ashkay. This has brought to the fore, the need to monitor foreigners more closely in the region.” Besides River Nun in Bayelsa, illegal refineries are located in some creeks of the Dababilebu, Akitogbo, Adiloseimo, Obontonu and Akina-Zion communities. Other notorious areas are Akassa and Elekpa in Brass Local Government of Bayelsa State, and Egbekebor and Gbelekumor communities in Delta State where over 500 illegal refineries were destroyed.

Why the numberof ex-militants keep increasing

Although 2015 is being proposed to end the Amnesty Programme, it might not be realistic in view of the fact that more “ex-militants” are emerging from the creeks. There are fears that oil pollution victims, unemployed graduates, and those who have chosen to be idle in the region are cashing on the spur of the moment to force the government to enlist them into the programme. Another dimension to the programme is the likelihood of some “smart” public officers taking advantage of the situation.

Kuku, however, gave in-depth insight into the challenge of enlistment confronting the office. He said: “Like was mentioned earlier, the mandate given the Amnesty Office by the Federal Government of Nigeria is to disarm, demobilize and reintegrate into civil society, a specific number of former agitators in the Niger Delta who accepted the offer of amnesty and got enlisted in the post-Amnesty Programme. At the expiration of the deadline set by the federal government for the acceptance of the offer and the surrendering of arms, which was October 4th 2009, 20,192 disarmed ex-agitators were enlisted in the programme.

“However government eventually realized that several of the ex-agitators who accepted the offer of the amnesty and disarmed were not enlisted for the simple reason that they did not make themselves available for enlistment. They surrendered their arms through their leaders but hid from the men of the Armed Forces who were charged with the task of disarming and documenting them. Given their well-known less than palatable history with the Nigerian military, many of these youths were sceptical about the exact intentions of the federal government. Some even feared that the general idea was to round all of them up and arrest or even kill them. So, several of them who surrendered their arms and accepted the offer of amnesty through their leaders were not truly enlisted at the expiration date of October 4th, 2009.

However, now that some of them have realised that the government is serious they are now eager to join the amnesty train.

Has the programme been infiltrated

A document made available by the Amnesty Office confirmed that some people who are not militants had been trying to hijack the amnesty scheme. In the document, Kuku said: “Now, there is a problem. We are currently facing a situation where every unemployed, uneducated or un-empowered youth in the states in the Niger Delta believes that his only ticket to a better future is the Amnesty Programme. This should not and must not be. The Amnesty Programme was designed for a specific number and category of persons.

For the past two years we have in press conferences and statements as well as in several meetings with critical stakeholders been making this point: that the Amnesty Programme cannot be for all unemployed, untrained and un-empowered youths in the Niger Delta. I regret to inform you that we have not succeeded in dissuading thousands of hapless Niger Delta youths from agitating for inclusion in the Amnesty Programme.”

He added that those shut out of the scheme began to mount protests and block highways to be noticed, ” We took several stringent measures including arrests and detentions to stop these agitations and the agitators but we did not succeed in shutting out these persons. Matters were clearly made worse by the military and security formations, particularly the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta, who severally accepted arms from these persons and promised them inclusion in the Amnesty Programme.”

Ex-militants blame scheme administrators

On February 12, a group of ex-militants led by Great Godwin Anuke however blamed Kuku and his officials for adopting different methods or benchmarks in demobilizing and reintegrating them. Anuke in Warri said: “You will recall that back in June, 2009, the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua granted amnesty to the Niger Delta militants in what had become known as the first phase of the amnesty programme. On the road to the successful laying down of arms by ex- militants; the amnesty programme which should have ended on October 4, 2009 was extended to what is being called second and third phase.

Sequence to the third phase, under phase l and ll slots were slotted according to arms – one gun to two slots.

“However the unthinkable and injustice is now the case with the third phase – twenty guns to one slot or two slots. We, the former militants who have been mobilized during the extended phases of the amnesty project after surrendering our weapons are miffed that a different arrangement is being used for us.

“We are aware that the National Assembly had approved billions of naira as compensation to ex militants having surrendered their arms and ammunition to the federal government.”

They called on the president to ask Kuku to run the scheme with fairness to all. “What can be deduced from the third phase of the amnesty programme is that it has been hijacked. We feel cheated that this regime lacks the gut and courage to tackle this baffling situation, this leaves room for several speculations, the most realistic of which is the assumption that perhaps the regime is unwilling and incapable of fighting corruption with vigour because as a regime, it is entangled and enmeshed in the web of the corruption that is undermining the very foundation of nationhood.”

When will the amnesty scheme end?

None in the Amnesty Office could say exactly when the programme will wind up. Kuku who made a pronouncement of a 2015 tentative date at a briefing in Abuja was quick to add that it is not sacrosanct. With the 2015 poll approaching and the desire of President Goodluck Jonathan to seek re-election, the amnesty programme is a campaign selling point which the president might exploit for political mileage.

The ex-militants could also be willing tools to mobilize support for their kinsman. Therefore, the amnesty programme is still politically expedient for the presidency.