 “I hereby grant amnesty and unconditional pardon to all persons who have directly or indirectly participated in the commission of offences associated with militant activities in the Niger Deltaâ€
– Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua while proclaiming presidential amnesty for Niger Delta militants on June 25, 2009
The decision was indeed a bold and pragmatic step taken by the then Federal Government towards fulfilling its avowed commitment of bringing enduring peace, security, stability and development to the Niger Delta region.
Recall that the Niger Delta militancy ravaged the Nigerian upstream petroleum sector between 2004-2009, bringing it to a standstill. Reports indicate that the militants’ activities cut down Nigeria’s monthly oil revenues to $1bn per month in July 2009 compared to $2.2bn that it was in 2008.
In the wake of government’s neglect of their region, the militants argued that they are fighting to have a larger share of the country’s oil wealth (which their region produces) and to curb wanton environmental degradation caused by gas flaring and oil spillage. In response, Nigeria adopted an amnesty policy―a globally recognised tool for conflict resolution and peacebuilding―to protect the sector and the economy from collapse.
In June 2009, the late Yar’Adua signed an offer of unconditional presidential amnesty program for militants operating in the Niger Delta. This was to mitigate the groundswell of violent conflicts in the region and threats they portended for the Nigerian state, including the reduction in revenues accruing from oil sales.
Amnesty in the Niger Delta can be traced back to 1967 when the Yakubu Gowon regime pardoned the Niger Delta Volunteer Force, including its leader, Isaac Boro, for the insurgency fomented by the group in 1966.
To achieve its objectives, the government introduced three phases including disarmament, i.e. disarming the youths of weapons, demobilisation, rehabilitation and sustainable reintegration.
Initially, the program was conceived as a short-term mechanism for de-escalating and defusing the militant insurgency that destabilised the oil-rich Niger Delta over the preceding decade and was also designed to achieve broader socio-economic and stabilisation objectives.
Its approach is to reintegrate agitators via training, further education, job placements, and business startup support and pay a monthly social support stipend until they graduate from the PAP.
The Niger Delta PAP, after its establishment, has undergone a series of evolution which has yielded positive results at resolving the unrest in the volatile oil-producing region and consequent improvement of the nation’s economy.
Currently, the programme is in the reintegration phase which largely entails providing the restive youths with either vocational training or formal education. There is also the re-insertion part of reintegration which entails adding processes of returning already trained ex-agitators to civil society.
The quickest way to achieve this is through the provision of jobs to already trained delegates. But, unfortunately, the situation of the country has changed with many of the educated youths being unemployed.
The good news, however, is that, after 12 years, PAP, to a large extent, has created a remarkable improvement in the Niger Delta from what it was and what it is now.
It has stopped incessant attacks and sabotage of oil facilities which resulted in the restoration of peace to the region.
This has made it possible for the Federal Government to have a free flow of oil thereby increasing revenues. And Nigeria has been able to attain the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries quota of 2.2 million barrels of crude per day compared to the production of 700,000 barrels per day in the pre-2009 period.
With regards to training and education, the programme was able to incorporate not less than 30,000 militants who agreed to lay down their arms and embrace peace.
Besides, there is evidence that no fewer than 1,050 of the ex-agitators have so far graduated from the programme, while no fewer than 13 of them have studied up to the PhD level.
The programme has equally trained several pilots, lawyers, engineers, welders and the like.
Despite that the programme has achieved relative successes in the aforementioned areas, a lot still has to be done in their reintegration. After training, the youths need to be effectively absorbed and reintegrated into society by keeping them busy so as to erase the mentality of hostility from their thoughts.
However, mismanagement enables elites to divert annual budget allocations from the program into their private pockets, compromising the quality of delivery so much that participants fail to graduate in some cases.
In early October, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, whose office is responsible for coordinating the PAP, raised an alarm saying that over N700bn has been ‘wasted’ on the Niger Delta amnesty programme due to corruption and lack of transparency over the years. He noted that the programme has become a cesspit of graft and thus called for it to be scrapped.
However, appropriate measures should be put in place in order to root out the corrupt practices that marred the program over the years.
This effort plus commitment and dedication from the participants will go a long way in ensuring that the program continues to see the light of the day.
Mukhtar Ya’u Madobi writes from Kano
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