The Ex-Agitators’ Leadership Forum (EALF), Bayelsa State Chapter, has advised the newly appointed Notional Security Adviser to the President of Nigeria, Nuhu Ribadu, to keep the immediate past Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Program (PAP), Major General Barry Ndiomu (rtd), far from his office if he wishes to succeed in maintaining the peace in the Niger Delta region.
The chairman of the ex-agitators’ forum, Charles Kurobo, said that while in office Major General Ndiomu (rtd) in connivance with some of his partners added fictitious names and account numbers into the monthly payroll of the program through which they embezzled billions of Naira meant for ex-agitators who are currently wallowing in abject poverty in the creeks of Niger Delta.
Speaking further Kurobo said that Ndiomu is currently using the said looted funds meant for ex-agitators to sponsor news publications signed by fictitious militant generals in a bid to cajole the Presidency to reappoint him as the Interim Administrator of PAP, so he can continue to rubbish the name of the present administration just as he did in the last one.
Kurobo said “if you read the news publication which suggests that ex-agitators from the nine Niger Delta states are calling on the NSA to reappoint Ndiomu the next Interim Administrator of PAP, you would see how desperate the man in question is. Who is Gershom Mpaka Gbobo, who authored that press statement? Do we such among militant leaders in Rivers State?
“That obviously a false name used to cover up the schemes of Ndiomu. We are not surprised because he has a lot of falls name in the PAP list through which diverts N65,000 monthly allowance meant for over 1000 ex-agitators. On the other hand there is no known group such as Coalition of Ex-agitators of Niger Delta (CEND) in the Niger Delta.
“Therefore, we still stand on our appeal that the president of Nigeria, Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR), should extent his investigation into financial misappropriation to the office of the Presidential Amnesty Program (PAP), because the interventionist program has become a cash-cow for successive Interim Administrators.”