Nigerian Acting President Goodluck Jonathan Tuesday ordered the implementation of an amnesty deal for ex-rebels to be sped up, his spokesman said a day after deadly blasts in the restive Niger Delta.
“Today, the acting president gave marching orders to all agencies, bodies and individuals involved in amnesty to immediately go to work,” Ima Niboro told journalists.
All people involved should “ensure that whatever challenges are holding up these areas (programmes) are surmounted very quickly so that the process can move ahead flawlessly,” he said.
The order came a day after blasts in southern oil city of Warri, triggered by the nation’s main armed militant group, killed at least one person and injured several others.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed responsibility for two explosions that rocked the Warri venue of amnesty talks for former rebel fighters.
“Areas like infrastructural development can take a little more time. But he (Jonathan) has also directed the Niger Delta ministry … to fast-track all issues concerning infrastructural programmes in Niger Delta so that this perception that the process is slipping can be corrected immediately,” Niboro said.
Niboro said that federal officials charged with implementing the programme held an emergency meeting on Tuesday “in reaction to worries, which are understandable, in several quarters that the amnesty process is either failing or going off track.
“The acting president wants to assure all Nigerians that the amnesty process is on course,” added Niboro.
He said the programme had four phases of implementation, starting with disarmament, then demobilisation, rehabilitation and reorientation and infrastructure development.
In January MEND called off a unilateral truce it announced in October following a government amnesty for former rebels in the “oil war” zone, lamenting a lack of progress on rehabilitating and retraining former fighters.
The region has been rocked by more than three years of fighting by armed militants demanding a greater share of oil wealth for local communities.