AN assurance of sincerity in government’s amnesty deal for militants in the Niger Delta was again emphasised yesterday.
The Inspector-General of Police and member of the Committee on Amnesty and Disarmament of Militants, Mr. Mike Okiro, who commented on the matter yesterday, allayed fears in several quarters that the government was only playing to the gallery on the amnesty offer.
Other eminent Nigerians such as the Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, Secretary of the Presidential Committee on Peace and Conflict in the Niger Delta, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, the General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Pastor William Kumuyi, said the government needed to be more transparent in its overtures to the militants and other issues affecting the oil-rich region.
In an interview with The Guardian, Okiro said the government was sincere over the gesture and urged the militants to take advantage of the “rare opportunity offered them by the Federal Government and lay down arms.”
Okiro said: “Of course, the amnesty offered by government would work because the events of the previous time are not the events of today. Government, to the best of my knowledge, was not used to amnesty, but this time around, government has grabbed it, so it is left for the militants to accept the olive branch being offered them. If they accept it, as we know, government is sincere, the amnesty would bring an end to hostilities and skirmishes in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. With that, you can be sure that development would thrive in the region. The amnesty granted this time around is different from what you heard previously, it is genuine.”
Shekarau, who condemned the approach of successive governments to the Niger Delta crisis, said “the present invasion of the creeks by the Nigerian military is clearly a wrong move that has already worsened a bad situation.”
The governor spoke in Akure, the Ondo State capital, at the weekend where he was a guest at the wedding of the daughter of Alhaji Jamiu Ekungba, his long time friend.
He said: “Past administrations at the federal and state levels in Nigeria have failed to identify an effective solution to the Niger Delta problem because of wrong approach.”
Shekarau said instead of the current strong-arm tactics of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s administration, “a long lasting solution to the unrest and militancy of the youths of the region should be sought with fruitful negotiations with the aggrieved young men.”
He said “because of the wrong way of tackling the issue over the years, we have not succeeded in identifying what propelled these young men to take up arms against their country. We have not really looked at the crisis from the angle of the aggrieved and we need to do that to find a lasting solution.”
“Everybody has justification for whatever he or she does. And if that person continues to do what we perceive is not good and he continues even while lives and huge resources are being lost, destroyed, the rest of us should endeavour to find out what the problem really is. Even satan could be invited for a round table discussion and he would have something to say,” he said.
His Delta State counterpart, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, said at the weekend that militants who accept the amnesty offer would be rehabilitated.
Uduaghan said in Warri that the panel on amnesty and disarmament had offered a new opportunity to militants to allow peace to be restored to the region.
He commended President Yar’Adua and the committee for working out modalities for the amnesty and promised that the state would be involved in its implementation.
For the initiative to work, Kuku urged the government to remove all encumbrances in the report of the Godwin Abbe-led panel on amnesty and disarmament of militants with a view to providing “life saving all-inclusive package of peace, reformation and reintegration.”
Kuku, who was delighted over the government’s gesture, appealed to the militants to embrace peace.
He told The Guardian yesterday in Port Harcourt that there is no alternative to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and asked President Yar’Adua to study the report and ensure that “it does not contain pregnant clauses against forgiveness and empowerment of those who lay down their arms.”
Kuku, who wants the amnesty to be gazetted without discrimination, demanded that the Joint Task Force (JTF) should be pulled out of Gbaramatu civil communities. “We reiterate that there is no bad peace, there is no good war no matter the cause.”
Although it did not give details, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has said it had been contacted by the Coventry Cathedral of the United Kingdom (UK) as part of international effort to end the crisis.
MEND’s spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, in an online interview with The Guardian, hinted that international peace mediators, notably “the Coventry Cathedral of the United Kingdom, have contacted us as part of efforts to end the raging hostilities initiated by the military.”
Gbomo said MEND’s distrust of the government stems from the fact that Yar’Adua could simply have experimented with Henry Okah to demonstrate his sincerity and for failing to acknowledge the Niger Delta Technical Committee report.
“He was silent about the report submitted over six months ago by the Niger Delta Technical Committee which is worrisome and that tells us what to expect from this report submitted by the Godwin Abbe panel. His handling of the displaced and injured in the Gbaramatu invasion is a reflection of the way he perceives the Niger Delta people and that is enough to tell us that we must continue our sabotage in tandem with talks the same way he is destroying the communities and talking of amnesty,” said Gbomo.
He explained that if the attack on Camp 5 was a strategy to weaken MEND’s resolve and beat it into accepting a one-sided offer on government’s own terms, then the strategy had failed.
MEND at the weekend issued a warning dubbed “Hurricane Piper Alpha” to local and foreign workers in the oil services and exploration companies to vacate the Niger Delta region within 72 hours due to an imminent attack.
Gbomo said the warning also applies to greedy individuals from oil communities tempted to carry out repair contracts on pipelines already destroyed.
Kumuyi, who expressed concern over the destruction of lives and hostage-taking in the Niger Delta, called for genuine dialogue between the government and the militants.
Briefing journalists on the forthcoming Abuja Night of Power programme billed for June 19, 2009, the cleric noted that the current measure taken by government to tackle the problem in the region was not working out as expected and urged the two parties to return to the drawing board and fashion out a better approach to solving the problem.
He said: “The Niger Delta problem should be a concern of not only the Federal Government but of the whole nation, including the church. Nobody is happy with the destruction of lives and hostage-taking in the Niger Delta and we cannot blame any section of the society on the approach they have taken, only that when we are taking a particular approach and it is not solving the problem, we need to come back to the drawing board and say, if this approach is not working, can we dialogue together and see what approach will likely solve the problem.”
He explained that the Abuja event would feature music, praises and worship, prayer and ministration that would result in miracles and salvation, transformation of lives, healing for the sick, deliverance for the oppressed and a turning point in the lives of the inhabitants of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Also, former presidential aspirant, Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi, has refuted a report in a national daily that he berated the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) over its stand on the Niger Delta issue.
In a statement made available to The Guardian in Gusau at the weekend, Shinkafi said his position on the issue is public knowledge and in line with the stand of the ACF.
He said the report in the newspaper, which quoted him as saying that the militants in the Niger Delta were ‘not criminals’ was wrong and did not reflect his true position on the issue.
“I have said it at many public fora that the solution to the Niger Delta problem lies in tackling both the criminal elements in the region as well as providing adequate infrastructure to the communities in the region.”