Eight Nigerian ex-militants sent for a training programme in Sri Lanka have been brought back to face trial at home after they fought and destroyed property, an official said on Saturday.
“They came back home yesterday (Friday) as scheduled and they were immediately handed over to security agents for investigation and prosecution,” the spokesman of the amnesty office, Henry Ugbolue, told AFP.
The ex-militants who were sent to Sri Lanka about a month ago for a nine-month training in ship building and under-sea welding allegedly engaged in fighting among themselves and destroyed some training equipment, he said.
Their action was a breach of a code of conduct which they signed and promised to abide by, he said.
The eight are part of 50 former Niger Delta militants sent to Sri Lanka for vocational training as part of the implementation of the government amnesty programme, he also said.
The federal government in 2009 granted amnesty to more than than 20,000 former “oil rebels” who laid down their arms.
More than 6,000 of them have so far been rehabilitated in batches in a camp set up for them in the southeast of the country, officials said.
Hundreds of them have recently been sent to several countries for vocational training.
Militant activity in the region between 2006 and 2009, which included kidnappings and attacks on oil installations, lowered the country’s oil production from 2.6 million barrels a day to about one million at the peak of the unrest.
The amnesty deal has led to a sharp decline in attacks.
Nigeria last month produced around 2.26 million barrels daily, according International Energy Agency figures.
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