Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chief Executive Officer of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, has secured the release of 27 ex-militants detained by the Ghanaian authorities over unruly behaviour at the vocational institute where they were sent for training.
Kuku therefore warned that the Federal Government would no longer condone any such conduct, vowing to expel anyone found wanting from the presidential amnesty programme.
The Special Adviser spoke in Ghana after securing the release of 27 Nigerian trainees who were apprehended by the Ghanaian authorities for “unacceptable conducts”.
“The Federal Government will not hesitate to mete out severe punishment to persons who under any guise, attempt to drag the name of the country in the mud”, he warned, according to a statement by the Head, Media and Publicity of the amnesty office, Mr. Henry Ugbolue yesterday.
While in Ghana, Kuku reiterated the resolve of President Jonathan to fast track the rehabilitation and re-integration of about 26,000 Niger Delta ex-militants currently enrolled in the Amnesty Programme, but cautioned the former militant agitators to desist from acts that could endanger the overwhelming support the amnesty programme currently enjoys in Nigeria and abroad.
In line with the reintegration component of the Amnesty Programme, the Federal Government through the Amnesty Office, had on the 27th last month, dispatched 212 ex-militants to six vocational training centres in Ghana where they have since been undergoing vocational training at the famous National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI), to become qualified Welders.
However, in Ghana, a number of the trainee who protested the feeding arrangement in one of the training centres became unruly and were promptly apprehended and detained by the security authorities in Ghana.
A four-day negotiation led by the Hon. Kuku led to the resolution of the crisis and the release of the 27 Nigerian trainees.
However, as part of measures to forestall a recurrence, Hon. Kuku ordered the immediate repatriation of 8 of the trainees who actually heckled the hotel staff.
In meetings with the Ghanaian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Muhammed Mummuni and his counterpart in the Ministry of Interior, Dr. Benjamin Kunbuor, the Special Adviser recalled what led to the protest in one of the training centres in Ghana:
“It was ordinarily a very simple matter. Because virtually all of them were leaving the shores of Nigeria for the first time, the Facilitator of the training programme felt that the proper thing to do was to put in place a central feeding system until such a time that the trainees would have familiarized themselves with their new environment; but the trainees began complaining that they do not like Ghanaian food and that they would prefer that the money for feeding be handed out to them directly so that they could look for Nigerian food to buy.
But the Facilitator did not have such instruction from the Amnesty Office. So, they began protesting just within the premises of the hotel they were lodged.
The hotel management called in the Ghanaian security authorities and the boys were immediately detained for five days before their release was secured at the weekend.
But the amnesty office clarified that all issues have now been resolved, saying “We have worked a way of making Nigerian food readily available to them and they are happy with the new arrangement.”
Hon Kuku was said to have visited all six training centres where the ex-militants are under-going skills acquisition in the Ghanaian cites of Accra, Winneba, Biriwa, Takoradi, Kumasi and Abefti.
Given certain sensibilities in Ghana, Kuku was said to have ordered the closure of the Takoradi Training Centre.
Feb92011