Executive Director of African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) and key facilitator of the Development Alliance for Niger Delta (DAND), Reverend David Ugolor, talks to Special Correspondent, TITUS OISE, on management of Amnesty Programme under former President Goodluck Jonathan, National Assembly leadership and President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption agenda.
National Assembly and leadership question
The eighth National Assembly must learn from the mistakes of the seventh National Assembly. But I think they are in a good position because we now have a president who has assured Nigerians that he would allow the constitution to guide its operation; he would ensure that the issues of unemployment, insecurity, corruption are addressed. He also appealed in his inaugural speech to the National Assembly and the judiciary to allow the constitution to guide their operations; that he will deal with the issue of insecurity in the North East part of the country. He has set the agenda, and by God’s grace one would expect that these agenda will influence what goes on in the National Assembly, particularly against the background that some of those elected are All Progressives Congress (APC) members. Nigerians must also rise to the occasion by ensuring that we will not take the eighth National Assembly’s commitment to support this change for granted. What that suggests is that we should also begin to build institutions that will hold them accountable. The issues of transparency, disclosure and effective implementation of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act that will enable citizens to access information, particularly on how government carries out its operations on procurement which is the major source of corrupt practices, need to be given urgent priority.
Scrapping Amnesty Programme for not meeting the goal for which it was set up.
I am one of those calling for the probe of the Amnesty Programme. It is not to question the principle behind it because it was a genuine initiative aimed at addressing the concerns of those ex-militants who were agitating for the redress of the injustices the region had suffered in the hands of past administrations. I think Amnesty had been mismanaged under former President Goodluck Jonathan. It created different sets of youths in the region. Some youths who did not go to school, who traded in violence, armed robbery, kidnapping suddenly became very rich in our region and this is not good for our own society. This inequality, caused by wrong government policies, cannot be sustained. The total population of youths in the Niger Delta region is huge, while the percentage benefitting from the Amnesty is less than three or four per cent of the entire population of Niger Delta region.
Take, for example, Edo and Delta states, the people that benefit from the amnesty are less than 5,000 or 10,000 and you are talking about one to two million youths. How do you support that kind of policy when government ordinarily has no policy in place that takes care of the unemployment level? So, if government continues with amnesty that supports young men and women who patronise violence approach to resolving governance issues, what signal are you sending? You signal that hard work does not pay. You signal that merit, creativity and innovation do not pay. A society where there is no innovation, no merit, how do you ensure economic growth? And once there is no economic growth in a society, how do you expect prosperity? So, it is the absence of economic growth and prosperity in the Niger Delta region that has led to where we are today. The cynicism we have today in the region has to do with the fact that government has continued policies that have not helped to provide enabling environment that will enable young men and women in the region to take advantage of government policies to advance their own development. That is why I am of the view that the amnesty programme needs to be probed.
We need to know those who have benefitted from the programme. We need to do a mapping of how these benefits have translated into better opportunities for those who opted out genuinely from the militancy struggle. And if you were involved in the militant struggle, it was not for the individual; it was for the region. So, I cannot reconcile those who are currently agitating for the continued sustenance of the policy with the fact that over 90 per cent of the youths in the region is still suffering. For example, in Ijaw communities in Bayelsa and Rivers states, the level of poverty among the people is still very high.
What has happened is that there were pockets of individuals who were privileged to have access to Jonathan and were benefitting, and you can see the response from the ex-militants since Jonathan left power. Again, it shows clearly that the Amnesty Programme was mismanaged. It only benefitted few people. It is not an appropriate policy that will help the region.
Our position is very clear; we condemn any attempt by Buhari’s government to patronise these conflict entrepreneurs. We want to see a situation where government will invest more money in the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, restructure the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), to make it more functional because the NDDC is a statutory body that will dispense concrete development that can be monitored easily.
I therefore suggest to Buhari to create a kind of Niger Delta Infrastructural Fund that will complement any state government that is willing to invest in the priority that the federal government thinks will bridge the gap that currently exists between the rich and the poor and also help to reduce the unemployment level in the region.
National Assembly leadership
What happened in the election of leadership of the National Assembly reinforced the impression that it was not everybody that joined APC that meant well. There are those who are motivated for private interests, and there are those who are motivated for the common good of the people. As we proceed, the characters of individuals in APC will be unfolding. What has happened has its own merits and demerits, particularly as to the new leadership in the National Assembly. It was good in one way that at least we knew those who wanted to appropriate every position in the country for their families and children. It signalled to them that the country does not belong to them. In another way, it had sent a very strong signal that there was internal crisis in the APC. What led to the outcome of the whole thing in the National Assembly, for me, raises the issue on why we should all be concerned because I don’t see a situation where Buhari will be able to achieve his goal of transforming this country or translating the change mantra to reality in Nigeria without a cohesive political structure.
On the issue of anti-corruption
In fighting corruption, you know that those who currently benefit from the corrupt practices, corrupt environment and culture will not just be sitting down and wait to be arrested. They are also going to exert pressure, take steps to see that the attempt to bring anti-corruption reform in the country do not catch up with them. So, in this kind of situation, Buhari needs to go back and reflect and see how whatever lesson that is gleaned from the outcome of the election that saw to the emergence of Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker of House of Representatives is reflected upon because without a strong party, without a cohesive voice, I fear if Buhari will be able to achieve anything.
