The Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Maj. Gen. Barry Ndiomu (retd.), has advocated the transition of the Presidential Amnesty Programme to a social investment agency.
Ndiomu said the transition would impact directly on the lives of Niger Delta youths.
Speaking during the visit of a former Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman, Presidential Amnesty Implementation Committee, Kingsley Kuku, to the PAP office in Abuja recently, PAP’s Interim administrator noted that the programme “ought to have rounded off long before now.”
While thanking President Bola Tinubu for “continuing with this critical programme, Ndiomu said, “The amnesty programme has been largely very successful in helping the restive youths of the Niger Delta build capacity. And considering the fact that we are supposed to be in the reintegration phase, of course, the programme itself ought to have rounded off long before now.
“But, clearly, most of the objectives for which it was established have not been achieved, and it would be more appropriate, which is why we are recommending some kind of transition to a social investment agency which will impact directly on the lives of the youths across the Niger Delta. Basically, that’s what we are advocating.”
Highlighting some of the successes PAP, most of which, according to Ndiomu, started at the time of Kuku, the administrator said, “A lot has been achieved as you know. Most of these programmes were started at the time of Chief Kingsley Kuku. The pilot training scheme, the education scholarship programme, and all of that were started under him. He midwifed them. It has been largely very successful I must tell you. We’ve produced so many graduates in various fields; we’ve produced pilots, flight engineers, and so on and so forth.”
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