The Presidency has approved the decision of the Presidential Amnesty Office to conduct the verification on 30,000 ex-agitators captured under the programme in the last 11 years.
Mr Tonye Bobo, Member, Think-Thank of the Amnesty Office stated this on Thursday in Yenagoa, during a call on Federated Correspondent Chapel members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Bayelsa council.
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Retired Col. Milland Dikio, Interim Administrator, Amnesty Office had already set up a 10-man committee of “PAP Think-Thank”.
The committee is to enrich, monitor and propagate the new PAP roadmap of the amnesty to reposition and ensure that the new policies are close to the Niger Delta communities.
Bobo said that the verification was not a witch hunt but a strategic way to verify those that are captured and those still left out of the Amnesty Programme.
He said that the verification has also received the backing of all the ex-militant leaders in the region.
“It is said that the Amnesty office does not have the capacity to admit new beneficiaries and we agreed.
“Now we also agreed that we should know those 30,000 beneficiaries, for us to know how to conduct the verification,” he said.
Bobo also promised that as a member of the new “Think-Thank” of the Amnesty office, the committee would engage every critical stakeholder from the grassroots to the top, to offer advice for the affairs of the region.
He said that the new committee set up by the Interim Administrator was also saddled with the responsibility of sustaining the prevailing peace in the region.
He noted that the issue of PAP has to do with the re-integration of 30,000 ex-agitators captured and the development in the region.
“As one of the change agents of PAP I’m ready to bring to fore ideas that will help to achieve the desire and anticipated transformation in the region,” he said.
Bobo, also an Amnesty beneficiary under the third phase, commended Dikio for the new assignment.