‘Only Jonathan can authorise another phase of amnesty’

Posted by admin Goodluck Jonathan (2010-present), Presidency Friday, May 18th, 2012

Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, said on Thursday that only Jonathan could authorise the inclusion of Itsekiri youths in the amnesty programme for ex-Niger Delta militants.

Itsekiri youths, under the aegis of the Itsekiri Youths National Council, have been protesting their exclusion from the programme by the Federal Government.

They had petitioned the House of Representatives demanding the inclusion of “over 2,000″ Itsekiri youths who disarmed in 2009 in the programme.

Kuku and representatives of the youth council appeared before the House Committee on Public Petitions in Abuja as part of efforts to resolve the dispute.

He admitted before the committee that the Itsekiris were qualified to participate in the programme, having properly disarmed within the amnesty proclamation deadline of October 2, 2009.

However, Kuku, who doubles as the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Amnesty, informed the committee that the Itsekiris were to blame for their exclusion from the programme at the initial stage.

He said, “The Presidential proclamation by the late President Umaru Yar’ Adua covered only ex-militants.

“When it was time for documentation, the INYC did say that they were not ex-militants.

“Anybody who objected to the term ‘militancy’ does not fall within the ambit of the amnesty proclamation by the late Yar’Adua.”

But, in their presentation to the committee headed by Mr. Uzor Azubike, the IYNC claimed that the presidential committee “fabricated lies” just to penalise them as an extension of the Itsekiri-Ijaw ethnic conflicts.

The spokesman of the IYNC, Dr. Lucky Akauuerese, alleged that ethnicity played a role in the exclusion of his people.wp_posts