Dokubo, Togo Want Amnesty

Posted by admin General Politics, National Politics, Niger Delta Monday, May 23rd, 2011

THE sudden change of heart by some previously reluctant former Niger-Delta militant leaders to accept the now expired 2009-amnesty offer of the Federal Government has thrown up a knotty situation.

While the seemingly repentant militia leaders think the pardon is automatic if they had renounced violence and dropped their arms; the Special Adviser (SA) to the President on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, thinks otherwise.

According to Kuku, only President Goodluck Jonathan has the powers to grant the former warlords of the creeks amnesty. He spoke in Lagos, at the weekend.

Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), Alhaji Mujaheed Dokubo-Asari, who had declined to participate in the programme on the grounds that he was no criminal that requires amnesty, has reportedly decided to accept it.

Also, John Togo, who had walked out of the programme and returned to the creeks to engage in armed struggle, has expressed readiness to return to the programme.

But in an interactive forum with editors, Kuku said although Dokubo-Asari believes in the process of amnesty programme, he had yet to inform the government of his acceptance of the package.

His words: “First, let me say that my office has not been informed about my friend and comrade, Asari-Dokubo’s acceptance of amnesty. Alhaji Mujaheed Asari-Dokubo… had opposed the concept of the amnesty to date; that I know.

“However, I also know that Alhaji Asari-Dokubo believes that the process of amnesty can be a vehicle for changing the lives of our youths; he believes in it (and) he is also participating in that process of using that vehicle to touch the lives of our youths.

“(But) he has not formally informed our office, and I have not been directed or informed by any other superior in government about Comrade Asari’s acceptance of amnesty.”

Kuku said even at that, “the only human being in this country, who has power to extend and grant, or refuse the acceptance of amnesty by anybody or group is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

“I do not have that power; the only area I handle as it relates to this programme is nothing less than the number of ex-agitators being 26,358 in number.

“20,192 of them being those who accepted amnesty in the first phase, and another 6,166 being those in the second phase that have accepted, and have been included in the amnesty programme. This is the number within the amnesty programme.”

On John Togo, whose whereabouts remain and mystery and a source of controversy, Kuku said: “John Togo was not chased out of this programme.

“He was part of the programme ab initio; he participated and the boys from his camp also went to Obubra, and most of them passed through the de-mobilisation and disarmament phases. Some of his boys, I am sure are also benefiting from the re-integration programme.”

The presidential aide alluded to the ongoing schism between Togo and the Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta.

“Today, the Joint Task Force (JTF) and John Togo are actually in a running battle, and from the day we heard of the attack between John Togo and the JTF, nobody can ascertain the whereabouts of John Togo; I cannot,” he said.

“As far as I am concerned, and as SA to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Amnesty Programme, I do need to know where John Togo is.

“So, for the past three days, I have made very severe efforts to ensure that I know his whereabouts, and how healthy or unhealthy he could be, but I have got no sane information.”

Kuku, however, noted that his office was open to engagement with known aggrieved individuals and groups in the region.

-Guardianwp_posts