A senior Policy and Research Lead at Nextier SPD, a development consulting firm, Ndubuisi Nwokolo, has decried the huge allocations to the Niger Delta Amnesty programme without commensurate results.
Nwokolo, who made the statement while presenting the key findings of a report on amnesty programme by Nextier SPD at a virtual dialogue on PAP, on Tuesday in Abuja, also said the financial burden of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) is unsustainable to the country.
The report was sponsored by Nigerian Natural Resource Charter (NNRC).
PAP, he said, in spite of gulping billions of naira annually over the years, had failed to address various challenges bedeviling oil-producing communities and seemed, instead, to be rewarding militancy and aggressiveness.
Nwokolo explained, “The programme is focused on individuals rather than the community; the payments have deepened entitlement culture and had strengthened command and control structures of groups.
“It is also characterised by politics of exclusion, especially the exclusion of the private sector.”
He identified shortcomings and challenges hindering the success of the programme to include widespread corruption, unverified beneficiaries, poor programme design, slow progress, low levels of consistency and high dependence on stipends.
Going further, he said that the reintegration phase of the PAP was still incomplete 10 years after, with difficulty in getting current and reliable data on the status of the ex-agitators.
Calling for a review of the programme, he stated that the recently-suspended coordinator of the programme brought the entrenched corruption in its administration to the fore.
“The programme is also characterised by slow pace of reintegration and lack of employment, especially as the reintegration phase of the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration, (DDR) process, meant to last five years is still ongoing and there is difficulty of beneficiaries landing jobs after graduation.
“It has brought about an apparent lack of coherence between PAP activities and other Niger Delta interventions; while these have resulted in poor levels of social reintegration.
“Unless the programme is urgently reviewed, it will continue to serve as a drain on the federal government’s resources, especially with the monthly allocation of N5.5 billion.
“It will also continue to engender poor return on investment, record limited success in reintegrating ex-agitators, among others.
Advocating for a devolution of the activities of the amnesty programme to state government’s oil development commission, he said it would lead to higher levels of effectiveness, reduce cost and trigger a broad-based oversight that would decrease the level of elite capture and corruption.
“Making the states responsible for the amnesty programme will further empower them to provide holistic solutions to manage their own security.
“Leveraging on the oil producing commissions who are already in the host communities increases the likelihood of success,” he added.
(NAN)