THE HEAD OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL APPLAUDS BUHARI FOR ADEQUATE FUNDING.

Major General Barry Ndiomu (retd.), Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, has praised President Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) for adequately funding the program to carry out its mandate.

Ndiomu made the award during a press conference in Abuja.

According to him, the current regime under Buhari has done an excellent job of funding the PAP and providing it with adequate resources.

“Buhari has financed the programme in a timely manner and that is why we have been able to pay stipends to the ex-agitators.

“We are probably the first government agency every month, that can pay stipends or remuneration.

“So I can assure you that except for failures of payment system, which is nobody’s fault, it’s just based on technology. Stipends are paid on the 20th of each month,” he said.

Concerning entrepreneurship, the PAP leader stated that the program would establish cooperatives with the passage of the 2023 budget.

According to him, the cooperatives are intended for these same ex-agitators to become administrators and managers of their own destinies. Experts will be assigned to these cooperatives.

“We will finance the cooperatives so they have access to microcredit loans, along with consultants to advise them on whatever initiatives and businesses, entrepreneurship skills, so that they can do things to improve their individual economic situations.

“They can develop businesses from car wash bathing saloon. Whatever it is, they should be able to obtain funding from the cooperatives we are about to establish, which will be adequately funded.

“We are also thinking about setting up fishing trolling companies, which will entail procuring fishing trawlers. What will pique your interest is that some of the most expensive prawns and crabs are caught in Rivers or coastal waters, and Nigerians do not benefit from them.

“And the Niger Delta people lived their entire lives along the coast. “This is something in which we should encourage our people to participate,” he said.

On the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd.’s Pipeline Surveillance Contract, the PAP boss insisted that the PAP office should have been included in the process.

“I believe there was an error. I have already expressed this privately and emphatically to the NNPC Ltd’s Group Managing Director (GMD).

“I am awaiting his response because I believe that ex-agitators should be allowed to participate in the protection and surveillance of pipelines in the Niger Delta,” he said.

(NAN)