 The Presidential Amnesty programme in the Niger Delta region has been bedeviled by mal-administration and allegations of corruption, thereby failing to a large extent to fulfil some of its core mandates. Much as the intervention agencies in the Niger Delta are headed by indigins of the zone, many stakeholders contend that the agencies are actually running them from Abuja by some officials. Now, this has in a way affected the realisation of manpower development and also dousing agitations and unrest in the region. Joining us to break this down and discuss it is Eugene Ables. He is the Executive Director, Extrastep Initiative. Thank you so much, Mr Ables, for joining us. Thank you for having me. Great. Because you're from the Niger Delta and you've stayed in the Niger Delta all through the era of the militancy until the Amnesty programme, you're in a better position to have this conversation with me. So I'll start by asking, has the Presidential Amnesty programme really failed? Is it still on its fit or perhaps on its knees? Well, what you might have not know that I'm also served on the Amnesty programme. I do know that. So I ran the formal education tax for four years, between 2012 and 2015. Well, in terms of, first of all, the programme is based on DDRU, which is disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration. The first two phases have been completed. The integration part of it has been ongoing. And we know that there were about 31,000 ex-militants agitators who were supposed to have been reintegrated to society. And we know that that's about 2015, because President Jonathan insisted all the MDS must submit handover notes. We know that about 13,000 plus had been reintegrated. But I will not be until the office comes out to publish the current figures of how many people have been reintegrated and have a plan left. I cannot completely just dismiss the programme. In terms of benefits in the nation, I like to also remind that. By the time the programme was approved by General Yardwa, all the production had been due to about 700,000 buyers per day. And we all lived in Portugal and the environment we knew is state of affairs then. But today things have picked up that security is rested, it might not be perfect. But everywhere. So we can count on those gains. And so far, in terms of why production is back, or was back until this recent happening, which is not attributed to agitation in any form of purely unbounded tree. And we can also count the fact that security has improved properly in the region, even though not perfect. But for us to do a proper cost-benefit analysis, it's been beneficial to next year. But after the administration took over in 2015, we have not been advised on what the new targets that were given to them have been too administrator for the current one. And look, I don't think any clear mandate was given to them because if it was, that would have been made for me. That would have made it easy for me to make categorical statements. Until an audit is made. And these figures are made public. Then we can say they have done what has happened in the past seven years. We can only measure in terms of what they have received. The number could have been trained because more of a human capacity building. That's what the program is primal and only for not enough. So our measurement of it, how many people have you trained in terms of satisfied skills? How many people have trained through proper education? How many people have you been educated in terms of employment and things like that? Those are the terms in which we need to measure them for what has happened in the past seven years. And we do not have that in the public domain. Hopefully, Joe Mw might be able to address the press. By the time he's done with reviewing all that stuff, but to tell us the way he wants to go. The same general, General Dumw at some point had rescinded Mr President's plan to wind down the program. Because we all remember when President Bahari had said that he wanted to shut down the presidential amnesty program. But he did kick against it. He talked about something which you have already mentioned loosely. He said that the president was determined to ensure that the program is re-engineered to achieve its mandate. But you mentioned that there was not necessarily a clear cut mandate in the public domain. So it's even even pretty difficult to determine if any goal or mark was hit. But then there are allegations of fraud and people bringing in their family members as opposed to people who need the amnesty to go for these trainings abroad and travel to other countries. Monies are being misused, et cetera, et cetera. Why do we even have to wait this long for us to still... I mean, you're saying something like, oh, let's wait until there's an audit and then the information comes to light. Where is the ICPC on issues like this? Of course, because we need to know if these monies that are being pumped into that aspect or rather into the amnesty program is being properly used. Or should it be targeted at something else that would, one way or the other, change really better the lives of Nigerians? Yes, I agree with you. But you know, like the underdevelopment commission, you imagine how long it's taking them to constitute a board at a point and then this is functioning with sole administrators, which is not provided for in the constitution. Maybe it's a style of governance by bringing it back to the amnesty program. I expect that an amnesty program is not a program in perpetuity. Even when I talk amongst my kinsmen who are from the region, who say, I say, this is on our own. Who would they take jobs? Even when I say, I tell them, for me, my nature of having it. An amnesty program should have a lifespan. So, while it's having a lifespan, I would have expected that in the past seven years and with the three administrators, they would have said, look, you've inherited about 13 or 14,000 people. We expect that X by X number of years, this full level, to be trained. And by X number of years, this is where we want you to be. So where that has not been done or has been done, we are yet to know. I know that there are things like agriculture and so on. And after that, I will not add anything further. So it's all a whole mix. We cannot climb other than the belief. It is about who is managing or supervising the amnesty program and what are the clear mandates. Those mandates should be made public. And what did they inherit? Where are they today? What have been done? They are measurable in this system. It shouldn't be difficult. If we are to give, to peg the lifespan of the program, it shouldn't be difficult so that the government can pump its chest and say, look, 31,000 of you, we have been able to train all of you. If anyone has not been trained, let them come out. We have our facts. There's technology to measure, to capture people. We have your biometrics. You have your BVL. You have your NIN. All of this, if you articulate them or put them together, it shouldn't be difficult to tell if you're doing well. Because the number of those who have trained will be quite obvious to you and be on our tables and in the public domain. Now, going to another thing that Major General Baba Ganamongono had said, he, I'd like to quote him, that's the entity boss. He reportedly said that recently over 700 billion nair had been wasted on the program due to corruption, lack of transparency over the years. He also said that this 712 billion nair was wasted basically is unaccounted for due to issues of corruption being at the fall. And he says that this is supposed to be a very serious program just as you have alluded to. But that as much as this program is ongoing, monies are being put in, the Niger Delta is still suffering. I started this conversation by saying that most of the people who seat on this presidential amnesty program board, most of them are from the Niger Delta. What exactly do you think the challenge is? If a program is constituted to help the people of the Niger Delta, with people of the Niger Delta also being incorporated into the program, is it that the people of the Niger Delta are short changing themselves? Well, the appointment of heads of the amnesty program is not a democratic process. We are the people of Niger that have an input to be able to vote for that. These are all political considerations. And those who provide those people, they are appointed for several reasons. Maybe personal, maybe affinity, maybe past relationships and so on. So, for instance, we had professor, the late professor, Docubot, and we've had two soldiers now managing the program. Well, in respect of how they are appointed, the Niger Delta people do not have a say in it. If previously they used to have, they don't have any more. All those who have been brought have been brought by the government. But that's the essence of government and leadership. Leadership is supposed to give all those who have appointed clear mandates because these funds are truly appropriated by national assembly. They're supposed to give it clear measurable mandates. And these mandates should be measured. And if they've been measured and they're properly supervised, then they have nobody else to blame. The question is, who do they report to? What who does the office report to? That whoever the office is reporting to should take the blame that the money has been squandered. In terms of retrieving the money, or if actually money has been squandered, we have the graft agencies who have the competencies to trace this money and make sure people, if people have violated the rules and the issues of graft and the crime. The graft agencies are competent enough to make people answer to whatever crimes they will have committed. So I don't, I think it's a little bit too much for the national security advisor, the fine gentleman to come and be telling us that some are at 12 billion that has been lost. They should trace the money and get them back so that those who are supposed to have been at the third-world benefit, so that the nation will know that one point of liability has clearly been put away. So for instance, if you look at the number of people you have on the program that are trained, you can confidently, scientifically say, look, I have 10,000 people. What does it take to train one man in this field? How many of them are for former? How many of them are for skills? Okay, we're going to budget X amount and we're going to spread the cost because we don't have money. Spread this budget in the next two, three years we should be done. If we need to pay tuition in advance and think like, it's been done, so once you're done, you're done. I think it begs the issue for we, as a nation, to say that we cannot manage or supervise or make a small office like the Ambulance programme accountable, instead to allow them to consider the general abilities in contracts and paid contracts for the nation. This is completely unacceptable. Let's go back to the institution that this program is considerably run by, or from Abuja. There is that incineration that maybe a cabal in the presidency sits somewhere and decides who heads it. The member representing Yenogwa Colocuma, federal constituency in Bialsa states in the House of Representatives, Professor Steve Azaiki had said that it could be true that the program has been moved to the presidency and that there might just be a group of people who are the deciders of what happens in the program. I'm sure it's that, and could there be a problem with this? Could that also be tied to why the program seems to be standing on one leg? All appointments at the federal level come from Abuja. I'm from the presidency. All MGA's are appointed through the presidency. Whoever the report of, for me, it really doesn't matter. As long as the leadership, which is the president, gives clebandins, or whoever is assigned it to, is made to account for his tenure of managing and supervising that particular agency. Yes, so it's not a big agency. And there's nothing complex about the agency. It's a very simple thing. You have a number of people who are exurgitators, who are being demobilized, and they are supposed to be trained because you don't reintegrate a man if you do not put skills in his hands. You don't give him fish, you give him skills. So they're there on this program. They're getting their 65,000 allowance. Those of you, they're not getting them. Why are they not getting them in the era of BVN and NIN and bank transfers and things like that? It doesn't matter wherever they were appointed for. As long as they were appointed by the presidency from Abuja. Yes, what is important is that the same presidency who has appointed it has the responsibility to ensure that the mandate which has been given to them are carried out and also ensure that the funds are not diverted to any other thing other than that that has been appropriated for by the National Assembly. Finally, should the Niger Delta people be screaming more about this? Should they get more involved? Should they be pushing for this MNC program to be done properly because from what you've explained there are lots of loopholes that need to be plugged and there are so many things that need to be reviewed for this program to actually work if we must make it work. So in closing, what needs to be done on the side of the people who are supposed to be beneficiaries of this, not just the agitators but even the people in the Niger Delta whose problems led to this agitation in the first place? Going forward, what needs to be done? But concerning the present administration, I think that all of these are vehicles for development but we have not heard or have not heard from the present administration what their clear mandates are concerning the development of the Niger Delta and before the development of the Niger Delta like I told my fellow Niger Delta people has not been tied purely to the April strings of the NGDC and the Amnesty program. We have the Ministry of the Niger Delta. We have all MGA's that are further in the nation have a portion of their budget that is supposed to provide for the Niger Delta. So actually we are getting carried away with all of this. What we as a people are supposed to begin to demand for instance I expect the Niger Delta people by national have gone to court to demand and other amendments all dream the government to constitute a board for the Niger Delta Development Commission after almost four, five years. Doesn't make sense. The law does not provide for that. The law says if a board is not in place ideally the next civil servant in the system is supposed to run, not politicians has been appointed as sole administrators. The objectives will not be achieved. Now we have a situation of that. The roads are cut off. What is the point? A clear mandate should be given. It's all about leadership and measurements and accomplishments and rewards and functions. For we the people in the region we can begin to make articulatory thoughts properly. We are being distracted with Amnesty and the NGDC. No. We are supposed to get a portion of the FFW if they build a house some are supposed to be built in the region. If they build a house some are supposed to be built in the house if they do a part of it should be built in the region. Why are we getting carried away with two agencies that are neither here nor there? We have Niger Delta River Basin Authority. We have several NGDCs that are funded by the same oil process that are supposed to provide for the 36th of the nation. We the Niger Delta River I think we need to recalibrate and begin to do what our forebears used to do by engaging the FFW to ensure that every ministry, every agency, every department it should provide for the Niger Delta and ensure that it is implemented to the letter. That's our duty. We have to get carried away. If it's just around 12 billion we have to get carried away. Well, I want to say thank you. Yuji Navels is the Executive Director of Extra Step Initiative. Always a pleasure to have these kinds of conversations with you. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being part of the conversation tonight. That's it on PLOS Politics. We'll be back tomorrow again talking for development. I am Mary Anna Cohn. Have a good night.