NIGER DELTA AMNESTY VENDORS ASSOCIATION CALLS FOR IMMEDIATE SACK OF THE BOSS

We the incoorporated Trustees and Executives of the Niger Delta Amnesty Vendors Association(NDAVA) would like to appreciate President Mohamadu Buhari GCFR on his next level Agenda, for his anti-corruption stance in Nigeria and for sustaining the Amnesty Program

“We wish to express our appreciation to President Muhainniadu Buhari for his commitment and dedication to sustainable peaceand developmenti in the Niger-Delta though his support and continuation of the Presidential Amnesty Program

“We also wish to commend the President for the positive changes that he has brought to bear on the programme though prompt release of funds. We appreciate file fact that despite the economic recession that Nigeria went through, the President still was able to sponsor the education of beneficiaries through the Amnesty Progranune.”

However we are wonied about the posterity of the Niger Delta and therefoi‘e wish to draw the attention of the nation and anti-graft agencies in particular on the need to thoroughly investigate all financial transactions undertaken by the Amnesty Office since January 2018 till date. We hereby call on the President Muliaminadu Buhari-led Federal Government to intervenc in the affaii‘s of the Amnesty Prograiiime by the immediate sack of Professor Charles Dokubo,Coordinator ‘of the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

It has come to our notice that the vision of former President, Alliaji Unani Musa Yar’Adua who proclaimed the unconditional amnesty for militants in the Niger Delta, as a step towards resolving the protracted insecurity in the region is being taken for granted by the current aAninistration of Charles Dokubo. Out‘ call has become necessary given the volatility of the i‘egion and the need to spread government’s presence amongst the States in the i’egion and stent any relapse to the ugly past of militancy and economic sabotage.

Our fear s as Niger Deltan sand stakeholders of the region stems from the ugly trend of activities related to pi‘ocurement being overtly and covertly muddled up against the time testedethos of procurement which demands that the procurement activities should not be viewed with the eyes of impropriety and lack of transparency.

For instance, the looting of the starter paclcitemsat the lcaiaina Anmesty Vocational Centre on the13"of February 2019 by persons suspected to be indigenes of the host communities to the centre. Our independent investigation and the interaction with community people shows that persons within the Amnesty Office encouraged them to invade the Centre. Our findings further reveal that the market value of the items looted did not exceed N1,000,000,000 (one billion naira) which is from the claims we hear from the Amnesty Office that the items worth over N4,000,000,000 (four billion naira) were lost in the ugly incident.

Our fears have been heightened by the inability of the six-man Special Investigation Panel headed by one Big-General Sotunde Songonuga(retd)to malceit support public since after its inauguration on the 3" of March 2019.

We also recall that the initial six-man panel never had Mr. Musa Odiniya (outzagone Director Procurement in the Agency) as a member. But our curious investigations led as to understand that Mr. Musa Odiniya arm-twisted the Coordinator of the Amnesty Prograniine, Prof. Charles Dkokubo to make him a member and we can confirm that after the inclusion of the foriiier Procurement Director, everything about the investigation diecl a natural death. We dug deep to find out that the interest of Mr. Musa Odiniya to beon that panel is not a mere coincidence a she has been using his relation as afront to corner employments, labour contracts/consultancies ancl major procurement jobs completely taking over the duties of the Reintegration Department of the Amnesty Office and rendering it impotent. Reason being that the Amnesty Programm easit were, has successfully gone through two phases which is the disarmament and the Rehabilitation stages. The 3 d and final stage, which is the reintegration phase is designed to be supervised by the Reintegration Department.