29092019 - 2023: Controversy over Pastor Tunde Bakare's prophecy on Buhari's

terminal date – Dokubo, Co-ordinator
PAGE 34– SUNDAY VANGUARD, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
(emmaamaize@yahoo.co.uk)
AMNESTY PROGRAMME
I will not subject myself to speculative
terminal date – Dokubo, Co-ordinator
Faced with renewed pressure to engage
more Niger Delta repentant youths and
determine how long the programme will
continue in view of the benefits it has
brought to the region and its people, the
Special Adviser to the President on Niger
Delta Affairs and Co-ordinator of the
Presidential Amnesty Programme,
Charles Dokubo, a professor of
international affairs, says only the
federal g<strong>over</strong>nment has appropriate
answers to the two crucial questions.
Dokubo spoke in an interview with Soni
Daniel, Northern Region Editor, in Abuja.
Excerpts:
HAT have you done differently
Wsince you took <strong>over</strong> the mantle
of leadership at PAP?
What I have done differently is quite
clear. Before now, delegates were just
trained and allowed to go but since I
came into office, I have tried to ensure
that delegates are given jobs after their
training. Also, the nature of training has
also changed in the sense that we are
now providing a lot f vocational
training centres in the Niger Delta so
that our people can easily go and
acquire basic skills that can make them
to be self-sustaining and stop depending
on anyone else or even the g<strong>over</strong>nment
and be able to live a decent life.
How many people in the Niger Delta
have you been able to train since your
appointment?
I have trained no fewer than 3500 out
of which 800 have been placed on
relevant jobs. It is not easy to get jobs
these days but because of the nature of
the training we have given to them, the
trainees were able to get jobs after their
vocational training.
Is it the training of Niger Delta
delegates that took you to the US
recently?
The fact is that this office has a lot of
delegates in the United States of
America and many other parts of the
world and we need to cater for them and
keep in touch with them to know how
they are faring and coping with their
studies so that they are monitored and
mentored to finish well. And for me, a
place like the U.S, where there has been
some uproar about their stay there and
those who have finished or have not
finished their courses, we needed to go
there to verify, clarify and authenticate
those who are still students under our
care and those who are not. We need to
know how the Nigerian Embassy is
helping and working with them to excel.
We pay a lot of money to these students
and we need to ensure that they end well
and not just waste the g<strong>over</strong>nment
resources. I went there to see if they are
still in school and if indeed they are
justifying the resources that Nigeria is
expending on them monthly. There were
reports that some of them had finished
and were doing their own business but
they still do not want to leave the
programme so that they can continue to
enjoy g<strong>over</strong>nment money. So, we had to
go there to ascertain many of these
things.
When you talk about training and
reintegration of delegates, does it
mean that it is therefore compulsory
that all the people you train must be
employed?
There are some trainees we need to
give starter-packs once they complete
their training. This is because no
g<strong>over</strong>nment can provide employment for
all its citizens. What the g<strong>over</strong>nment
does at best is to provide an enabling
environment so that business can thrive
and allow the trainees to work for
themselves. That is why is why we are
giving those we train starter-packs and
even rent shops for them at the end of
their training. We want to see them to
have functional business that can give
them a lee way in life.
When Amnesty was declared by the
Federal G<strong>over</strong>nment on June 25, 2009,
it was to run for three years. However,
•Prof. Charles Dokubo
since g<strong>over</strong>nment started paying
stipends to <strong>over</strong> 30,000 Niger Delta
youths under the scheme, the
programme has come under immense
pressure for new intake and it appears
to have become a permanent job for
the boys. So, if I may ask, when will
the programme come to an end?
I want to say categorically that I will
not subject myself to any speculative
terminal date for the amnesty
programme. It is within the purview of
the Federal G<strong>over</strong>nment to decide when
it will end. They started the programme
and they are the ones who will decide
when it will end. I only continue to do
the work I was given to do.
You seem to be in a fix not being able
to develop a database to truly capture
the accurate number of delegates but
merely paying N65,000 monthly to
30,000 delegates and as it now
appears, the number does not reduce
despite deaths and those who gain
employment through training and
provision of starter-packs by the PAP?
Just like you have noted, my concern
has been that the number of delegates
has remained static at 30,000 since the
inception of the programme. The
question to ask is what has happened to
those who have died and those who have
been given employment and starter-pack
to start their own business? And, if
somebody has been given employment
can’t that person be removed from
receiving monthly stipends? These are
the questions I asked when I arrived and
I went into the data to see those who
have been trained. If tell you what I
disc<strong>over</strong>ed it would shock you that some
people have been trained up to five times
by the PAP and on the other hand, those
who have been given the contract to
train the delegates have also done some
harm to the system. Most time, you give
the trainers people to train and the
people will rather want to negotiate
with the trainers and collect the money
rather being trained for them to have a
means of livelihood.
So, there is a certain culture that has
affected the Niger Delta and disturbed
any rational thinking Niger Delta
person. So, what we have done is that
we have tried into the database to see
whether it is truly reliable or if it has
been tampered with. If not, we should
not still be catering for 30,000 by today.
We need to take a closer look at the data
because nobody can continuously pay
such money to people in perpetuity. Look
at what happened just because I came
into office: more than 500 students who
were not part of the programme and not
captured by our database, were sent out
to universities across the world but as
Niger Delta indigenes I had to absorb
them and continue to cater for their
school fees while their parents pay for
their upkeep so that they don’t suffer.
But what in specific terms are you
doing to truly reintegrate the excombatants
into the society?
If you have truly followed this
programme, it is a three-pronged
programme- Demobilization,
Demilitarization and free
Reintegration. We are now at the third
phase of reintegration, creating jobs and
building back collapsed society so that
we can bring back our people and give
them jobs, which is even the most critical
No other country
in the world has
run an amnesty
programme of the
length that
Nigeria has so far
run. It is always a
fixed term, short
in nature and with
expressive goals
aspect of the programme. No other
country in the world has run an amnesty
programme of the length that Nigeria
has so far run. It is always a fixed term,
short in nature and with expressive
goals. This programme was designed as
home support and home grown and that
was why it was initially set up for three
years and when the g<strong>over</strong>nment was
about to wind it up and even reduced its
budget they realized there were some
unfinished business and they had to keep
it running.
You recently raised a panel to probe
the looting and vandalisation of the
Kaiama Skill Acquisition Centre,
which was a multi-million
warehousing centre with vital
empowerment tools. What has come
out of the probe and where is the
report?
The report is out and already
submitted to the office of the Inspector
General of Police. Anybody who wants
to find answer to that should go there.
The report has clearly identified those
who have cases to answer in relation to
the incident and those who are to be
prosecuted for the offence. I will not
want to say more than that on that
matter.
When you went to the U.S, there was
a report in the social media that you
ran away with N32 billion to stash
away. The report also claimed the
NSA is the one protecting you and
teleguiding you on what to do? How
do you respond to these allegations?
I am surprised that you asked such a
question. Look, let me tell you that I
have never seen N32 billion in my eyes
not to talk of carrying it since I was
born. In any case, if someone was to
carry such money, where would the
person put it and by what means would
the person carry such amount of money?
Who in his right mind would carry such
amount of money and what would the
carrier of such money explain to the
country of destination and for what
purpose? These are mere mischievous
concoctions and fabrications by those
who want to destroy the Amnesty
programme because they have failed to
achieve what they wanted to use it for.
They are also desperately trying to drag
the name of the NSA into the
programme. The truth remains that the
NSA does not dictate to me or teleguide
me in the running of the PAP. They are
all liars and trying to create needless
conflict for their selfish gains. I run this
office on laid down principles. Let me
tell you, I know how much I get monthly
to run this programme and pay school
fees and stipends. So, I don’t know how
the amount of money can ever accrue to
this office within the one year that I have
stayed here.
Let me say that I did not appoint myself
but the federal g<strong>over</strong>nment did.
Whatever the Federal g<strong>over</strong>nment
decide to do with me is not anybody’s
business. My concern is that let the
truth be told to power. We must speak
with truth at all times and I am doing
the job with the best of my ability. I will
continue to do my work for the country
and not listen to gossips that add no
value to Nigeria and the Niger Delta
people.
There have been renewed agitations
for new persons to be captured under
the PAP? Is there any other window
open for such new repentant militants?
Like I have said, it is the duty of the
President to order any new inclusion
into the programme because that would
also come with budgetary expansion. It
is the g<strong>over</strong>nment directive that I follow
in running the programme. As you can
see some states that have carried out
state-based amnesty programme, want
their people to be captured under the
programme but I have always told them
that my hands are open to train but the
Presidency must order that. Some of
those who did not initially believe in the
programme are now seeing its success
and are now coming to enroll in it. I am
a Niger Deltan but I don’t belong to this
programme. Many other Niger Deltans
who are not captured on the database
can benefit from it.
There are claims that some amnesty
students are stranded abroad due to
non-payment of stipends and school
fees. Why is this so?
That is not true at all. If you look at it
very well, nobody who is under the PAP
sponsorship can be stranded. This is
because we pay this money to them as
and when due. The federal g<strong>over</strong>nment
has been very religious in releasing
allocations for their payment of the
school fees and stipends to the youths
and there is no reason whatsoever to
delay or withhold the payment to the
beneficiaries.