Global West loses 19 staff over NIMASA failure to pay salary for 8years

•Call on stakeholders, security agencies to intervene

By Sola Omoniyi, Lagos

Following the suspension of payments of stipends to over 3000 ex- Niger Delta agitators, the National chairman, amnesty critical stakeholder, Dr. Tam Odogwu and Leader Julius Joseph on behalf of the affected Beneficiaries have called on the attention of all security agencies for swift intervention to avoid the looming hostilities in the region.

It was gathered that due to alleged irregularities, the payments of more than three thousand (3000) Niger Delta Ex-agitators under the Presidential Amnesty Programme had been stopped.

The group national chairman amnesty critical stakeholder Tam Odogwu, and leader Julius Joseph on behalf of others have urged the security agencies to communicate with the ex -agitators and equally prevail on the interim administrator of the amnesty programme, Barry Ndiomu to avert the looming tension in the region.

Congress learnt that over three hundred out of the ex-agitators were in Abuja for over a month to discuss and settle the issue with Amnesty Interim Administrator, Maj. Gen. Barry Ndiomu, but all their efforts were fruitless.

According to Tam Odogwu, Chairman Critical stakeholder, the amnesty programme was established for direct engagement of the camp leaders who were in control in each phases of the Niger Delta uproar, and each group member handed their guns to the authority in exchange for slots given to the leader of each group.

It was asserted that the mistake made was not verifying the number of boys in each group before allocating slots.

For equity, it was stated that direct payment was tried in 2014-2015 for a few months where N65,000 is to be shared between two people.

However, the group blamed the amnesty office for being responsible for the omissions and commissions, adding that various coordinators of the program should be blamed for whatsoever perceived irregularities.

They said, “Earlier, the group pledged their support to fight to figure out ghost slots in the system because there was no bad intention attached, rather a medium to ensure relative peace in the region then.

“It is on the record that the Niger Delta crisis and Avengers started when several attempts to draw the attention of the federal government to the area were turndown.

“The situation reached a point when the people in the region resorted to self-help by bombing and vandalism of national assets whose activities negatively affected the Nigerian economy,” the duo added.