PAP: 2022-trainees cry out, accuse Ndiomu of refusing to pay money for empowerment, alleging moves to replace names of beneficiaries

•Demand payment latest this week

•Threaten to call for his replacement

By Sola Omoniyi, Lagos

Presidential Amnesty Programme 2022-trainees’ have accused the current Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Barry Ndiomu of refusing to pay their empowerment entitlements after one year of completion of their various trainings.

The concerned ex-fighters who were trained in 2022 under the watch of the former Interim administrator of the presidential amnesty programme, General Dikio also alleged that Ndiomu is shortchanging their names in the empowerment list and replacing them with faceless people who do not participate in the empowerment training.

This was contained in a statement signed by its chairman, Mr Godwin London, Amos Andakabowei Spokesman and Stella Thomson women leader on behalf of others which a copy was sent to newsmen on Monday.

According to him, Ndiomu was refusing to pay the affected trainees because he was not the one that trained them, adding that attempt to replace their names in the empowerment list would be counterproductive.

The statement reads, “Those ex-trainees Ndiomu refusing to pay will soon join the Ndiomu must-go protest. We are disappointed in him, he is talking of some ex-agitators receiving multiple stipends and in the same way, he is allegedly shortchanging the ex-trainees of their entitlements. He who comes to equity must come with a clean hand. We must be paid of our empowerment entitlements on or before he leaves office by June.
This means he is talking from the both sides of his mouth. He can’t be trusted, since he came in, we have been battling for our entitlements but he deliberately refused to listen. We wonder what reforms Ndiomu is talking about, a reform to sideline people who are not his praise singers, it is truly appalling. We will withdraw our support for you because you don’t deserve it.”

The aggrieved trainees said, “We cannot allow somebody that is pretending as if he has our interest at heart to continue in the amnesty office. We have been supporting him in fighting against those camp Generals that are collecting their barracks boys’ money because we felt such is not a good thing. But despite our support for him, he is refusing 2022 trainees their right of empowerment.

“Initially, we don’t want to fight you because we feel you are in this programme to do the right thing by correcting the wrong things in this amnesty programme, but we can see that you are fighting the ex-trainees because you are not the one that trained them. It is Dikio that trained them and that is why you don’t want to empower them because they are not your subjects and that is the only truth about all these things that you are doing to the ex-trainees.

“We are angry and now planning to stage a protest to stop your continued stay in the amnesty office, except our money is paid this week, we will come very hard on you to ensure you don’t come back to that office after June 2023.

“Again information reaching us shows that Barry Ndiomu and his amnesty office workers are allegedly short-changing the ex-trainees that graduated from the different training centres across the Niger Delta last year 2022 to their girlfriends and wives, friends, brothers’ names and collating their account numbers in the empowerment list, removing the real trainees that are supposed to be the real beneficiaries of the PAP empowerment.

“We want the public to know what Ndiomu and his boys are planning to do to the real PAP ex- trainees. We have vowed not to support him in anything again.
As ex-trainees of the last year 2022, we are ready to fight Ndiomu if he refuses to pay us our empowerment money before the end of this weekend. We are not going to support him in this new government that is coming May 29, 2023,” they averred.