PAP: Traditional rulers commend Ndiomu, urge Tinubu to ignore mischief-makers

By Sola Omoniyi, Lagos

Some frontline Niger Delta traditional rulers have advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to ignore the sponsored blackmails against the Interim Administrator and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Major General Barry Ndiomu (retd), in his effort to reposition the agency for better service delivery.

A joint statement issued by H.M. Timiyan, Torobobo 1, the Ebenanawei of Ogulagha Kingdom and Chairman, Niger Delta Concerned Royal Fathers Forum (NDCRFF) and Secretary of the Forum, H.M. Obukowho Monday Whiskey, the Paramount ruler of Great Idjerhe Kingdom, noted that the PAP coordinator briefed the royal institutions in the region regularly about happenings and programmes of the agency.

The traditional rulers noted that if there were issues that the current writers were not comfortable with as they claimed, the royal fathers, as peacemakers, remained the rightful people to be consulted and not resort to self-help by making false allegations and counter allegations to President Tinubu even as they passed a vote of confidence in Ndiomu.

“The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) is set up with a clear mandate to work for the interest of all Niger Deltans ex-agitators and not some few individuals who have fraudulently been collecting money with multiple accounts without remitting same to their rightful owners that the General Barry Ndiomu led PAP is working hard to correct.

“We strongly condemn the ongoing sponsored publications and endless petitions against the coordinator for no justifiable reasons other than the petitioners wanting the amnesty boss to do their evil biddings of the old order of one man collecting salaries for several hundreds of people without paying same to their supposed owners.

“The royal fathers, having critically reviewed happenings at the presidential amnesty programme, PAP passed a vote of implicit confidence on General Barry Ndiomu (rtd), for all genuine efforts to ensure that the PAP programme is operated transparently and benefit more critical stakeholders than a secluded operation hitherto practice in the PAP office,” the statement reads.