President Muhammadu Buhari has been prevailed on not to end the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, because doing so would aggravate the problems facing the country.
Arewa leader in the south, Alhaji Musa Saidu, who made the case for continuation of the programme, urged the federal government to continue to sustain the gains brought by the amnesty programme.
He said though the programme would one day be scrapped but it was not ripe to do such this time, stressing that most of the challenges of under development in the Niger delta that gave rise to militancy had not been addressed.
Saidu who is Coordinator and Special Envoy, Ecology and Marine , Africa of the International rights Commission, IHRC and former aide to a foremost Niger Delta leader, late Chief Harold Dappa Biriye , recalled that he ( Saidu) was actively involved in campaign for the presidential amnesty programme to be given to repentant militants to calm nerves in the region and the formation of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC to tackle issues of underdevelopment in the region.
He further thanked President Buhari for appointing Major General Barry Tariye Ndiomu, rtd , as Interim Administrator of the PAP.
” I played a role for the establishment of NDDC and amnesty . I heard amnesty will be terminated soon . It is very wrong to do that now . The federal government should allow it continue. Terminating it now, the cost will be disastrous.
“We don’t want another crisis. My appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari is that he should not listen to people with vested interest to scrap the amnesty programme.
“All my life I have been working for peace between the north and south.
“The amnesty should be allowed. As a northern leader who has been living in the south I know our southern brothers very well. Buhari should leave the amnesty programme .
“I also thank the President for appointing Major General Barry Tariye Ndiomu rtd as Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP. He is a very good choice “