National Vice Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Phase Three, Alhaji Letugbene has asked the federal government to disengage Itsekiri indigenes captured in the third phase because they were never freedom fighters in the struggle for emancipation of the Niger Delta region.
He stated this in reaction to a petition written by the Itsekiri Ethnic Nationality Ex-agitators against the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro over alleged neglect and marginalization.
In the petition to the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), the group alleged that Dr Otuaro had neglected, marginalized and sidelined them from several attendant benefits including the education scholarship and vocational training programme since his appointment and appealed to the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to address the issues with utmost sincerity.
But in his submission, Letugbene said the Itsekiri beneficiaries included in the Third Phase were never freedom fighters but only included in the phase in 2013 during the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration by then National Security Adviser, General Owoye Azazi and Special Adviser on Amnesty, Chief Kingsley Kuku, due to considerations such as being an impacted community category.
He said the group’s petition was rash, unnecessary and smacks of hypocrisy as it is a general knowledge among Amnesty beneficiaries that Itsekiri indigenes never took up arms against the federal government.
Letugbene also revealed that another reason Itsekiris were carried along was because the late General Azazi was married to their daughter and he pushed for their inclusion as an ethnic group in the Niger Delta region which has been impacted by not only oil exploration but the insecurity and violence from militancy.
“Its common knowledge how the Itshekiris were included in the Phase Three. I’m not berating the ethnic group because they are our brothers but those who call themselves beneficiaries under the aegis of Itsekiri Ethnic Nationality Ex-agitators. This petition is wrong and we will not sit by while some persons make themselves tools to blackmail Dr Dennis Otuaro, all In a bid to force their demands. That’s not how it works” he said.
He said it’s amazing that “those who used to call us criminals for taking up arms as agitators to fight oppression, marginalization and destruction of our lands, water and air in the Niger Delta region are now calling themselves ex-agitators because of attendants benefit, this is hypocritical and dangerous at the same time and must be discouraged by all stakeholders including Itshekiri leaders”.
The Bayelsa youth leader said what the Itsekiri Ethnic Nationality Ex-agitators did was an attempt to blackmail Dr Otuaro and hoodwink the NSA and the unsuspecting public to have sympathy for their cause, but that the truth should be told which is that the “Itsekiri indigenes” in the Third Phase never carried a single arm as they claim but merely benefitting from where they never sowed or sacrificed.
Letugbene, however, appealed to the federal government through the Office of the National Security Adviser to retrieve the slots allotted to the Itshekiris in the Third Phase and give it to the true beneficiaries in Third Phase to fill up.
He said Dr Otuaro, a product of the struggle, has been working assiduously with his team and all stakeholders in the Niger Delta to reposition the PAP to achieve set goals, noting that due diligence and fairness has been his watchword in ensuring that all genuine beneficiaries of PAP are carried along in programmes like education scholarship and vocational training, irrespective of ethnic nationality as falsely claimed by the Itsekiri Ethnic Nationality Ex-agitators.
The National Vice Chairman of Phase Three PAP, asserted that further attempts to blackmail or discredit Dr Otuaro and his team at the Amnesty Office through senseless petitions and propaganda on conventional or social media, will be resisted while calling on Itshekiri leaders to call the Itsekiri Ethnic Nationality Ex-agitators to order.
Letugbene also encouraged Dr Otuaro to remain steadfast in the discharge of his function by working tirelessly with all stakeholders to ensure that the core objectives of the Amnesty Office as well as President Bola Tinubu’s eight point Renewed Hope Agenda is attained in the Amnesty Office.