Anyone that has had an encounter with Hon. Kingsley Kuku, chairman of the Niger Delta Presidential Amnesty Programme knows he does not mince words.
The Special Adviser to Mr. President on Niger Delta pursues his amnesty project with vigour. Every public encounter with the ex-agitators, as he prefers to call them, affords him the platform to admonish the trainees like a man would his younger ones whose school fees he pays.
In this interview with Sunday Sun, Kuku bared his mind wholly as he gave more flesh to every question than expected.
How has the amnesty programme fared these three years, especially under your supervision?
Frankly, I don’t think I am the right person to assess the programme because I am part and parcel of it. It is modesty that some other people assess it. But generally speaking, I have heard from many commending what we have been doing these years. Whenever I remember the number of youths that have passed through the programme and acquired skills to become experts, I know surely the programme has made an impact. When I also see the figures of the rise in crude oil production in the Niger Delta region since the return of peace arising from the activities of the programme, I know the federal government that set up the programme has not invested efforts in it in vain.
While your office makes peace in the Niger Delta through the rehabilitation of the ex-militants, there seems to be another problem brewing between Bayelsa and Rivers State. Don’t you see it as a threat to the peace initiative in the region?
I would want to say that the dispute between the two states has nothing to do with the mandate of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP). But I have said it severally before the media that I am running an office in which the amnesty programme has been domiciled. I am the President’s Adviser on Niger Delta and so the brewing feud that the president is practically and successfully handling between the governments of Bayelsa and Rivers falls within the advisory role of my office. We have gone into that matter, advice has been given and the federal government is on top of it. We are talking about two Niger Delta Ijaw communities in question and so, it is a question of caution even for the communities. They are brothers and they are brethren. You talk about the Kalabari Ijaws of Rivers State who own Isoku community. We are talking about the Nembe Ijaw people and their community that has to do with Bayelsa State. These two sub-ethnic Ijaw nationalities are a people bonded by destiny. They cannot fight over oil wells and they cannot fight over communities. But for the artificial boundaries of state creation, this ugly incident would not have reared its head. These are those that have been together as a common people because you can hardly see a difference between a Nembe man and a Kalabari man. So, we are going to give opportunity to statutory government bodies to play their roles legally. The Boundary Commission must be given the freedom without interference to determine which territory the oil wells in question belong to and not by our own novice interpretation. So, the Boundary Commission is on top of what they are doing and the presidency is on top of the security implication of what that can cause. The president who is from the environment is on top of the situation because the matter is not alien to him. As the then deputy governor of Bayelsa State, he was the chairman of the Boundary Committee of Bayelsa State. As Vice President of this country at a time, he was the National Chairman of the Boundary Commission and so, he knows how sensitive the issue is and he knows how to handle it best.
The duty of my office is to do all that we can – talk to the youths and their leaders and to those who want to play some advantage out of this brewing conflict that has been handled by the federal government, to cause some mayhem in the name of being tribal or sub-ethnic.
Do you think the programme has done much in terms of generation of opportunities for empowerment, especially in areas of ICT to be used in creating more impact in the region?
You need to understand the human structure of PAP. The PAP is not just about Niger Delta youths. It is about a specific number of youths registered and documented by the federal government between June 25, 2009 and October 4, 2009. Too many Niger Delta youths who didn’t believe in the federal government’s offer didn’t come out. They did not accept it. Too many people who have the capacity to even participate in this ICT you are talking about refused to come out either because of lack of faith or out of fear or lack of courage to accept what they are. And government won’t deal with anybody who is not documented. But the major question is how many of those who are documented could be developed in the areas of your concern. How many of them are practically educated. How many are literate and how many are not? So, by our pure classification process, which we carried out at the demobilization camp, we found that in the entire exercise, you don’t have more than 15 percent of the people with literacy ability. Of the 15 percent, almost 85 percent of them have opted for formal education and that is why this year alone, nothing less than 1,136 people in the programme are in various universities all over the world.
By July next year when we would have fully deployed the people, we should have nothing less than 500 people in universities in the United Kingdom alone. That is why we are grateful to the government of the United Kingdom, the Home Office and the Embassy here. We thank them and we love them because they support the programme. They didn’t support the programme at a time because maybe they were skeptical but we had to make strong effort to make a case. We had to go to Chatham House and other places and make our presentations and at the end of the day, it opened doors. Educational scholarships have been supported by the United Kingdom government and so, we are actually warming up to give the United Kingdom government, through their Embassy here, a commendation letter.
Formal education is what most of the ex-militants wanted. In Friendship University, Moscow in Russia alone, we have over 50 people and one of our delegates was the best student at the second level in the medical school. In Nigeria, this programme has practically taken over almost all private universities. We decided to patronize private universities because if you have a structured federal government programme that is an intervention programme, it is good to take these students to a university where four years can be four years and where the issue of regular strikes would not tamper with the duration of the academic programme you have structured through a federal government intervention programme. So, a federal programme like this, you take students to Obafemi Awolowo University for instance and there is a strike that takes six months, there is a distortion already and so by the time a programme that has been structured to end in maybe 2015, 2017 or 2019 does not, you will still have students of this programme in some public universities. How are you sure that the next government, based on the principle of continuity, will be able to fund this programme. What if it doesn’t? There are several cases all over the world where Nigerian state governments have funded scholarship programmes for indigenes of their states abroad and by the time government changes, the next government no longer shows interest.
The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) through the Redeemers University wrote to us of their willingness to partner with us and would admit 100. So we sent people to them and they pre-qualified them. So, as I talk to you now, 100 students of this programme are in the Redeemers University. At Novena University, we have nothing less than 75 students. We are looking at Afe Babalola University and almost all the private universities in this country so that we can get our people educated because that is the best this programme can give to the Niger Delta people. Some of our delegates are even graduates and they have opted for Masters Degree programmes. It may interest you to know that graduates, Masters Degree holders and even Ph.D holders were party to the ex-militants struggle of the Niger Delta because they believed in it. They didn’t need to be carrying arms or be shooting guns in the days of that struggle.
If this programme is basically elastic for Niger Delta development, your question would have been the best because we would have had a lot more number of people to engage. The advantage we have is that the president is very sensitive to the development and empowerment of the Niger Delta and its people. It should however be noted that new people who have seen the sincerity of government are coming out and I think any responsive government should welcome them and be interested in taking illegal arms from anybody than to leave the arms with a man simply because he did not disarm by October 4, 2009. A slight phase has been opened and the disarmament has been done before the security personnel and a final phase of 3,642 people has been added now. A few of us in the amnesty office said that under DDR international codes, the man who carried arms and fought a cause where those who did not participate in the cause also suffered in the community, the arms carrier is the one benefiting but the community where he rose is not benefiting. This is a caveat benefit programme and so, there is need to relapse in this principle and make the Niger Delta community that was affected by the violence of the time to also benefit. The government agreed to this argument and so, nothing less than 500 persons have been allotted out of 3,642 persons for violence-impacted communities in the Niger Delta and we are talking about places like Okenrekoko, Ayankoromo, the entirety of Gbaramatu, Onowo and Apata in Ondo State and the Odi community. We are moving to several places in the Niger Delta, from Akwa-Ibom to Delta and River States. There are specific communities that this agitation primarily affected such as in Kalabariland, Okirikaland, Andoniland and in the entirety of Delta, Edo, Ondo and Bayelsa states. Now government is getting more sensitive and more practical on this issue. The man who carried arms killed people in his place out of a cause and fought the military and the military came in and sacked the entire communities. Innocent lives were lost while women and children were raped. This community has been affected and because side A did not carry arms, are we saying that they should not benefit from this programme. If we say so, then we are automatically in reverse telling people who did not carry arms before to now carry arms and benefit. To stop that possibility, government said those who didn’t participate in violence but were affected should enjoy the programme that we are presently piloting where a few of them would also be empowered and developed. So, 500 have been allotted to them even though they are not part of those who were directly involved in the militancy of that time which we call the agitation of today.
Does your office have plans for victims of the nationwide floods in the Niger Delta?
Flood disaster does not really fall within the purview of my mandate as to be a duty on me to do something about flooding and rehabilitating the victims. But because it has affected Niger Delta communities, we need to do something about it. It is not even I, but we need to commend the leadership of the ex-agitators. The likes of Tompolo, Chief Ateke Tom, Boyloaf, Farah Dagogo, Shoot-at-sight, Africa, Pastor Reuben and a lot of these bright leaders of youth agitation in the Niger Delta. They came up with a very noble idea and the day I was told, I shed tears because I didn’t expect it. They came here and said they have siblings, they have parents and relations who have lost their homes to the flooding and that they cannot sit here and be taking N65,000 monthly without knowing where to go back to. They said so many people were suffering and that there was need for Medicare. They said that 26,358 of them constituting the first and second phases of the programme were willing to contribute N2,000 per person for the months of October to December to support the rehabilitation effort and that amounted to N52.7million per month and N158m for the three months to buy relief materials for flood victims in Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Cross River states.
It was a wonderful effort. Every state has a coordinating committee and so we handed over a larger percentage of the donations to the committees and we also made direct efforts in reaching some of the rehabilitation centres. And because the ex-agitators came up with this idea, some of us also had to join them. When we gave some of the materials to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), they could not believe that Niger Delta agitators would think in this manner and give back to their people. The same thing happened when we gave to Rivers State government, which described the ex-agitators as givers who give more than the ordinary politicians and the ordinary public servants.
How can restiveness in the region be permanently contained?
I don’t think anyone is as bothered as I am about the future of the region after the amnesty works. I am really concerned about the possibility of restiveness returning to the region in no distant future. I say this because it is not enough for us to proclaim this or give amnesty for it to be accepted and progress made. The essence of the PAP is a comprehensive programme which is holistic. It was not meant for the disarmament and demobilization of those who disarmed alone. Accompanying this was the need to complement the practical development of the Niger Delta region. So, the question is whether or not that has complemented the offer and acceptance of the progress made. That arm of it does not fall within the purview of my office. We are not the people supposed to carry out the development of the region. Ours is to make sure that people get what they deserve. Beyond the offer and its acceptance; those who deserved would come out in person and get demobilized and re-integrated. Today, the testimony is loud that because of this programme, those who were bitter and vandalized pipelines don’t do that again. Despite the massive presence of the military in the Niger Delta in the heydays of the struggle, the pipelines were not safe and disruption was deep and crude oil production fell to 700,000 barrels per day in 2005. Amnesty was proclaimed and the military no longer had too much work to do. Today, NNPC has declared that the crude production level is 2.7 million per day, which means the amnesty gave us additional two million barrels per day. The issue is what we are therefore giving back to the people and the land called Niger Delta. I use this medium to call on all Nigerians, particularly the members of the National Assembly that they must support the president in practically funding the execution and completion of the East-West Road. The Niger Delta people are enlightened and this issue is not about President Jonathan because they already know that the funding for this East-West Road is not enough. They already know that you cannot complete that road with N80b because you are talking of a road from Lagos through Shagamu to Benin to Port Harcourt to Akwa-Ibom and then Calabar. We must support the president to complete the road because he cannot be arbitrary in his ways and can’t just take the budget that is supposed to go to education and put it in the East-West Road in the Niger Delta Ministry. There is the need to go back to the comprehensive agreement of addressing the final security situation that may threaten us not too long. If development does not come in, even the people we are training daily today, when they come back, except those who get jobs to do outside the environment, others will revolt because in their environment, they will not meet any job to come back to. If the roads are on, construction works would be on and jobs would be available with people participating in things that can engage them. But when a man that is trained is not engaged, he becomes more violent in his environment and so, it is better not to even train him or expose him to the good things in developed countries. It is worse to bring him back and he gets nothing to do. The most critical point there is that it is because the programme is succeeding that you see further agitation by those who did not participate in the amnesty programme because there are no alternative ways of engaging them by the state governments.
Have the Niger Delta governors been cooperating with your office in resolving these issues you raised?
I will just call on the Niger Delta governors from Ondo to Akwa-Ibom states particularly to key into this programme. It is very appalling to see Niger Delta governors saying they do not believe in the amnesty programme. When the agitation was very hot in 2009, almost every Niger Delta state, in a political economy like Nigeria, got an average of N4b per month. But now, I am sure that the last monthly allocation received by Bayelsa can never be less than N15b just like Delta, Rivers and Akwa-Ibom states. So, the amnesty programme by government and its acceptance by the Tompolos of this world has shot up oil production thereby increasing states’ monthly revenue allocation. They now have so much money to develop their states. But what development programmes or projects are on-going in the states and are they people-oriented? Are they such projects that our boys that are trained now can come and get keyed into in terms of post-training engagement? The answer is no. Those who are not part of the amnesty programme should ask themselves what plans they have to rehabilitate their youths. There must be alternative youth engagement programme by the state governments. Some weeks ago, youths demonstrated in Bayelsa and blocked the East-West Road and there have been plots and meetings all over the Niger Delta by youths who are not part of the amnesty programme to demonstrate and block the Niger Delta and even planning to come to Abuja to protest. When we found out from intelligence about their identity, they were identified as Unintegrated Niger Delta youths (UNDY). They have seen the people in this programme as integrated youths and themselves as unintegrated. Their plan is to disrupt the peace in the Niger Delta and funny enough, governments where these youths come from have the security apparatus and the youths are demonstrating in their face to be included in a federal government programme in which they are not stakeholders and they are doing nothing about it because the state governors believe that the best way is to push their indigenes to this federal government programme. What are the Niger Delta governors doing in terms of youth rehabilitation as creating alternative programmes? Unless the governors key into this programme and its successes by setting up alternative ways of engaging the youths who are jobless and not part of this programme but needs empowerment, then they are postponing the evil day. More monies have been brought into the states and the governors and the local government chairmen now have more monies. What is the development that can engage youths there and what specific training alternative has been put together by the Niger Delta governors. There is nothing there and this is the problem. If every state in the Niger Delta can just put together an alternative empowerment and rehabilitation programme for youths who are not part of this programme for just 5,000 persons per state, there will be more peace in the Niger Delta.
Many complain that selection of beneficiaries of the amnesty programme is bent in favour of Bayelsa and Rivers states. Is it true?
It is not about selecting people. I am from Ondo State. I am not a Bayelsa man. If I want to favour any state, I would have favoured Ondo. When disarmament was carried out, the highest number of people that accepted amnesty were from Rivers where more than 7,000 people came out. Bayelsa came second with over 6,900, followed by Delta that came out with over 3,000 followed by Ondo that came out with 1,200, and followed by Edo with over 400. Do you know that instead of Cross River and Akwa-Ibom states, it is Imo State and Abia that had 300 persons put together. So, it is in tandem with this that when you are training people, you will want to begin to take the number of people per state. One is automatically going to get more of Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Ondo and Imo states people in training. You are bound to have such thing and so, some states understood the relevance of this based on the number of people in agitation at that level in their own time of agitation and proclamation. They took advantage of it and came out. Maybe more Ondo or Delta states people would have come out if the amnesty was proclaimed today
Your party, PDP, lost badly in the last Ondo guber election in spite of the federal might that backed it and powerful members like you. Why was it so?
I think you should praise the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo. The PDP in Ondo is a party with structure that was never given any chance by Nigerians. Many people believed that in Ondo, the election was between the Labour Party (LP) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). They never gave the PDP a chance in the state. Nobody thought the PDP was going to do what it did. We thank the President for ensuring free and fair election because he believes in fair principle and the rule of law. The election, to a very large extent, was free and fair. The president will not come practically to man polling units and booths. Security agents were there and their role in the last election was commendable compared to what the security agencies did in previous elections.
The Sun
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