As the Senate on Thursday began investigation into the use of N328 billion budgeted for the Ni-ger Delta’s Presidential Amnesty Programme since its inauguration in 2009, a contractor, Prof Jasper Jombo, threatened to cause trouble in the region if the Niger Delta Development Commis-sion (NDDC) fails to pay him a debt N2billion.
The amnesty programme was initiated in 2009 by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua to rehabili-tate disarmed militants who had been involved in massive vandalism of oil pipelines as well as kidnap of expatriates operating in the region and consequently integrate them into the society.
Although the programme had helped a number of disarmed militants to acquire education and various vocational skills since 2009, there had in recent times been allegations of corruption and mismanagement of resources allocated for the programme by its handlers.
These allegations prompted the Senate to mandate its Niger Delta Committee to conduct a public hearing on the handling of the funds for amnesty programme since inception.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, who opened the investigative public hearing asked why the programme had not achieved target goals and why corruption inherent in the programme should be exposed through the hearing.
In his address, the committee chairman, Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, recalled that the amnesty pro-gramme was designed to create a better and more progressive programmes to better the lots of Niger Delta youths on one hand and the economic prosperity of Nigeria on the other hand, not-ing that economic prosperity of the country is partly tied to peace and security of the region.
