Amnesty office to train un-registered militants

FROM the Federal Government Amnesty Office has come advice that erstwhile agitators who were not captured in the documentation process of the programme should maintain calm, assuring that government is working out a process to ensure that every former militant is identified and trained.

Head of Media and Communications of the Amnesty Office, Daniel Alabrah, gave the assurance in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, yesterday while speaking with journalists. He disclosed that out of 26,358 former agitators that have been documented, 12,000 persons have been trained successfully.

According to him, “the amnesty scheme is still on course. The programme so far has been a success, as you can see a good turn up in our oil production, which is now about 2.7 million barrels per day. From our statistics, about 800 persons have not been identified, so the amnesty programme is on course. We will identify all of them; already, 26,358 persons have been documented and out of that, 12,000 have been successfully trained.

“Those are not within that number. It is true that they were not captured during the process of profiling them, but we have noted that and a process is on to take care of the situation. Its just that some of the boys are impatient,” he said.

Alabrah explained that the identified erstwhile agitators have gone through the first and second phases of the programme, which are disarmament and demobilisation, adding that the third phase, which is to re-absorb them into normal life in the society, is in progress.

The amnesty office spokesman appealed to the public to stop addressing the youth as former militants considering that they have gone through various stages of orientation.

According to him, the name erstwhile militants stigmatise them as notorious people with their past lives. “It is no longer proper to describe them as former militants. If we do, it means that they are still in their past lives. They have gone through various stages of orientation. So, I think the proper way to classify them now is Niger Delta youths because it helps the process of re-integration into the society and it reduces the effect of stigmatisation on them,” he added.