IS THIS HOW NEGIRIA WILL GET BETTER? Niger Delta: Outrage Over List Of FG’s Special Scholarship Scheme By CHIKA OTUCHIKERE, By George Agba — Aug 6, 2014 | 7 Comments The controversy trailing the 254 names published by the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta as successful beneficiaries of the Special Scholarship Programme for students from the Niger Delta region who passed the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) has taken a deeper crisis dimension with stakeholders in the region rejecting the list outrightly. The list published last Friday, which favoured mostly students from President Goodluck Jonathan’s home state showed that out of a total of 254 beneficiaries, Bayelsa got 102, Akwa Ibom got 3, Cross River 3, Delta 55, Edo 10, Imo 10, Ondo 43 and Rivers 28. LEADERSHIP gathered that, because the South-South region is a PDP dominated state, most of the people kicking against the list have been protesting behind the scene, while some have, however, summoned the courage to address the issue squarely. Some of the prominent persons from the region who spoke to LEADERSHIP wondered whether the office of the Special Adviser to the president on Amnesty can still be trusted to be working for the collective interest of the Niger Delta people, following what they described as the persistent exclusivity which they said, has become a recurrent decimal in the execution of the mandate of the office. They argued that the criteria used in listing the names to arrive at such figures negate the true essence of the kind of justice the repentant Niger Delta militants stood for when they said they were fighting for their fatherland. Accordingly, they have appealed to President Jonathan to wade into the matter with a view to addressing what they fear might turn out to fracture the commonality of purpose of the people of the region. Pioneer National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Anietie Okon on Tuesday condemned the lists, saying the overwhelmingly skewed nature of the list as published was not only unacceptable to the people of Akwa Ibom State, but a clear affront on the psychic of Akwa Ibom people as well as the entire region. “We are forced to question whether the office of the Special Adviser on Amnesty is still representing the collective interest of the people of the region given the persistent exclusivity that has become evident in the execution of the brief and mandate of the office”, he said. Okon who is currently a delegate representing Akwa Ibom State at the on – going National Conference urged the president to, as a matter of urgency, draw the attention of the Special Adviser on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku to the biased and nepotic nature of the list. According to him, the list is a grave and unacceptable anomaly with its attendant capacity to undermine the intent and standing of governments and the leadership of the region. Okon who noted that it was embarrassing for a State like Akwa Ibom, the leading oil producing State by current attribution to be allocated only 3; Edo State which is a cradle of Knowledge to get only 10, while Bayelsa got 102 added that “it was further confirmation of the narrow understanding of the dynamics of our political survival realities and an unfortunate exhibition of misplaced callous insensitivity as well as political naivety”. Noting that the move was capable of “damaging the cohesion and vibrant shared common interest of the people of the region”, he said, “It is a callous act of insensitivity and political naivity on the part of the Special Adviser of Niger Delta, to posit that justice and transparency prevailed where only three students from Akwa Ibom and Cross River States; 10 from Edo State. “This can damage the purpose of the intervention initiative irretrievably. It makes nonsense of the call for unanimity in the area. The mindless impunity implied is as grievous as it is equally pathetic. How can they explain this absence of rationality? It is unacceptable. I demand that those responsible for this outrage get real”, Okon added. A PDP chieftain from Cross River State described the list as another form of marginalisation within a region that have fought militantly against injustice. He said, “You can imagine that this is happening in a region that have turned out a great number of militants and ex-militant who fought against what the call the degradation of their land and exploitation of their resources to their own disadvantage. Now, we got reprieve from late President Umar Yar’Adua by way of the amnesty programme only for persons with parochial interest use it to serve their parochial interest. “This is wrong and unacceptable. Now that this kind of injustice has become an issue for public debate, I wonder what people from other regions who saw the Niger Delta militants destroying oil installations in the name of fighting injustice will say. It is like not practising what one has been preaching against”, the top politician and a former minister who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity stated. Meanwhile, the media special assistant to the special adviser to the President on the Niger delta, Mr Daniel Alabrah who reacted to the outrage over the list of beneficiaries of the scholarship noted that the Presidential Amnesty office received complaints over the list pointing out that the selection was done based on the scores in the UTME conducted by JAMB in May 2014 and not on basis of allotment to states in the Niger Delta. Alabrah also disclosed that the selection was also based on the membership of the defunct militant camps in the catchment states after their classification during the demobilisation exercise conducted in Obubra, Cross River State in 2010 and 2011.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 13:04:31 +0000
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