Scrapping Amnesty Programme Will Be Unfortunate, Yoruba Youths Tell Buhari

Mohammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s President-elect

Nigeria’s soon-to-be president, Muhammadu Buhari, has been advised by the National Committee of Yoruba Youths to continue with the amnesty programme for ex-militants in the Niger Delta Region.

Mr Oladimeji Odeyemi, President of the youths, said this in a statement issued on Thursday in Ibadan. According to the youths, calls for the discontinuation of the programme are “unfortunate.”

Odeyemi noted that dozensscores of youths from the region had been transformed through the amnesty programme and were doing well in the society.

He, therefore, urged Buhari to sustain the tempo‎ of the Presidential Amnesty Programme and continue with its funding to avoid another youth restiveness. He explained that with the successful implementation of the amnesty programme, Nigeria’s crude oil production now hovers between 2.2 million barrels and 2.4million barrels per day.

“We call on the incoming administration to sustain the tempo of the Presidential Amnesty Programme and continue with its funding.

“The outgoing Presidential Amnesty Programme Chairman and Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Mr .Kingsley Kuku, and his team have turned the amnesty programme into a model to evaluate performance and service delivery.

“The amnesty programme in just four years has succeeded in training both locally and offshore, about 20,000 youths out of the 30,000 beneficiaries enlisted in the scheme,” he said.

“As at today, almost 20,000 of these beneficiaries are in various institutions abroad while significant numbers are schooling in some of our best private universities in the country.

“When these youths are fortified with skills, the Niger Delta and, indeed, Nigeria will not depend on crude oil alone as its source of income,” Odeyemi added.