Presidency considering Amnesty for Avengers

Niger Delta Avengers: FG considers Yar'Adua's choice

THE Federal Govern­ment is thinking about adopting late President Umaru Yar'Adua's op­tion in handling the de­teriorating circumstance in the oil-rich locale.

On June 29, 2009, Yar'Adua conceded am­nesty to Niger Delta activists and that start­ed a long procedure of res­toration of peace to the locale until now handicapped by militancy.

A senior statesman from the Niger Delta who is at present occu­pying an extremely delicate position in the coun­try told Daily Sun, on state of anonym­ity, that administration has understood that exclusive the methodology embraced by Yar'Adua could stop the recharged militancy in the oil-rich area.

Niger Delta Aveng­ers (NDA) have been besieging critical pipe­lines in the area late­ly.

Notwithstanding, the senior statesman said Presi­dent Muhammadu Bu­hari "has been persuaded to reexamine his extreme position procedure of utilizing the military choice as a part of handling the hazard as that would rather worsen the circumstance."

"Before long, you may see another methodology by the Federal Government in the way and way it would handle the Ni­ger Delta Avengers. Much the same as late Yar'Adua did, it would be a carrot and stick approach. The fed­eral government has re­alised that attempting to utilize the military to pound the activists may not be simple.

"At the point when Yar'Adua came, he didn't threat­en anyone, neither did he shoot any firearm. He just received the discourse approach and gave the aggressors a feeling of having a place. Numerous did not trust it but rather it worked like mag­ic," he said.

The source told us thatYar'Adua worked with numerous partners who the aggressors confided in accomplishing his point.

He uncovered for in­stance that one of the center individuals, who soaked ten­sion in the Niger Delta under Yar'Adua, was the previous Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mike Okiro who is likewise from the locale.

In any case, the source said despite the fact that Okiro was the country's police supervisor then, he didn't utilize of­ficialdom to handle the circumstance however connected with the aggressors, who considered him to be a 'child of the dirt', in arrangement of exchanges.

"Numerous may not realize that Yar'Adua utilized the police powers so well in accomplishing his point in the Niger Delta.

"I can let you know that it was Okiro who sold the possibility of the reprieve system to Yar'Adua and the administration bolstered the travel completely.

"Okiro was the inter­mediary between the aggressors and Yar'Adua. The previous IGP had arrangement of gatherings with the president and the activists before the system took off.

In the interim, Buhari's Senior Special Assistant on Media and attention, Garba Shehu, dimissed exchange as an inevitable end product.

"The inquiry you are asking me is stale and has been distributed in the media.

"President Buhari re­cently said the Gazette on the absolution pro­gramme ought to be dust­ed and, if there are com­mitments the fedral government made that have not been satisfied, government would take a gander at them… "