Amnesty programme on course despite meagre resources, says Sylva

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has commended the interim administrator of Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col. Milland Dixon Dikio (retd), for delivering on the mandate of the scheme with lean resources.

He said Dikio’s remarkable achievements were a clear demonstration of his zeal to find himself on the right side of history.

The minister frowned on the inability of various interventionist agencies set up by the Federal Government to address the concerns of people of Niger Delta, saying it was time to make them work.

Sylva spoke at the weekend when he received Dikio in his country home in Okpoama Brass Council of Bayelsa State.

He said: “We have to, as a people, stand together. We have had the Presidential Amnesty Programme for a long time but we have not been fortunate. If you look at what the programme was meant to achieve, we have currently not achieved it.

“Some people had deliberately twisted it so that it would suit their personal aggrandisement instead of helping the growth of the Niger Delta.

“If at this moment you’re doing so much with the little you’re getting, we can only imagine what you would have done during the hay days of the amnesty programme when there was a huge cash flow.”

Sylva called on leaders of the region to close ranks to attract more development and lauded Dikio’s Train, Employ and Mentor (TEM) scheme, saying it had made the training of ex-agitators more rewarding.

He noted that the region was at risk of extinction because of harmful practices of a few misguided elements engaged in mindless attack on oil facilities.