Group threatens to lock down Niger Delta over PAP appointments

Niger Delta Volunteers for Good Governance (NDVFGG) has threatened a “total lockdown of economic activities” within the Niger Delta region over the “marginalisation of Edo and Delta states in the appointment of principal officers” into the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP).

The socio-political group described the planned winding up of PAP by the Federal Government as untimely, suggesting that the government should rather re-strategise to accomplish the aim of the initiators of the programme, considering its achievements so far.

A statement signed by the National President, Ben Bowei (a.k.a. Lord Mayor 1 of Niger Delta) and coordinators from Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Ondo states, made available to newsmen in Benin City, frowned on the neglect of Edo and Delta states in the appointment of coordinators and other principal officers for the programme since inception.

NDVFGG alleged that aside from denying the two states’ appointment of principal officers, applicants from the states for vocational training and scholarship had been rejected several times.

The group added: “It is our collective resolution that the above-listed states have been totally neglected by the Federal Government in the scheme of things, especially in the area of appointment in the PAP office since the disarmament in 2009.

“The two states have also suffered a similar fate in the area of re-integration and empowerment, contrary to spirit and letters of PAP as constituted by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2009.”