PROTEST BY ALLEGED EX-NIGER DELTA AGITATORS

August 22, 2012              PRESS STATEMENT
   
On Wednesday, August 22, 2012, a group of youths claiming to be from the Niger Delta were said to have staged a protest in Abuja and demanded for inclusion in the Federal Government amnesty programme for former Niger Delta agitators.
 
The Amnesty Office understands that this is part of an ongoing agitation for inclusion in a purported Third Phase of the amnesty programme, which has now been hijacked by impostors claiming to be former agitators in the Niger Delta.
 
For the umpteenth time and for the avoidance of doubt, the Amnesty Office wishes to state that its records show that only 26,358 amnesty beneficiaries have been demobilized and documented in Phase One and Phase Two of the amnesty programme.
 
We therefore consider as impostors those claiming to belong to a Third Phase of the amnesty programme and have recently staged protests in Benin City, Edo State; Warri in Delta State and yesterday in Abuja, the federal capital territory.
 
We challenge those claiming to be Third Phase beneficiaries to come forward to state their camps or who their leaders are.
 
It is important to reiterate that the Amnesty Office does not yet run a Third Phase of the amnesty programme, as neither the office nor its Chairman/Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta, Hon. Kingsley Kuku, has received such directive from the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who has the sole authority to make such declaration.
 
The Amnesty Office considers such protests as a security matter and commends the security agencies for their prompt response in ensuring the restoration of peace, law and order either in Abuja or in the Niger Delta.
 
 
Daniel Alabrah
Head, Media and Communications
Presidential Amnesty Office
Abuja