The Ex-Niger Delta Ex-Agitators Forum has written an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari asking the Nigerian leader to ignore some groups hell-bent on tarnishing the image of the National Security Adviser (NSA), Major-Gen Babagana Monguno (rtd) on the Niger Delta amnesty programme.

The forum is an open letter to the president obtained by correspondents in Abuja stated that members of the Concerned Niger Delta for Sustainable Development and the Niger Deltans for Accountability and Good Governance are unknown to genuine ex-Niger Delta agitators.

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The groups had in a statement tried to discredit Monguno over some alleged financial infractions linked to the amnesty programme.

”They are rather desperate individuals who are being sponsored by dubious politicians and fraudulent contractors who are bent on dragging the name of the National Security Adviser into imaginary allegations of fraud in order to rub mud on the image of your administration.

”All the issues they are peddling are a bunch of falsehood which contain no iota of truth. This is obvious because rather than bringing up verifiable evidence to substantiate their wild claims, they have resorted to proxy media war even from cloned sites, the group said.

It continued: ”For instance, since the suspension of the Coordinator Prof. Charles Dokubo from office, he has always submitted himself to answer any questions and has never intervened in the work of the investigative committee. We are hopeful that those who did not commit any crimes will not be indicted because faceless groups said so but will be cleared of any wrongdoing in line with the laws of the land.

”In addition, the looting of the Amnesty storage facility in Kaiama has been exhaustively investigated by the security agencies and the report did not in any way indict neither the National Security Adviser nor the Amnesty Coordinator. Yet these hirelings continue to try in futility to drag their names into it in other to discredit them.

”Although we believe that it is within the right of every qualified Niger Deltan to aspire to be appointed as the Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Program, however, we take strong objection to their only style of attempting to discredit the NSA, Gen Monguno. The dimension of calling the attention of the International Community to their fiction is an embarrassing development which we urge you to quickly investigate.

”For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to make it categorically clear that these individuals are not part of us and do not have the mandate of the ex-agitators in their current campaign of calumny against the government. All the threats they make to go back to the creeks do not have the backing of the militant leaders and so will be resisted. For the umpteenth time, we state it here that we are fully in support of the Federal Government under your able leadership.”

The forum assured President Buhari that they are fully in support of his appointees, the National Security Adviser and the Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Program.

They also thanked the president for his government’s efforts in sustaining the Niger Delta Amnesty Program, stressing that the dividends to the nation are obvious.

”It is worthy of note that in the last two years, few if any disturbances or disruption of oil infrastructure have been recorded in the Niger Delta region. The uninterrupted flow of oil has guaranteed the necessary revenue to fund our national economy,” the group stated.

Among those who signed the letter are the group’s spokesman, General Sam Jaja, Perikomu Adolfus, General Ekong Bassey and General Batubo Ogan

Vanguard