By George Onah
Port Harcourt—A group of 4,000 former militants who collect their monthly allowance of N65, 000 from a commercial bank on Olu Obasanjo Road [names withheld] in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has petitioned the state Commissioner of Police over alleged fraudulent deductions from their allowances by the bank manager.

In a the statement to Vanguard, yesterday, which included photo-copies of their identity cards and amnesty number, the group said they were also being prompted to take oath of a certain cult group, a situation which they said was taking them back to their forgotten past.

Passing through the “Human Rights, Social Development and Environmental Foundation”, an NGO, the statement urged the Commissioner of Police to investigate the reason behind the monthly deductions of N5,000, at one instance for one year and N20,000 monthly deductions from April to August this year.

Further to this, in the petition signed by Executive Director, Comrade Justine Ijeoma, the group said, “From September 2010 till date the sum of N30, 000 is being deducted” from the former fighters by the bank without any cogent reason.

The petition, which was also sent to the offices of the President, Senate President, NBA, various ministries and departments taking charge of amnesty, the former fighters said the deductions were not part of “the N15,000 paid to the bank at the point of opening savings account.”

Following this development “these monies that were meant to be paid directly into the beneficiaries’ accounts are not done so. Rather, the manager has appointed some agents through whom the monies are paid to the recipients.”

It is this agents who are now compelling these boys who have denounced cultism and militancy to re_join cultism as a condition, which they would receive their full monthly allowances. This is an evil wind that blows no one any good”.