By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

YENAGOA-PROJECT Niger Delta, PND, a non-governmental organisation, and other prominent stakeholders in the Niger Delta have written to President Muhammadu Buhari, appealing for the confirmation of the appointment of Col Milan Dixon Dikio, retd, as the substantive coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP.

According to the stakeholders, the confirmation of Dikio’s appointment was necessary to enable him to consolidate the achievements so far recorded and stabilize the programme.

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The letter to President Buhari which also copied the National Security Adviser, Major-General Babagana Monguno, retd, and signed by the Executive Director and Coordinator of PND, Comrade Princewill Timipre Ebebi, said the transformative reforms which have effectively repositioned unprecedented peace and stability in the region following the prompt payment of stipends of ex-agitators and other notable empowerment programmes.

The letter reads in parts: “Mr. President sir, in order to sustain the gains of the current leadership of the current leadership of PAP, we appealed to Your Excellency to confirm Dikio’s appointment as substantive coordinator to enable him clearly repositioned PAP and give it a purposeful direction inline with the mandate and objective of the programme.

“The programme before now was bedeviled with discrepancies and incessant protests in the Niger Delta region which always culminated in the blockage of the East/West Road arising from the issue of nonpayment of monthly stipends to beneficiaries of the programme. But since Dikio came he has undertaken some reforms to ensure that PAP gets it right.

“For us and many prominent stakeholders in the region, we reinstate our common resolve that Dikio has done Excellency well in repositioning the PAP, and as critical stakeholders, we join our voices with the well-meaning stakeholders to appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to make the appointment as substantive to give him the leverage to consolidate on the remarkable gains so far achieved.