By Emem Idio, Yenagoa

YENAGOA-SCHOLARSHIP students of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, have applauded the appointment of Maj-Gen Barry Ndiomu, retd, as the new Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme
,PAP.

The students called on President Muhammadu Buhari to make the appointment substantive, and decried the use of interim administrators in running the affairs of the PAP office.

National President, PAP Students Worldwide, Patrick Ipidei, who stated this in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa capital weekend shortly after an enlarged meeting of the students, lamented that the interim status was limiting the progress of the programme.

He commended the immediate past PAP Interim Coordinator Col Milan Dikio,retd for his contributions to the success to the programme by introducing policies and programmes that have contributed to the advancement of sustainable peace in the Niger Delta.

Ipidei said: “This meeting is the inaugural meeting of the newly elected PAP Students Worldwide headed by my humble self. Issues relation to the welfare of the students were discussed and we equally use the meeting to congratulate the newly appointed Interim Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty, Programme PAP.

“Also as part of our resolutions, we also commended the immediate past Interim Coordinator PAP, Col Milan Dikio,retd, for his role, developments and contribution to sustainable peace in the Niger Delta region through the Amnesty Programme. We want to commend him for the policies that were introduced because some of the policies were very timely and important to the wellbeing of you beneficiaries of PAP.

“We however want to state that interim and acting capacity has been one of the limitations of the PAP Coordinators in carryout their duties effectively because as interim, they do not have the absolute powers so to speak to function in their offices because whatever they want to do, they are subject and answerable to someone else who is heading them and so we are equally using this medium to call on Mr President to make this current appointment a substantive one so that he will have absolute powers to function to sustain the relative peace in the Niger Delta.”

He called on students of the PAP to be focus in their studies and be law abiding and peace ambassadors in the their various institutions, and make make programme succeed.

Also speaking, the Secretary Tarikiebi Debekeme, who described the tenure of Dikio as highly successful, said, the students also welcome the appointment of Ndiomu with open arms and urged him to carry the students along just as he solicited all stakeholders to support the new PAP coordinator to succeed.