By Samuel Oyadongha

Yenagoa—The Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, worldwide and former militant leaders from the Niger Delta have faulted calls by some politicians for the scrapping of the Presidential Amnesty Programme by the incoming administration of the president-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

IYC described the call as a conspiracy against the Niger Delta people, while the former militant leaders said though those involved in the calls against the programme have the right to their personal opinion, the suggestion is filled with anger, malice and done in bad faith.

IYC, through its spokesman, Eric Omare, yesterday, said it was aware of clandestine moves by those who it said conspired to force President Goodluck Jonathan out of Aso Rock to set the Niger Delta on fire from May 29, 2015 upon General Buhari’s assumption of office.

He said: “It is not true, as alleged, that the amnesty programme is a continuous drain on the nation’s resources and only benefits a particular ethnic group. The amnesty programme is an initiative of the Federal Government designed for ex-Niger Delta agitators who agreed to surrender their arms and were documented in 2009.

“The programme involves different phases with the re-integration phase as the last phase. It is not the fault of the beneficiaries of the amnesty programme that the re-integration phase which involves training and provision of jobs had not been completed. It was because of budgetary constraints on the part of the Federal Government.”