By Emma Amaize & James Ezema
LAGOS—AS full implementation of the Federal Government’s post-amnesty programme for the Niger Delta region begins in earnest, details of a process of reintegrating former militants to the society have begun to emerge following release of fund for execution of the programme.

Vanguard gathered that in the first three days, beginning from yesterday, the ex-militants are expected to arrive their training camp where their biometric data and medical examination would be conducted, while training on nonviolence struggle and skill acquisition was expected to follow.

These are part of the details for a two-week orientation and training package for the ex-militants. The ex-militants are to undergo training in batches.

Speaking on telephone with Vanguard yesterday, National Chairman of the Foundation For Ethnic Harmony, FEHN, Barrister Allen Onyema, whose organisation facilitated the training said that before the actual training commences, the medical state of the ex-militants must first be ascertained by a team of medical experts already in the camp.

According to him: “The boys are arriving camp today (yesterday), tomorrow and day after tomorrow. As they are arriving, there are other service providers like those that will be doing their biometrics, that is, taking their fingerprints and those that will be profiling them, that is, taking their details. That will take the next three days.

“Thereafter, those on medicals will move in to assess the state of their health in order to ascertain the state of their health before putting them under pressure of training”, Onyema told Vanguard.

He added that “After that, the non-violence training will take the next five days of the two weeks, maybe from Thursday. And after the nonviolence training, some other exercises will take place before capacity building programme will come on board and career counselling will take place.”

Stakeholders disagree on training  by Americans

Some stakeholders in the Niger-Delta differed yesterday, on recruitment of 26 American experts by the Federal Government to train 20,192 ex militants at Obubra in Cross-River state.

Special Adviser to the President on Niger-Delta, Mr. Timi Alaibe who took the American delegation, led by Dr. Bernard Lafayette to the camp said the ex-militants would be transformed after the training.

But a conflict management expert in the region, Prince Clement Bebenimibo differed, saying it was wrong for Mr. Alaibe to recruit foreigners to train ex-militants when there were qualified conflict management experts in the country.

His words: “The decision of Mr. Alaibe to use only expatriates from America and South-Africa to train the ex militants is unacceptable to conflict management experts in the country”.

“There are so many conflict management experts in our country, particularly in the Niger-Delta region. These are men that spent their time to study conflict management up to masters and doctorate levels in Nigerian Universities. Excluding them from the post-amnesty programme of the Federal Government is an act of injustice and a slap on their academic ability”, he said.

Outgoing chairman of Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Dr. Chris Ekiyor, who went round the militant camps, urging militants to accept amnesty, told Vanguard: “I am interested in what the Federal Government is going to do in this training of ex-militants because I went to appeal to these boys to accept amnesty.”

Ex-generals of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger-Delta (MEND), who recently declared that the post-amnesty programme had failed, decided, few days ago, to give the training programme of ex-militants in Obubra, Cross-River state a chance.

Spokesman of the group, Mark Anthony told Vanguard that the ex-MEND generals led by John Togo opted to watch and see how the training would go after meeting with Mr. Alaibe, last week in Abuja.

He said that information at the disposal of the group showed that the training would change the orientation of the boys, adding: “Some of our boys are already in the camp for the training. But not all of them are there; some are still watching to see what will come out of it”.