Presidency Warns Buhari Against Ending Amnesty Program

The administration of the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan gave reasons why the elected Muhammadu Buhari’s government should not scrap the Presidential Amnesty agenda for ex-militants in the Niger Delta region.

The presidency cautioned the president-elect that any effort to stop the programme would erupt crisis in the area.

Hon. Kingsley Kuku, the special adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Program (PAP), gave this warning while speaking with reporters briefly after a meeting to review activities of the program in Abuja.

He stated that the Amnesty Program is a moral and not a political agenda.

Kuku said: “The presidential amnesty has transformed and still transforming lives.

This is the reason why we are meeting today, reviewing the program vis-a-vis that fact that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan our brother, the president of this country would be going back home after successfully running a four year term, having lost in the last presidential election.
He would be going back home.

So, apprehensions are everywhere, worries are everywhere, what will happen to the presidential amnesty program. The leaders are asking questions, the followers are asking questions.

So I keep interfacing. I keep talking; we keep putting our heads together. Today again, we put our heads together and I have assured them on behalf of Mr. President and even on behalf of the in-coming government of which I am not going to be a part of. But I know the government will be decent. I know what decent government do all over the world.”

Earlier former militants of Urhobo descent have asked the president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, to go along with the amnesty programme to avert a return to the creeks by the militants.