‘Destruction of militants’ weapons ends Niger Delta unrest’

The Nation

25 May 2011

‘Destruction of militants’ weapons ends Niger Delta unrest’

 

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday said the destruction of the weapons recovered from repentant militants in the Niger Delta region had ended militancy in the region and other parts of Nigeria.

He said militancy was no longer fashionable among Niger Delta communities, adding that anyone who carried arms for agitation would be regarded as bearing “crime arms”.

Jonathan, who spoke through his Special Adviser on Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, at Lokpanta, Abia State, said: “We see the destruction of the weapons as the end of militancy. It is the end of the first ‘D’ of the ‘DDR’ - Disarmament, Demolition [sic – should be Demobilisation] and Reintegration  programme. The ‘DDR’ programme began with disarmament. There is destruction of those arms that were collected or received or recovered from the ex-agitators. That phase of the DDR has been finally put to rest today.

“From what the General Officer Commanding (GOC), 82 Division, Enugu, said in a next three days ago, that will finally come to an end.

“We are in the phase of demobilisation. We have joined the demobilisation phase with reintergration. We are battling with that and it’s quite hectic. This is what we are on with. For now, it’s bye-bye to militancy in Niger Delta. Mr. President frowns very seriously at it. He is part of that place; he knows and understands the plight of the people of the Niger Delta. Even the issue of resource control, you can’t have it more than what we have today. S, what is happening today is practically an end to militancy in the Niger Delta.”

But Chairman of the Amnesty Committee, Maj-Gen. Godwin Abbe (rtd) praised the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua whom he said did not only initiate the amnesty programme but also gave the Niger Delta agitators the opportunity to express themselves.

Abbey said: “I think he (Yar’Adua) too was a major instrument of peace in the region,