Niger Delta Boils Again, Ex-militants Barricade Benin/Lagos Freeway

PHOTO: MILITANTS SURRENDERING THEIR ARMS DURING THE AMNESTY PROGRAMME LAST YEAR.

Warri, Delta March 23, (THEWILL) - In the wake of the failing federal government amnesty programme, the unending restiveness in the Niger Delta took another critical dimension yesterday as over one thousand ex-militants in Benin City, Edo State, resumed violence, protesting over alleged failure to absorb them into the post amnesty programme of the Federal Government, five months after they laid down their arms.

The angry and abandoned former militants, led by one of their former commanders, Felix Idowu, lamented that they had suffered untold hardship since they laid down their arms and that all efforts to get the attention of the Federal Government to their plight had failed.

With the unfolding and incessant series of bombing, kidnapping, vandalization of oil facilities and other related criminal activities in the region, it seems the Niger Delta crisis is far from being resolved.

Meanwhile, the protesters who blocked the Ugbowo-Lagos road and the gate of the Federal Government Girls College, for several hours, described the post- amnesty programme of the Federal Government as a failure and called on Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to accommodate all the ex-militants into the post amnesty programme so that they will not have to go back to the creeks.

Idowu said, "We are also appealing to the state government to assist us in talking to the Federal Government on the matter. We decided to lay down our arms for months now and we have not received any salary from government. Some of us have families we cannot feed because we have no money. We will not stop this protest until something is done to assist us. We are strongly appealing to our Comrade Governor to come to our assistance."

Meanwhile, THE WILL learnt that Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is expected to meet with ex-militant leaders in Abuja shortly to review the post-amnesty programme and the circumstances that led the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta, MEND, to disrupt the post-amnesty dialogue, organized by Vanguard Newspapers, March 15 in Warri.

THE WILL further learnt that having dissolved the Federal Executive Council, FEC, the Acting President wants to take full charge of the post-amnesty programme and needed to get inputs directly from ex-militant leaders on how the programme would succeed.