Audit Query: Ex-Militant leaders warn Sen. Urhoghide, others over threat to arrest PAP boss over allege non-appearance

A coalition of Former Militant leaders under the aegis of the Reintegrated Ex-Militant Forum {REF) has warned the Senate Public Account Committee (SPAC) led by the Senator representing Edo South Senatorial district, Senator Mathew Urhoghide to desist from threatening the Interim Administrator of the PAP, Col. Milland Dixon Dikio with a warrant of arrest over allege failure of some officials of the Presidential Amnesty Programme to account for a total of N10bn allegedly mismanaged.

The REF also threatened to issue their own warrant of Citizen arrest of Senator Mathew Urhoghide and the members of the Senate Public Account Committee (SPAC) for failing to act on the numerous calls by the people of the Niger Delta region for a probe into the five days looting of the N60b Amnesty Training Centre located at Kaima in Bayelsa under Prof. Charles Dokubo and the refusal of President Muhmmadu Buhari to establish a substantive board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in the last seven years.

According to the Former Militant leaders, though every institutions of Government area expected to be accountable, the show of desperation and selfish attempts by the Urhoghide-led committee to disrupt the ongoing smooth running of the Presidential Amnesty office is provocative and may resort to violent actions against those involved.

The Reintegrated Ex-Militant Forum(REF), in a statement issued and signed by its National Coordinator , Former General Tony Ebikalaide popularly known along the creeks of the region as Black Spider, described the desperate attempts by Senator Mathew Urhoghide and his cohorts at the National Assembly to threaten and hang Col. Milland Dixon Dikio for crime not committed is a clear case of “losers” trying to “cash out after losing woefully during the National Assembly primaries of their Political parties”

He stated that the claims and threat of arrest of the Presidential Amnesty Boss, Col. Milland Dixon Dikio ,is treacherous and a fault finding expedition targeted at stampeding the Amnesty office into paying their associates for trump up charges.

“Col. Dikio was first appointed in August 2020, and has, despite the challenges, been able to command widespread respect amongst the various stakeholders in the Niger Delta. Dikio has shown capacity, he has demonstrated in the last one year that he understands the workings of the programme and when you listen to his vision and template. Dikio has repositioned the scheme and given them a hope with policies to make them entrepreneurs rather than depending on stipends. The man is a good man, you can see the stability enjoyed in the region within the past one year, he is honest and transparent and very unassuming”.

The group pointed out that instead of the Committee and the National Assembly leadership to act when stakeholders of the region rose against the allege monumental fraud perpetuated under past leadership of the Amnesty office including the 2019 looting of the N60billion Amnesty Training Centre in Kaima community of Bayelsa state and the various under table businesses during the tenure of Prof. Charles Dokubo and his predecessors, they were mute because they benefitted from the monumental shameful fraud.”

“Now that it was no longer business as usual and are faced with disgraceful end to their tenure in the Senate, their tool of blackmail is targeted at a refocused intervention agency such as the Presidential Amnesty. Where were the Senators in the last Seven years when the Niger Delta stakeholders have been calling on President Buhari to immediately establish a substantive board for the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).”

​ According to the group,the members of​ the National Assembly Committees have allowed themselves to become tools in the hands of politicians that are working against the interest of the Niger Delta region and have become willing actors in the dramatic sequence of harassment, incessant issuance of summons and probes targeted towards arm twisting the interventionist agencies in order to part away with meagre funds meant for the development and empowerment of the people in the region.

​ The group however warned that should Senator Mathew Urhoghide and members of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts decides to continue in their alleged fault finding of the PresidentiaL Amnesty Office under a more organized leadership of Col. Milland Dixon Dikio, we will not hesitate to repay them back the only way we know and mobilize the people across the Niger Delta region, particularly the people of their constituents against them in protest against their continued intimidations, and where possible, make public all their associates records of unexecuted contracts allocated to them in the past and not executed”.

Tife Owolabi
Journalist
Niger Delta
@tifeowolabi