Dr. Ndubuisi Nwokolo, Senior Policy and Research Lead at Nextier SPD, a development consulting firm says that the financial burden of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) is unsustainable to the country.
Nwokolo disclosed this while presenting the key finding of a report on amnesty programme by Nextier SPD at a virtual dialogue on PAP, on Tuesday in Abuja.
The report was sponsored by Nigerian Natural Resource Charter (NNRC).
He said the findings revealed that PAP, in spite gulping billions of naira annually over the years, had failed to address various challenges bedeviling oil-producing communities.
According to him, the programme appears to be rewarding militancy and aggressiveness.
“The programme is focused on individuals rather than the community; the payments have deepened entitlement culture and had strengthened command and control structures of groups.
“It is also characterised by politics of exclusion, especially the exclusion of the private sector,” he said.
He identified shortcomings and challenges hindering the success of the programme to include widespread corruption, unverified beneficiaries, and poor programme design
Others, he noted include slow progress, low levels of consistency and high dependence on stipends.
Nwokolo said that the reintegration phase of the PAP was still incomplete 10 years after; while difficulty exists in getting current and reliable data on the status of the ex-agitators.
He adeed that the recently-suspended coordinator of the programme had brought to the notice of Nigerians, some of its the entrenched corruption.
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