The Federal Government said, on Thursday, it had begun payment of three months arrears owed to about 2,000 Niger Delta ex-agitators in Rivers State.

Colonel Dedis Abel (rtd), the Chief of Staff to the Office of the Special Adviser to the President and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), made this known at the launch of the direct payment in Port Harcourt.
He said government would henceforth make direct payment of the N65,000 monthly stipend paid to the former militants rather than making such payment through their leaders and proxies.

He added that “the Amnesty Office took the decision to pay the ex-agitators directly following reports of complicity and short-changing of some of them by the leaders.

“Reports revealed that some of the ex-agitators were paid as low as N20,000 out of the N65,000 which does not conform with the mandate of the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Henceforth, payment of the monthly stipend would be made directly to each beneficiary with focus to eliminate cases of fraud and short-changing by their leaders.

“Similarly, this exercise will enable us to collect biometrics of beneficiaries and to create Bank Verification Numbers to enable government to make future payments through their individual bank accounts.”

Abel said the week-long direct payment was to off-set the October, November and December arrears owed to more than 2,000 former agitators, drawn from several ex-agitators’ camps in the state and environ.

The chief of staff said that out of the 30,000 beneficiaries under the Amnesty Programme, only 13,000 had received either formal education or vocational training before the present team came onboard.