Sam Philip
Ex-militants from Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State have called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to prevail on the handlers of Presidential Amnesty Programme to directly integrate them into the programme without the state government’s intervention.
While addressing newsmen with in Akure, the state capital, on Thursday, the leader of the ex-militants, Deji Ehinmowo, lamented that since the programme was initiated in 2017, they have not been integrated into it.
He, therefore, pleaded with President Tinubu to graciously approve their inclusion into the Amnesty programme directly.
Ehinmowo lamented that they have been grievously affected by many years of neglect since they surrendered their arms and embraced the Amnesty programme.
He explained that they had relied on the promise of the government and kept to all the terms of the Amnesty initiative.
Ehinmowo and other ex-agitators were members of the United Sea-wolf Avengers, Awaja camp, Forest soldiers, Big-fish camp, Ogoloto camp, Niger Delta Vanguard camp, Aluma camp, Ofaran camp and six others, all in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State.
The leader of the ex-militants said: “All we want is to be incorporated without any intermediary either from the state government or whosoever because we have already submitted our arms and ammunition.
“The government has forgotten that real development is impossible in a chaotic environment. Are we to be punished for embracing peace?
“One of the conditions for surrendering our arms and ammunition was the assurance given to us by the government that we will be incorporated into the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
“So, we are expressing our feelings to the state and federal governments after we have submitted our arms and ammunition that we did in 2017. In the history of Ondo State, we are the ex-militants in 2017 that submitted the most sophisticated weapons in the history of amnesty.
“We submitted a lot of arms and ammunition such as Fiat Revelli Model gun, Colt Automatic rifle, Sango Scorpion, Dynamite Bitter explosives device, bomb and grenades.
“Others were severally AK47 and AK49 rifles with serial number, military camp uniforms and some automatic cartridge, double barrel rifles, single barrel English and locally made.
“We submitted over 400 pump action, we have submitted explosives in large quantity, bitter explosives and devices, and we did this amnesty simply because Federal Government called us to do so in order to do amnesty for us and we obeyed them.
“But since then up till this moment, government is yet to respond to their promises to give us the amnesty. We have written series of letters to the security agencies, the state government and the Federal Government but no positive results.
“So, we are using this medium to tell the Federal Government that we have made up our minds to take a drastic measure until the journey ends.
“We are pleading with President Bola Tinubu to intervene, to come to our aid and we are coming to Abuja in respect of this because the Ondo State Government is not ready to do anything.
“We, the ex-militants want to take a step, but before this step, we want the Federal Government to know our feelings. We are using this medium as well to tell the Amnesty Board that I am the Chairman, Ondo State ex-militants 2017 that had been disarmed but yet to be paid.
“We don’t want anybody to speak on our behalf, we are the major stakeholders that dropped our guns, we don’t want this amnesty programme to be hijacked by some political leaders.
“The total number of people that participated in the last amnesty programme in 2017 was 4,300 and we have 14 groups that were recognized by the state government in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State, while we also have some groups in Ese-Odo. And since then, nobody has been taken care of since 2017.
“We are using this medium to plead with the Federal Government to come to our aid because we don’t want to go back to our vomits. We are oil producing citizens and we know what we can do to affect the government.
“Ondo State is one of the most peaceful states in Nigeria, and it’s our hand work, we are the one that stopped the protest in Ondo State simply because the state Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa promised us that he would talk to the Federal Government to grant us the amnesty. But we are yet to see anything.”
The leaders of the eight ex-militants camps include Akintoye Olatunji, Omoboye Juwon, Joseph Omoteji, Ojo Ikudehinbu, Dada Odusola, Moses Ikudehinbu and Niyi Aladetan.
They all spoke with journalists, disclosing that they had made several appeals in the past which failed to yield the desired results.
Appealing to the Federal Government, they said: “We want the Federal Government to cooperate with us because there is fire on the mountain. The Federal Government should do the amnesty programme without any delay.
“We want to restate our loyalty and commitment to the nation-building programmes of the Tinubu-led Federal Government and the government of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa in Ondo State to sustain the development of the riverine people.”
