In the last couple of years, Nigerians have woken up to the realisation that a ‘new’ word has been introduced into their country’s official lexicon. That word, which is now very fashionable among the ruling political class, is: ‘amnesty’. Within the context of our own peculiar circumstances, the word represents a situation where the government whether at the federal or state level grants pardon to (suspected) criminals who took up arms against the state and her citizens and as result, these criminals can no longer be prosecuted for their (alleged) crimes. The words ‘suspected’ and ‘alleged’ are employed in this piece most reluctantly. This is because of the very simple reason that under normal circumstances, which Nigeria most times doesn’t fall within, an ‘innocent’ member of society should not accept amnesty for a crime that they never committed or participated in.

Amnesty, as used in this piece, gained certain notoriety sometime in the year 2009 when the Federal Government of Nigeria headed by Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (now late) decided to implement some of the recommendations of a committee on the ‘Niger Delta’ (whatever that means) set up earlier by the government to suggest ways to address the blatant criminality, or if you like militancy or ‘freedom fighting’, ravaging the region. The compelling need to set up the committee in the first place or even implement the recommendations was borne out of the desire of the government to continue to exploit the petro carbons in the area and have access to easy foreign exchange. But that is beside the point. The young people in the region, the story goes, took to arms due to the ‘marginalisation’ of their area expressed in the obvious lack of infrastructural development in the region which is believed to be the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs. And which, very poignantly, suffers the deleterious effects of petro carbon exploration and exploitation by multinational energy corporations.  It was therefore expedient that the oil and gas industry in the region be destabilised in order to correct the anomaly.

The amnesty offer by the Federal Government of Nigeria which was accepted by the militants, or agitators, as they preferred to be addressed (and for some after they were flown straight into the State House, Abuja on presidential jets), was not properly thought through. Or more appropriately, was not properly executed. While the committee included the offer of amnesty in its recommendations, it was one of the last things to come after justice must have been served on the community. However, because the government was more interested in having access to easy money, it implemented the recommendation that should have come at a later time at the beginning – which is akin to putting the cart in front of the horse. And so, genuine and fake militants and agitators came out to accept amnesty and also surrender their arms to the government. While all of these were ongoing, no one bothered to ask about justice for the community and very importantly, how these people came about these assault rifles when Nigeria obviously does not commercially produce weapons or if it did at all, not the types surrendered by the militants. The arms surrendered were, in any event, a far cry from what was on the streets at the time. Amnesty International at the time had published a report which suggested that more than nine million light weapons and small arms were illegally on the streets of the Niger Delta.

Anyways, for accepting the amnesty offer these militants and agitators were incorporated into a re-orientation programme and an official minimum monthly stipend of N65,000.00 was paid to them in a country where the minimum wage and the allowance for members of the National Youth Service Corps Scheme was less than N18,000.00 and N19,800.00 per month, respectively, at the time. In addition, some others who had academic promise and potential were sent to European, Asian and other African countries for academic programmes and short courses. For those who were discerning, it was only a matter of time for a new breed and perhaps more ruthless group to spring up and for disaster to happen. We are now living witnesses to the many armed groups that are claiming, in a cruelly ironic way, to be fighting for justice, including environmental justice, for the Niger Delta and its people by blowing up oil and gas installations that are in the region.

It is therefore with this background in mind that I consider the grant of amnesty to cultists in Rivers State by the Governor Nyesom Wike led administration a wrong approach to addressing the issue of criminality in the state – ditto for Benue and Imo States. And this has nothing to do with the raging legalese as to whether the governor can by law grant amnesty. To my mind, the grant of amnesty is in itself not a bad thing provided certain conditions are met. Governments the world over routinely do this in the interest of the generality of society. However, it is strongly suggested that our present circumstances do not favour it. From recent experiments, at least, the grant of amnesty has been shown to be counterproductive. To drive home this point, one is reminded of a recent event in Rivers State. Sometime in August 2016 the media in Rivers State was awash with news that a notorious criminal, popularly known as Igbudu, had accepted the offer of amnesty from the Rivers State Government. In a bizarre twist and most shockingly, a few days afterwards we were treated to the news that this same person and some members of his gang had been killed by the Rivers State Command of the Nigeria Police Force while attempting to rob a commercial bus plying the Ahoada section of the East-West Road.

At the heart of this treatise is the undisguised view that the grant of amnesty to criminals and cultists begs the issue. It is at best mere window dressing and at worst a curious denial of responsibility. It is a conspicuous failure of the government granting same to discharge its primary responsibility of keeping society reasonably safe by the appropriate deployment of the means of coercion. Quite frankly, we can’t continue to celebrate and reward blatant criminality – a type that is so mindless, senseless and depraved culminating in the decapitation of people for sheer fun. When discussing the grant of amnesty to criminals what most of the pundits fail to consider or deliberately gloss over is this:  where is justice for the community and indeed the incentive for the young people who have continued to toe the path of decorous living in spite of the very strong temptation to do otherwise!

The nagging question that begs for an answer meantime is: what is the alternative –   how can we address the case of rising, audacious, and very violent criminality in Rivers State in particular and Nigeria at large, going forward. In the long term, for us to have relative peace that will necessarily drive development, the state while working with relevant stakeholders must comprehensively address the following issues – which are in no particular order: an unwieldy and unproductive population; grinding poverty; grave unemployment; lack of prospects for our young people; easy access to hard drugs and cheap intoxicants and crass illiteracy. Except these issues, and perhaps some others which may have not been mentioned here, are attended to promptly we will continue to move in circles all the while remaining in the same spot.

 @ODNEsq.

Thanks: Lalasticlala

Amnesty is fraud especially for anyone from the region where they bomb pipelines


Nigerians shouldn't accept it