Presidential Amnesty Programme, otherwise known as PAP was established in 2009 for Niger Delta states by the late ex-President Umaru Yar’Adua and the House of Representatives giving it a legal backing through a bill presented on the floor of the green chamber by Hon. Wale Oke.
It was to have two years life span to help simmer the restlessness of the Niger Delta youths who felt then and are still feeling that their area is grossly under-developed despite producing more than 80 percent of the revenue with, which the country is run with.
But on coming to power in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari extended it’s life span.
Presidential Amnesty Programme and the polemics of choice – the Major General Barry Ndiomu equation
Ndiomu
The programme then fully came into existence when the late Yar’Adua assented to the act establishing it, appointed the first coordinator/senior special adviser in the person of General Godwin Abbey (rtd) .
However, the most controversial is the appointment of Kingsley Kuku, which set the ball rolling for what later turned a bazar/free money sharing as we were later told by the present administration
The controversy that dogged the tenure of Kuku has led to the perennial appointment of coordinators that never completed their tenures for sundry reasons.
And miffed by the lack of progress with the constant change of the coordinators for the programme, President Buhari on Thursday, September 15 2022, in a statement signed by Femi Adesina, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, settled for Barry Tariye Ndiomu, a soldier’s soldier to lead the agency .
Here comes Ndiomu
Ndiomu whom friends, associates and colleagues at various times have described as a soldiers’ soldier, hails from Odoni in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. Thorough bred soldier, he is coming to the agency with a bag full of experience, discipline, competency, shrewdness all acquired from his years of meritorious soldering
He was commissioned into the 29th Regular Combatant Course of the Nigerian Army in 1983 and served in various capacities in the Nigerian Army.
Ndiomu also trained as a lawyer and is an alumnus of National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Administrative Staff College of Nigeria, Badagry, Harvard Kennedy School, and George C Marshall Centre for European Security Studies, among others.
A well- rounded officer, he held various posts in the army and the last position he held before bowing out meritoriously in 2017, that was during the tenure of Major-General Tukur Buratai as the army chief of staff, was Director, Simulation Centre, Jaji.
His love for competency as he alluded to at a brief ceremony during his takeover was when he hinted that he was coming to the agency with 35 years experience as a soldier and vowed to work well with the staff he met on ground.
He, however, did not hide the fact that he has a very light skin for corruption adding that he will be hitting the ground running.
Speaking further during the hand-over ceremony conducted by the Acting Interim Administrator, Navy Captain Chima Mpi, Ndiomu charged all staff and management to work transparently, diligently and accountably to correct the wrong impression of the public about the agency.
According to him, there are similar conflicts all over the world that must point to an end. PAP, he said, cannot be different.
Hear him: “Having been appointed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic as Interim Administrator, which suggests that it is not a post that will be held in perpetuity, it entails that all hands must be on deck to ensure a successful end-state of the Programme. It can never be an exercise that is endless. There is nowhere in the world that such a Programme has been endless. Whether we are talking about Cambodia or elsewhere.”
He stated that everyone at the PAP has been part of the work force he would expect the same amount of cooperation and diligence from them, adding that that every individual’s ideas and experience will go a long way in seeing the success of the project.
“Yes, I’m new to this exercise, but I also come from a background that makes me not to be entirely strange to this type of exercise. I believe you all have ideas that can be expected to take this Programme to a success. It is only natural that there will be changes. I do not want anybody to take my approach in bad fate. I also have ideas with, which Mr. President appointed me in the first place.”
On the quality of staff and management of PAP, Ndiomu had this to say: “I’m impressed with the quality of people that met me when I came. I’m impressed with the quality of staff that I’m inheriting. With over 35 years in the Army, rising to the post of Major-General before retirement, I’m here to do the best we can all be proud of. I expect the highest form of accountability in my work. We are all reading in the media. A lot has been said about this agency. We all must change. We must work diligently. It is a very high responsibility that we must always display in our work.”
He then took an immediate tour of all the departments that make up the PAP after taking charge; beginning with those at the main building at Nile Street and thereafter at the annex office at Buzi Street.
Designated as Interim Administrator, Ndiomu is the sixth retired military personnel or civilian to take charge of Amnesty Programme, which began with General Godwin Abbey (rtd). He hails from Odoni in Sagbama Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1983 after which he held several command and staff appointments in the course of his successful military career. He retired in December 2017 as a Major-General.
