•••SAYS PROGRAMME HIJACKED BY A FEW CRIMINALS
•••ALLEGES PAP SCHOLARSHIP SLOTS SOLD FOR N750,000, N1 Million
The new interim administrator of Presidential Amnesty Programme, Major-Gen. Barry Ndiomu (rtd), has said that the programme has been hijacked by a few criminal elements.
Ndiomu stated that the PAP has lost focus and was headed in a different direction from its objectives.
Delta State based popular local newspaper GbaramatuVoice quoted Ndiomu as having made the comment when he paid a courtesy call on His Royal Majesty, Oboro-Gbaraun II, Aketekpe, Agadagba, Pere of Gbaramatu Kingdom, at his palace in Oporoza town, Delta state on Wednesday.
The PAP boss was in the Kingdom for a consultative meeting with the former Commander of the Movement for the Emancipation the Niger Delta, High Chief Government Tompolo.
He later had a closed door meeting with Tompolo, the paper reported
The new PAP boss said that the PAP had derailed to a level where scholarships slots for youths of the region were awarded to people who are not from the Niger Delta.
Ndiomu said that people who are not from the Niger Delta region were buying Amnesty scholarship slot with with N750,000 and N1m.
The new PAP Boss told his host that the conduct was unacceptable and should not be allowed to continue.
He explained that Federal Government had said that programme has lost focus and that was the reason for his ongoing consultations with stakeholders.
“As I speak to you, there are many people who are not even Niger Deltans that have been awarded scholarships. There are instances where people who are not Niger Deltans bribed with N750,000, N1m to get PAP’s scholarships. We cannot continue to allow this to happen.
“It is for this reason that the government is saying that this programme has lost its focus. That is the reason I am having consultations with the people of Niger Delta so that we sit down and tell ourselves the truth.” Ndiomu was quoted as having said
The PUNCH Newspaper had reported quoting sources within the PAP that Ndiomu “frowned on the corruption in the agency, especially the scholarship racketeering which has denied many indigent Niger Delta students the opportunity of benefitting from the initiative.
The widely read national paper which attributed the report to reliable sources, reported that ‘’The administrator was understandably worried that the scholarship slots that were meant for Niger Delta indigenes were being sold to outsiders for as high as N650,000 per slot.
“He has also queried the opaque education budget of the PAP. For instance, the administrator observed that the agency was paying higher tuition in schools where it has many students when ordinarily, the agency should get a discount.
“A probe further revealed that the PAP was paying higher fees than what is charged by the schools. These and other discoveries led to the setting up of a probe panel. The panel is expected to unveil the number of scholarship slots awarded, the beneficiaries, and the budget and also recommend punishment for anyone found wanting.”
Although it was gathered that Ndiomu had called for a comprehensive list of beneficiaries of the scholarship scheme for impacted communities, the Network has not been able to confirm this claim.
Ndiomu was quoted as saying that
if the Amnesty scheme had worked as planned the region would have been rid of the complaints by the youths as its resources would have got to them.
“We came to meet with Tompolo, but it is a taboo to come into your kingdom and walk past your palace. Due to the respect we have for traditional institutions, we felt it is proper to pay our respect.
“So your royal majesty, this is just a mere courtesy visit. We will still formalize the visit in the very near future.
“I want to assure his royal majesty that I will come back in a few weeks because we are returning again for a proper stakeholder’s meeting where there will be contributions from the palace and a robust articulation.” Ndiomu added
With Reports from Gbaramatu Voice
