Port Harcourt—Niger Delta ex-agitators Thursday warned aggrieved stakeholders in Bayelsa State to stop blackmailing the Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), retired Major General Barry Ndiomu with issues regarding the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
The Coalition of ex-agitators in Niger Delta (CEND) in a statement condemned widespread claims by certain interest groups in Bayelsa state linking Ndiomu to partisan politics and who directly accused the amnesty boss of supporting the reelection bid of the state Governor, Douye Diri.
The ex-agitators in the statement signed by its Coordinator, Gershom Mpaka Gbobo, said Ndiomu understood perfectly the functions of his office and was too busy to dabble in politics in his home state.
Gbobo maintained that Ndiomu had no political relationship neither with Governor Diri nor his predecessor, Senator Seriake Dickson, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Gbobo also denied rumours that Ndiomu leaked certain confidential documents of PAP to the public, describing the allegations as preposterous.
He added that if the allegations were true then civil servants working in the Amnesty Office should be held accountable and not the PAP boss.
He said: “We want to state categorically that the presidential amnesty office is not a political office. It is a security office. In fact, the Ndiomu we know perfectly understands the functions of his office and has been discharging them diligently. The amnesty boss is too busy to engage in politics.
“We are also worried like others that confidential documents and correspondences between the amnesty office and the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) in respect of the amnesty status of one of our leaders, Joshua Macaiver, were leaked to members of the public.
“But we state without any fear of contradiction that Gen. Ndiomu (rtd) cannot be blamed for such development. Nobody has established the source of the leakage whether it is from the amnesty office or the office of the SGF.
“Even if it is from the amnesty office, only civil servants, who handle such correspondences should be held responsible for it.
“We have consistently warned against flooding the amnesty office, which is designed as a security programme, with civil servants because most of them are allegedly corrupt and could do anything with money”.
Gbobo, however, called on Ndiomu to set up a panel to investigate and punish persons behind what they described as false allegations.
“We want to call on members of the public especially stakeholders of PAP to discountenance the allegation of Ndiomu’s partisanship because there is no iota of truth in it.”
