Nigeria plans to reintegrate 10,000 Militants
Nigeria’s peace plan for the restive Niger Delta region is hinged on
getting about 10,000 off the trench. Its amnesty offer is expected
to cover more than 10, 000 youths who would lay down their guns in
the weeks ahead, Air Vice Marshal Lucky Ararile, chief coordinator
of the amnesty deal has revealed.
The militants are to be reintegrated at 60 reintegration camps in
Bayelsa, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Ondo and Akwa Ibom states. “Each
militant will receive an allowance of N20,000 per month in addition
to N1,500 per day for food while at a reintegration centre.
Disarmament and demobilisation part of the programme will last 60
days. Thereafter, the reintegration programme is indeterminate,”
Ararile said.
Nigeria’s amnesty window to its militants is to formally open August
6. It will end in October 4.
Key leaders of the militants in detention have been released including Henry
Okah, a leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND),
who was facing treason charges.
MEND has declared a 60-day truce to signify its readiness to accept the peace
deal if government will go a distance more by increasing the revenue accruable
to oil producing states. MEND is demanding a 35% minimum from the current 13%.
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