The Office of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) has debunked allegations that the agency under the leadership of Major General Barry Ndiomu (retd), has not deployed delegates under the scholarship programme.
PAP, in a statement issued in Abuja, by Special Assistant on Media to its Interim Administrator, Freston Akpor, described the reports as mischievous and sponsored propaganda aimed at misinforming the public.
In contrary, the agency disclosed that no fewer than 3,000 former Niger Delta agitators are presently on scholarship in different tertiary institutions in the country and abroad.
The statement affirmed that Ndiomu who assumed office September 19 last year, has sanitised operations of the PAP despite “inheriting several liabilities ranging from unpaid scholarship awards, uncompleted vocational training centers, non-formal education programmes and a huge financial burden to contend with, among other challenges”.
According to the statement, insinuation that the current dispensation is yet to deploy delegates under the scholarship programme is “mischievous, uncharitable and ungodly”.
Akpor explained that since Ndiomu came on board, he has strategically, through tactical financial models, cleared all inherited debts including those that were owed critical contractors and agencies, as well as scholarship debts.
On strategic steps taken by General Ndiomu to reform the PAP, he said: “For instance, instead of cancelling the inconclusive scholarship awarded by his predecessor and initiating a fresh one as most persons would have done, General Ndiomu rather sanitised and adopted the process with payment of all fees of one thousand, seven hundred (1,700) PAP students spread across tertiary institutions of learning across the country and an additional fifty-five (55) delegates going into their first year in various universities in different countries.
“This is in addition to one thousand three hundred (1,300) students already deployed to various tertiary institutions within Nigeria and overseas in the previous year bringing the total number of students to three thousand (3,000) whose scholarships covering tuition and In-Training-Allowance (ITA) have been paid in full by the administration of General Ndiomu for the 2022/2023 academic session”.
He, therefore, cautioned “faceless” individuals spreading misinformation across the media space with “an obvious intent to whip up negative public opinion against the leadership of the Programme” to refrain from such.
PAP noted that the media in Nigeria had evolved and are considered critical tools in the agency’s efforts to change the socio-economic narratives of the Niger Delta region.
“The PAP which has been watching with strong indignation the unsubstantiated statements attributed to some mischief makers hiding under pseudonyms, would have ordinarily not joined issues with faceless persons as such an exercise would only elevate the enterprise of those bad hats.
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“However, the PAP needs to put the records straight to prevent stakeholders and the public from being exposed to and consuming the toxic narrative in the media space,” the statement said.
The agency reiterated efforts to launch the Formal Education Trust Fund to boost the formal education scheme of the Programme.
The statement maintained that despite media propaganda and torrents of misinformation, PAP under Ndiomu would not be discouraged to live up to its responsibilities, urging members of the public to ignore the claims of “mischief makers”.