..Laud Buhari
South-south Chiefs, Elders and Opinion Leaders Association of Nigeria (SSCEOLAN), a socio-cultural pressure group advancing the interest of the Niger Delta region, has passed a vote of confidence on the Special Adviser to the President and Coordinator, Amnesty Programmme, Prof. Charles Dokubo.
Chief Omubo Atuboinoma Harry, Chairman of the group who led a delegation to the Presidential Amnesty Office in Abuja, described Dokubo as the right choice for the office and commended President Muhammadu Buhari for his foresight in appointing him.
“The South-south chiefs and elders present here are from Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Edo states. We have come to pass a vote of confidence on you. You are the rightly chosen person and you are the best we have ever seen and that is why we are here. We will be with you; we will work with you to the end.
Sometimes we should not be too tribalistic because God can send anybody to do the needful. When God wanted to deliver the Israelites, he sent Moses. We commend President Buhari who has looked in the right direction to appoint somebody on his own. God Almighty has called Buhari to be able to appoint the right person to the right seat in person of Prof. Dokubo, to deliver the Niger Delta people from abject poverty”, Harry noted.
He harped on the need for rehabilitation centres in the Niger Delta to hasten the reintegration of ex-agitators into the society in addition to providing them a meaningful source of livelihood, and hinted that the group was in the process of acquiring a property for the purpose.
“First and foremost, there must be a rehabilitation centre to coordinate all the South-south groups and Rivers State happens to be the headquarters of this association. There must be rehabilitation centres because some of these youths need people to talk to them and control them; we want to eradicate poverty within Niger Delta. Before we came here we had series of prayers; how do we help Dokubo? We are trying to acquire a big building because God’s time has come that an event centre with two halls and offices be set up”.
Harry expressed the readiness of South-south elders and Chiefs to partner the Office of the Special Adviser to the President and Coordinator, Amnesty Programme to curtail restiveness in the Niger Delta region by effectively engaging the youths. “If today we say that there is a rehabilitation centre and every six months we take 10 students from each of the states and train them to become something to themselves, how do we curb youth restiveness within the south-south and in Niger Delta as a whole?
That is why we are also proposing to you the construction of fishing trawlers because some of the militants cannot even spell or write their names, but they know the rivers and the creeks. Our tradition is fishing. When we occupy these children, there will not be the need to go to Malaysia and all that. They may be school drop outs, but they are good in the creeks and we want our creeks to be safe”.
He assured Dokubo of the group’s support as he strives to take the Amnesty Programme and the Niger Delta region to greater heights.
