Investigation into the activities of the Presidential Amnesty Programme by the office of the National Security Adviser, NSA has revealed that closed to N1tr was unaccounted during the administration of three Presidential Amnesty Programme Coordinators, Kingsley Luku, Brig Gen Paul Boro and Prof Charles Dokubo.
The three held sway at agency within a space of ten years.
A report release by the office of the NSA into the activities of the programme also shows that the looting of equipments said to be worth N6 billion in Kiama, Bayelsa state, in 2018 and purportedly procured by Prof. Dokubo was a scam designed to loot funds of the agency.
The report obtained by Daybreak indicates that the President Amnesty Programme has failed to deliver on its core mandates since inception.
This explains why there have been calls from various quarters to scrape the programme, though pressure is on President Muhammadu to stay the course owing to the political leverage the programme is generally view with in the Niger Delta region.
The report from the NSA’s, office which indicted three of Programme’s coordinators also show that “there are still a total number of 29,755 ex-militants who still rely on monthly stipends of N65,000.00 as means of livelihood.
The report “contradicts the claims by past Coordinators of the PAP that as at 2018 a total number of twenty-one thousand one hundred and seventy nine (21,179) ex-militants has graduated from Nigerian and foreign universities out of the thirty thousand (30,000) ex-militants captured in the original database during the disarmament phase.”
The report by the probe panel headed by the National Security Adviser, Gen. Babagana Monguno, also disclosed that despite the huge annual allocation to PAP, “Contracts under PAP were issued without recourse to public procurement regulations and PAP financial position thereby leaving the programme in debt.
The Panel said: “For example, in 2018 alone, the suspended Coordinator Professor Charles Dokubo awarded a total of 774 contracts amounting to N66, 687, 570, 000.00. This is more than the annual budget of N65 billion for the office. Additionally, most of the contracts awarded add no value to the programme, rather it serves as an avenue to siphon public funds.”
The report said in 2018 alone, Professor Dokubo awarded contracts worth over N66 billion “to businessmen, political cronies and friends thereby placing the programme in its current indebtedness of N73 billion. Most of the contractors collected 15% mobilsation fee and vanished with no evidence of performance.”
According to the report, Prof Dokubo “employed the services of a private company Menzon Limited to outsource human resources for PAP at an inflated sum of N1billion per annum for about 250 staff employed by the company to work in the office. The Committee verification revealed that the staff who are actually working at the office are about 106. The report concluded that Dokubo was receiving kickbacks from the company for payment of 144 ghost workers.
“His carelessness and lack of foresight led to the looting of equipment and stores at Kaiama Vocation Center in February 2019. The looting took place in broad day light with goods worth N6 billion carted away. No investigation into the circumstances that led to the looting was conducted to a conclusion and the matter has been allowed to wither away. Thus, creating a cover for suspicious contracts that were never executed claiming goods were supplied to Kaiama Vocation Training Center. There are 58 of these types of contracts with a contract sum of N95 million each which could not be verified by the Committee.
“He also introduced names of individuals who are not part of the amnesty beneficiaries into the data base for sponsorship in foreign institution claiming he had discretionary powers. He awarded contract to a company CDN Limited for surveillance and information tracking in the Niger Delta for over N4 billion. These contractors were to employ 150 people to be paid N170,000.00 each to allegedly provide covert information to the Coordinator. It is instructive to note that this project falls outside the mandate of PAP. In addition, most of the would-be beneficiaries of this project are not even from the Niger Delta region.”
More detail on Boroh and Kuku shortly.
