In a nonviolent demonstration, more than 200 remorseful Niger Delta militants accused the federal government of violating the amnesty agreement reached with the former agitators in 2009, which forced them to put down their weapons and embrace peace.
Armed with placards bearing various messages, the demonstrators besieged the Ukanafun local government area headquarters in Ikot Akpankuk, Akwa Ibom State, under the auspices of the Ukanafun Freedom Fighters (UFF), which was headed by Udom Ebetor, its coordinator.
As stated in the amnesty declaration, the urgent federal government’s engagement was sought to address concerns of empowerment, jobs, and welfare.
“The federal government has failed to keep its words in training and empowering the ex-militants to become economically self-reliant”, one of the placards read.
Additionally, they said that “some officials in the amnesty office discriminated against the ex-militants from Akwa Ibom axis and other militants from a certain tribe saw them as strangers.”
“No fewer than 500 members of the group were still in bushes owing to their scepticism of the federal government’s sincerity towards the amnesty program,” Ebetor, who in 2009 led other militants under the auspices of the Supreme Council of Niger State (SUCOND) to surrender arms, recalled in July 2009.
Ebetor, who denied being a cultist or ever being involved in criminal activity, said he had gone to Vietnam for training under the amnesty program and counselled the protesters on the benefits of peaceful protest and abstaining from criminal activities, including drug abuse.
It was learnt that some of the protesters at the Ukanafun council headquarters were those who initially refused to lay down their arms out of fear that the federal government might not uphold its end of the ceasefire deal negotiations.
Ebetor bemoaned the plight of the ex-militants from Akwa Ibom, saying that “while others are benefitting, some of our leaders at the local and state levels are busy talking while their people are suffering.”
He said, “the protest is as a result of the people being pushed to the wall, and that it serves as a call to the federal government to do the needful before the issue get escalated.”
Paul Mel Udoh, the Community Orientation and Mobilisation Officer (COMO) for Ukanafun LGA, spoke to the demonstrators on behalf of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and assured them that “the federal government will respond in a way to assuage your grievances.” He also promised to forward their demands to Abuja.