The Mayor of Urhoboland and notable ex-agitator leader, Eshanakpe Israel a.k.a Akpodoro, has commended the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, PAP, Dr. Dennis Otuaro, on the progress made by his office since appointment.
Mayor Akpodoro feted the Amnesty boss in a statement released by his Media Aide, Austin Oyibode, in his Ughelli Mayoral Palace, Delta State South-South Nigeria over the weekend.
The Mayor said the progress made so far by the Amnesty boss goes to show that the programme will yield the expected human capacity development.
Within a very short time, according to Akpodoro, Dr Otuaro has made tremendous progress which he said are remarkably germane to repositioning and setting in motion the programme for the betterment of the Niger Delta region and her people which is the primary thrust of the intervention agency.
The Mayor specifically commended the Administrator for paying up all the backlogs of indebtedness of the programme most especially settling the payment for scholarship scheme which he said was hitherto piled up by past administrations thereby impeding the academic renaissance of the children of the Niger Delta region.
The scholarship scheme of the Amnesty Programme according to Akpodoro was abandoned and edging into extinction before the appointment of Dr. Otuaro.
The Mayor noted that “the new Sheriff in town” has breathed life into the scheme and redirecting the programme for efficiency with a renewed hope for bumper productivity.
The former warlord noted that there’s no other way anyone or government can demonstrate regional interest without making education the fulcrum of such administration including human capacity development through training and retraining of the youth population.
“I am particularly happy that we have an administrator whose major priority is empowerment through the education of the citizens. This is exactly what Dr. Otuaro has commendably brought to the table for which we are grateful,” the Mayor stated.
He noted that the federal government has appointed for the first time an aboriginal Niger Deltan who “wears the shoes and knows where it pinches” and with patriotic zeal is doing perfectly well to remove his people from the woods of backwardness unlike what he said happened in the past when coordinators of amnesty were announced by the sound of the sirens and not through positive actions.
So far, Akpodoro maintained, that Dr. Otuaro has justified his appointment by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the people will surely be the gainer in the end as he cited his maiden brainstorming session with ex-militants as soon as he took office.
“Dr. Otuaro immediately held a novel stakeholders meeting where issues of common interests were objectively discussed and agreement reached to support the new management of the programme.
“That meeting lifted the souls and spirits of ex-agitators across divides and for a long time to come, beneficiaries of the programme won’t forget on time the joy that the Warri meeting elicited,” the statement reads.
