The Coalition of the 2017/2018 Niger-Delta Amnesty students, deployed to some universities across the Niger Delta region, have petitioned the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), and the leadership of the National Assembly over their unpaid 32 months allowances.
The coalition’s National Coordinator, Sunday Menukuro, and Secretary, Etolor Papems, signed the petition.
They said the head of the amnesty office, Charles Dokubo, kept giving excuses to delay payments.
They noted that the unpaid stipends include monthly allowance of N70,000 and N40,000 textbook expenses per session for each student.
The petition read, “It has become necessary to acquaint the President with the unjustifiable deprivation of payment of monthly stipends and other concomitant benefits due to us, contrary to the terms and conditions of the sponsorship agreement under the amnesty programme.
“The Amnesty Office, formerly headed by Prof. Charles Dokubo, refused to pay us the mandatory monthly stipend of N70,000 and N40,000 per session for book allowance per student.
”The petitioners noted that the affected universities offered them admission, having found them to be indigenes of the Niger Delta and qualified under the Amnesty Programme.
The petitioners asked Buhari to direct payment of all outstanding allowances.
They added that “anything contrary will frustrate us out of this laudable programme to the detriment of our desire for a better future”.
“We have no doubt that this educational pursuit is a better alternative to the armed struggle we had been plunged into in the past by similar frustrations being unfortunately resuscitated and nourished daily while Dokubo held sway in the office,” they said.
(C) Control TV 2020.
