Rehabilitated militants are demanding to be paid their allowances or they will return to the creeks to cause havoc
Less than six days after their graduation from the Rivers State Social Development Institute, SDI, Okehi, Rivers State, more than 200 ex-militants are up in arms with the officials of the Social Rehabilitation Committee, SRC. The ex-militants, who graduated at a colourful ceremony, September 24, held the officials hostage for several hours recently. They were protesting the non-payment of their allowances.
The militants came with hired buses and before 11a.m. on that fateful day, blocked the gate leading to the offices of the SRC located in the GRA, a highbrow area of Port Harcourt. They did not allow any vehicle to either leave or enter the premises. The crowd spilled over to Moscow Road where the back gate of the Rivers State Government House is located.
However, the timely intervention of the Mobile Policemen and a police Armoured Personnel Carrier, APC, prevented the demonstration from becoming violent.
Some of the ex-militants who spoke to Newswatch said the officials of the SRC were tossing them around instead of paying them money government promised them. Iyorikimbo Israel said the treatment they received from government was not encouraging. “Government wants us to go back to the creeks and if we do, it will be terrible. I lost nine of my brothers and mother in the crisis. What is sweet in life again for me? So, if I go back to the creeks, it will be total destruction,” he said.
Israel, who graduated from the Welding and Fabrication Department of the SRC, hails from Okrika in Okrika local government area of the state.
William West Diepriye, a trained driver from the Institute, said he needed the money to buy a vehicle to use for commuter services. “It is not everybody that wants to belong to the co-operative society to do business. I want to work alone and buy a Toyota Haice bus that will ply inter-state,” he told Newswatch.
Similarly, Sogboeye West Daye said he does not want to belong to any co-operative society, adding: “Those who do not want to be in co-operative society should be allowed to operate alone.”
But Albert Horsfall, chairman of the SRC, said he was highly disappointed over the demonstration and attitude of the ex-militants. “They are not reasonable at all because they are not appreciative of the new lease of life we are giving them,” he said. According to him, the SRC has already paid its own counterpart funding into the banks, waiting for them to come up with their contributions and do the necessary documentations. He said while the documentation was going on, the beneficiaries became impatient and stubborn over the whole issue. Horsfall is of the opinion that somebody must have instigated the ex-militants to demonstrate. He explained that the essence of clustering them into co-operatives was to save them from squandering any cash given to them and find reason to return to the streets later. “But if anyone insists on going solo, what will be done is to divide what is in the co-operative and give the person his share,” he told Newswatch.
Two hundred and ninety eight ex-militants graduated from the training camp in Okehi in Etch LGA of the state after six months training. Out of the number, seven graduated in sport, 47 graduated in welding and fabrication, seven in fitting, 42 in sea faring/marine, and 26 graduated in business and commerce. Similarly, 15 persons graduated in fashion/designing, 19 in computer operation, while 61 persons graduated in driving. Another 22 ex-militants were trained as electricians, 32 in agriculture, 13 in arts/video coverage and four in Music.
Eleven of the graduates received awards as the best graduating students, while one Soibi Wisdom Simon of the Sea Faring/Marine department received an award as the best behaved student. Their certificates were presented to them by Godwin Abbe, the minister of defence and chairman, Presidential Panel on Amnesty, while Chibuike Amaechi, the state governor, decorated the award recipients with medals.
Amaechi noted that the ex-militants were mostly driven into the creeks by poverty. He offered automatic employment to 20 graduands. He said the rest of the graduands would receive funds that would help their different trades and skills through a micro finance scheme with financial institutions. Amaechi, who described the training as an opportunity for the repentant militants to change their lifestyle, urged them to serve as ambassadors of change in the society. He also charged them to collaborate with government through their conduct to change the negative face of the state in order to fast-track development and attract investment and goodwill to the state.
Horsfall said some of the challenges the amnesty committee faced at the initial stage of the programme include accommodation, funds, inadequate equipment coupled with the difficulty in dealing with ex-militants who might still be secretly armed. He recalled that they were given a broad task of identifying and rehabilitating militant youths of Rivers State origin, hence the committee prepared for the challenges of rescuing a potentially lost generation.
Horsfall announced that two of the ex-militants who graduated with football certificate have been scheduled for trials abroad in England with Chelsea and Arsenal Football Clubs in the United Kingdom, UK.
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