Revitalizing the Amnesty Programme: Dennis Otuaro’s Vision for Sustainable Peace”**

By ASIAYEI ENAIBO
WHEN a man understands what forms the problems in his environment, he also understands the solutions to the problems that will permanently address the problem from the root of the tree so that the tree can continually be green in his environment. A man who listens to recommendations and suggestions can never fail his people in leadership responsibilities and obligations in service.
Environmental problems are solved by those who understand the environment, not a man who is a stranger to the Niger Delta agitations that brought about the issues of regional development and transformation. Dr. Otuaro is the book of the Amnesty.
Many have come and gone, but no one has written the book of Amnesty. The book of Amnesty is a book of engagement and transformation, problems, and solutions to war, peace, and stabilisation. That is the book of Amnesty! Chief Dr. Dennis Otuaro is the roadmap to the problems and the solutions to the numerous challenges that birthed the Presidential Amnesty Programme in 2009.
The Amnesty Programme was created for conflict stabilisation, not created for those who want to milk honey, but for peace mechanisms, engagement, dialogue, grievance settlement, taming protest, rehabilitation, training, education, empowerment, human capacity building, rebranding, and reorientation with a conscientious awareness of the Niger Deltans who originated the agitation for self-determination struggle for over the years as a result of attitudinal denials from the federal characters.
To address total peace and unity, for effective inclusiveness in governance and peaceful coexistence of the Niger Deltans in the Nigerian state, the man Tompolo was spotted as the solution. Tompolo is the Amnesty, the Amnesty is Tompolo, and Tompolo has trained soldiers who understand and command peace in the Niger Delta region. Yes, who can tame the undiluted waves and the consistent problems in the Niger Delta region in dialogue and engagement? Tompolo said, “I have the best of a man who knows the people by their name, who trained them in days of the struggle, his ideas are reformative, he has the Book of the Amnesty. His name is High Chief Dr. Dennis Otuaro, the Ibe-Uyadonowei of Gbaramatu Kingdom. An emblem, embodiment of the self determination struggle, where agitation ends, his intellectual prowess and capabilities can give us the best hopeful for the transformation agenda. A political strategist, very analytical in his comparative ideologies.”
Yes, when Dr. Dennis Otuaro manned the office of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, first it was the internal transformation within the office. Some maggots within the raffia palm tree are causing destruction to it so he took the bold step to address the problem within. Then we can, in sanity, write our names as erasers in history for transformation on the blueprint of the essence of the Amnesty Programme. All the offices within the office are not solutions— the solutions are practical engagements.
Dr. Otuaro restructured the office with a pragmatic approach and brought in Tompolo’s application of organization. A well-mentored vision and application to the real problems beyond big, big English. Dr. Otuaro will canoe the Amnesty Programme with his purpose driven ideas, focus, resilience, competent and pragmatic approach to the table of realistic manifestation, through fostering, consolidating, and collaborating, for peace, security, stability and decisive development in the Niger Delta region, June 21sth to 25th 2024 at KFT, Effurun Delta state, Dr. Dennis Otuaro shows the a great testament legacy of a good leader by hearing from the people what he considered the real challenges and the way forward as the Amnesty is grassroot program.
Yes, an educational tour to all the schools where the future leaders of Niger Delta are acquiring Education, some have been abandoned as well as being scammed by the Programme. He assured them, as core agitators, “We had a dream when we were in the bush, our dream was to make Education a priority, where the poor fisherwomen children could acquire free, where the fisherman’s son could be the best in his career when we are gone, these our students will bear the song of freedom–sing the song that we have once sang in the creeks, in the city so that our communities will not be in darkness.”
That first step of Dr. Otuaro is Tompolo’s dream, the dream of the Ex- agitators to be trained–the children from the Niger Delta region who are Nigerians. Otuaro regained the lost vision of Amnesty to achieve a new reality of the programme’s essence. He halted and solved the problems of student protest and brought hope that Amnesty is not a failure and mismanagement can be corrected with the New hope of President Bola Tinubu. Yes, the Book of Amnesty was rewritten by Dr. Dennis.
The book of Amnesty is a book of engagement, open dialogue and strategic planning, Dr. Otuaro called for a post- Amnesty Conference in Delta State for Five days for extensive dialogue of shared vision and ideas. Where have we gone wrong in the presidential Amnesty Programme? How do we correct it?
He called for a post-Amnesty dialogue with over thirty thousand beneficiaries in the three phases of the programme to exchange ideas, get the best of ideas from Third face Soldiers and document the ideas, and record the problems and the solutions, the second phase generals came and applauded Dr Otuaro as a true engine room of the struggle. Yes, the first phase generals came for the stakeholders and peace stabilisation post-Amnesty conference. Yes, Dr Otuaro is a first-phase General, a technocrat, a brain box, a strategic planner a Diplomat in the struggle, and a student of the Master of the master’s framework work of Dr TOMPOLO. He had the meeting with the key actors to cross-fertilize ideas and solutions to the Amnesty Programme-the last meeting with critical stakeholders of the Niger Delta region, to draw the master plans of the renewed Amnesty for inclusive benefits to the people. Otuaro adopted the Tantita formula of strategic engagement, the Tompolo’s wisdom.
The region passes a vote of confidence on Dr OTUARO’S initiatives by all tongues and tribes of the Niger Delta people and thanked President Tinubu for appointing a true son of the struggle and the dividends they are getting for his emergence as the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme with key officials.
Dr. Otuaro didn’t stop there in the post-Amnesty conference, a visit to the state by state principle actors like King Ateke Atom, Alhaji Asari Dokubo, etc of the Amnesty Programme from Delta to Bayelsa, to Rivers, Edo, Ondo, Akwa- Bom and other places for progressive ideas and implementation plans.
At this moment, monthly stipends are constant, and scholarship portals are open for students in a very transparent way. Amnesty strategic liaison offices are created to reach out to the grassroots as the mandate areas of the program.
These laudable steps attest to Dr. Otuaro’s commitment to his people and his responsive and proactive engagement has set him apart as a competent man for the job with a clear understanding of his people. His sense of humility and inclusiveness of both women, young and old made him an exceptional leader different from others. His team of competent workers who understand the programme without intimidating the people, Dr Otuaro is the last solution to the needs of the Amnesty Programme.
Yes, as a journalist and researcher in the Niger Delta region, Dr Otuaro will partner with international communities, and elaborate on new ways and synergize to get the best out of the programme for sustainable peace and capacity development.
First and very fundamental, the State Liaison Office
should help monitor the programme of empowerment. This will put an end to failure and ghost contractors who use people’s stores as a sample to get payment from the Presidential Amnesty Programme by not implementing what they are meant to do. Several contracts will use people’s fish farms as well as cement stores.
Those who pass through entrepreneurship training should be well-empowered and monitored by the liaison offices opened by Dr Otuaro for sanity and transparency.
In the case of the Ayakoromo Community bombardment, Bobougbene community, the route to the creek of the Late John Togo saga, 2010, My father Asiayei Dokori after returning from the forest during the invasion became ill and died in 2011. So, Amnesty Health Centre is key in rural areas as a way to reach people with various health challenges. I could remember the Role of the Tompolo Foundation in our research work with SDN Stakeholders’ Democracy Network which Dr Pual Bebenimibo the Executive Director emphasised what Tompolo Foundation has done for the rural dwellers after the Niger Delta bombardment where different treatments and medical assistance, educational scholarships were carried out to create a helping hand to people; pregnant women, children and the age people. So, Dr. Dennis Otuaro’s Amnesty Book can take this suggestion as well as recommendations we have carried out in several research works on this area.
It is imperative to note that some boys who have their Bush names and codes under some camps are not receiving salary in our research works into the challenges of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr. Otuaro has made this a priority to peaceful engagement to train and circulate the process at all levels with a facelift and timely engagement.
This is a suggestion as well as support to your borne Amnesty as a blueprint. Then, the development vision of the original plan will be a reality. The book of the Amnesty Programme by Otuaro is concerned with the core issues of Amnesty, both known and unknown problems and solutions are written to address all stakeholders and beneficiaries. Niger Deltans will enjoy the dividend through training, empowerment, employment, humanity capacity building, educational programme, vocational training, engagement, intervention, skill acquisition, long and short-term mechanisms, strategic planning, and restructuring. It is my keen appeal to Niger Deltans to support High Chief Dr .Dennis Otuaro to actualize his cherished plans and vision with stakeholders from both the Federal and state government so that peace, security will be sustained in our region.