By TINA TIMOTHY

The National President National Association of Presidential Amnesty Students Worldwide (NAPASW) Comr. Lucky O.O Ukueku, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint a Coordinator or Special Adviser (SA) to be in charge of the Niger Delta Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP).

Ukueku said such an aide should report directly to Mr. President, alleging that students were suffering a lot of neglect under the current administration.

Ukueku made the appeal in a statement on Thursday, July 14, 2022, where he further requested that such a potential Special Adviser of PAP must have lived a good number of years in the Niger Delta region to be able to understand the challenges of the people. He particularly requested that the person must not be military personnel, because according to him, civilians who have been appointed as SA to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, have done better than the military men who have the opportunity to preside over the affairs of PAP.

Ukueku’s statement reads: “Comr. Lucky O.O Ukueku, the National President National Association of Presidential Amnesty Students Worldwide (NAPASW) calls on President Buhari and the NSA to appoint a Coordinator or Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta PAP, and that should be a person who lived so many years in Niger Delta, who understands the challenges of the Niger Deltans, that has the experience and he must not be a military man like this present and previous administrations.

“By my record, the civilians who have been appointed as SA to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, have done well than the military counterparts. Like the case of Boro, Dukubo and this present PAP administration have been the worst in the history of the scholarship students of this program because each of the schools has Relationship Management called R.M, who is supposed to oversee each of the Universities this students were deployed to.”

“But this present government of PAP, no RM has visited any of these Institutions. What about Physical verification of the students to know if the person they are training is really in school, or if he/she is just taking the monthly stipend for feeding which is the ITA by arranging with the school, there is nothing as such has done by this present administration.

“Assessment of schools facilities, to see the wellbeing of the students if all what PAP are paying for are really given to these students, things like the hostel if many persons are in one room or just 4 persons, like some school jam-packed students like 8, 12 in one room, what about the Health centre how quality it is, like good equipment, what about the Wifi to browse the PAP office is paying for, are the students really benefiting it.

“This is the only PAP administration, under which most of the partnering institutions treat PAP students like fatherless and motherless children.”

The NAPASW President alleged that the current administration no longer gives the students sponsorship letters to indicate that they were being sponsored by the Federal Government, no longer gives First Class students automatic sponsorship to do their for Masters programmes as was previously done and also no longer publishing names and photos of graduating students, neither does it take note of the number of students admitted and those who successfully graduated. He said these activities were done annually by past administrations of PAP but have been abandoned by the current administration.

Continuing, the NAPASW President decried the lack of concern by the current administration for PAP students who have lost their lives, saying they only react and threaten when students want to express themselves.

“Only this year we have lost about 22 students and this present PAP did not show concern. But the previous administration will ask to know the cause of the death of somebody who is under their scholarship scheme. Their own is to threaten using students as scapegoat by withdrawing their scholarship, making so many of these students to be singing their praises just to look good to them and also to gain favour from them even when they are in pain.

“With all these, I hereby call on the President Buhari, to appoint a coordinator into the PAP office to be answerable to him directly, so that all these complaints listed above can be taken care of,” Ukueku requested.

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