An ex-Niger Delta militant and former member of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), ‘General’ Tamunotonye Kuna (alias Obese), has vowed “never to return to the creeks because violence doesn’t pay.”

He also condemned the activities of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), describing them as criminals, who have benefitted from the Federal Government's amnesty programme.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja, Kuna stated that the Avengers were keeping to their promise to make the region ungovernable should President Muhammadu Buhari, wins the 2015 last general election.

While warning that renewed violence in the Niger Delta region would further impoverish the people of the area, he advised members of the NDA to embrace dialogue which the Federal Government has been proposing to restore peace to the region.

He said: “I was working with ‘General’ Farah Dagogo, a senior warlord in MEND. I have vowed never to return to the creeks because we have tried violence and it doesn’t work. That is why we have resorted to peace. Ironically, the same group of Avengers are the same people who benefitted from the government’s amnesty programme.

“The amnesty office is where they were eating and they have lost everything during our struggle. I told them that this government will listen, although no good comes easy.

“I don’t know what their plan is but for me I feel they are fulfilling what they told President Buhari that if he wins the last year’s election, they were going to do this or that. The amnesty office is where they have been packing billions of Naira without giving the people, the masses.

“As (I) am talking to you, we have close to a thousand people who don’t even have house. They lost everything during this struggle. But today, as I speak, they are still suffering. What they (Avengers) are doing is wrong. It is very wrong. I am not in support.”

Kuna stated that some people had been lining their pockets from the amnesty funds released by the government to rehabilitate ex-militants in the region, while some ex-militants had not benefitted from the programme.

He called for the inclusion of ex-militants who had not benefitted from the amnesty programme.

“We that have not benefitted from this amnesty programme should be included because the programme is still running. Those who are eating the amnesty money are there fomenting trouble.”

•Photo shows ‘General’ Tamunotonye Kuna (alias Obese).

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