Book

The Amnesty Programme and the Resolution of the Niger Delta Crisis : Progress, Challenges and Prognosis

Some of the interim findings of a comprehensive study of the amnesty for peace programme, was presented in this monograph. The general objective of the research is to assess the impacts, challenges and sustainability of the amnesty programme and the political settlements leading to it, as a strategy of conflict resolution and peace building at the sub-national level. The study attempts to critically interrogate the content and methods of the Amnesty on the basis of issues of inclusiveness, equity, justice, gender sensitivity; legitimacy, management, challenges, sustainability and impacts on violence mitigation, conflict resolution and peace-building, and nation-building and national stability. The results of this study shows that, even in the post Amnesty period, there are still grievances about the conditions of the region. These pertain to issues of resource control and increased derivation, continuing state of poor development, infrastructure and industrialization, poor participation in the oil economy, continued devastation of land, water and the coastal region and continuing state of unemployment and poverty. Besides the ex-militant formation, the youth who have not benefitted from the programme, unemployed school graduates who have no access to training and empowerment programmes, host communities which suffered from the violence phase of Niger Delta conflicts, victims of the conflicts from host communities, and persons who suffered losses during the struggle are not happy with PAP as it is.