Prof. Charles Dokubo
It’s been long in coming and it came as President Muhammadu Buhari approved the recommendation of the National Security Adviser (NSA) that the Coordinator of the Amnesty Programme, Prof. Charles Dokubo, be suspended from office with immediate effect.
Dokubo has been enmeshed in a raft of controversies over some alleged unseemly contracts, contract inflations, and outright stealing of amnesty funds.
Though Dokubo is said to be eminently qualified for the job but some members of the amnesty groups have been beefing with him via petitions including one in which he was alleged to have heavily padded a boat procurement contract.
One petitioner claimed Dokubo used cronies to move money out of the funds entrusted to his care through frivolous contracts that were never executed but fully paid for.
Mr Femi Adesina, the President’s spokesman, who confirmed this development in a statement in Abuja on Friday night, said the suspension followed numerous allegations and petitions surrounding the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
He said already the NSA had been directed to set up a Caretaker Committee to look into the activities of the programme.
According to him, part of the Committee’s task is to ensure that allocated resources are properly utilized in consonance with government’s objective of alleviating problems in the Niger Delta region, and stamping out corruption in the Amnesty Programme.
”The President has also directed that the Caretaker Committee set up to review the programme should oversee the running of the programme henceforth, with a view to ensuring that government objectives are achieved,” Adesina further disclosed.
