Nigeria’s crude oil production quotient has been on a see-saw, swinging up and down according to the whims of some militants in the oil-bearing Niger Delta region. However, since the last quarter of 2022, there has been comparative stability in crude oil production.

During this period, incidents of force majeure which characterised operations of oil majors in the region became tales of the past. Reason for stability in crude oil production is not far-fetched. There is now relative peace in the region. And this owes largely to the activities of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) led by Major-General Barry Tariye Ndiomu, the Interim Administrator of the Programme.

Appointed on September 15, 2022 by President Muhammadu Buhari, his announcement as the new man to manage PAP at the time he was so named was hailed as a masterstroke. He was seen as the fit man for the job of interfacing and re-orientating the ex-agitators in the creeks. He was appointed on very strong recommendation. The then President Buhari had sought for a rounded Niger Delta persona who commands respect in the area. The brief was straight forward; get someone the people of the region can easily relate with, trust and have confidence in, to guide them out of the paths of violence and distrust into believing that both the federal government and the oil majors have the best of intentions for the region. A father figure who will ensure that what was meant for the people, especially the ex-agitators, gets to them.

The things earmarked for the people were clearly defined: capacity building through skills acquisition, monthly stipend and turning them to employable, skilled up personnel or making them entrepreneurs and creators of wealth and jobs. This sums up the goals of PAP, an initiative set up bt the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

In Ndiomu, Buhari found such a man, a rallying hub for the ex-agitators, someone they respect his words and someone they believe in. He came at a time the Amnesty Programme was drifting to nowhere with tell-tale signs of an imminent, almost inevitable, rupture in the relative peace in the region. And in barely nine months, Ndiomu has demonstrated that the confidence President Buhari and the Niger Delta people reposed in him was not misplaced.

He has since brought his influence to bear on the people and the region for the general good of the country. Statistics tell the story: By September, 2022 when he assumed office, crude oil production was at a lowly 1.015 million barrels per day. This was the time the oil and gas sector in Nigeria was faced with huge divestments by the International Oil Companies (IOCs). By January and February 2023, production has climbed to 1,308. Peace in the region was firming up and the IOCs grew in confidence to produce more.

Between September 2022 and now, one of the major cankerworms eating up crude oil production in Nigeria, oil theft, was dealt the deadliest blow. Oil theft was not only exposed, it was reduced drastically. This was made possible, according to Intelligence authorities, by the cooperation of ex-agitators and indigenes of the oil-rich communities. Granted, Nigeria has not met her OPEC projection of 1.69 barrels per day, but it’s no longer for reasons of volatility and upheaval in the Niger Delta. There has been a global decline in oil production which has impacted oil earnings across nations including Nigeria.

Nine months of Ndiomu at PAP has birthed a new order of prudence in the management of funds and a new threshold of peace and hope among the people. Not only did he expose and stanch fraudulent leakages through certain unconventional but deliberately created fiscal governance system, he also weaned the ex-agitators of a myopic mentality to remain perpetual beneficiaries of monthly stipends. He made them see the big picture of becoming entrepreneurs and job-creators which was the original vision of the Programme.

To actaulise this goal of turning stipend-earners to entrepreneurs, Ndiomu on Wednesday, May 24, in Abuja, launched the Presidential Amnesty Programme (Beneficiaries) Cooperative Society Limited (PAPCOSOL). The initiative was his idea, described as a masterstroke in sustaining lasting peace in the region and integrating ex-agitators into the mainstream of the economy.

For him, PAPCOSOL is a “novel alternative economic development scheme designed to create a more viable means of livelihood for ex-agitators with socio-economic development of their communities and the Niger Delta region in general as an intended consequence.”

The sum of N1.5 billion has been earmarked for the initiative with N500 million set aside for each year. The goal is to help ex-agitators set up their own businesses and sustainable means of livelihood in lieu of the monthly N65,000 stipend.

The cooperative scheme is considered the most pragmatic approach to ensuring genuine reintegration of ex-agitators. It is owned and managed by PAP, with its headquarters domiciled in the PAP office in Abuja. It has physical presence in some states in the region – Delta, Bayelsa, and Rivers – which serve as branch offices to effectively reach the target beneficiaries.

In clear terms, the scheme will make millionaires and nation-builders out of the ageing ex-agitators rather than limiting them to monthly stipend collectors. PAPCOSOL provides all the answers to all the questions bogging the minds of the ex-agitators. It is the much-awaited catalyst to kick-start a new and rewarding phase of life for the beneficiaries.

During a recent working tour of the region to ascertain the level of local content development in the oil and gas sector, a tour that took my colleagues and I to Delta, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa states, most of the region’s natives we interacted with spoke glowingly about the reforms in PAP administration which has turned their once angry brothers and uncles into productive men now contributing to the development of their respective communities.

From Forcados in Delta through the creeks of Imiringi, Emeyal and Kolo in Bayelsa, there is palpable peace in the region which the locals ascribe to intervention of PAP, increased spend on infrastructure and human capital development by oil companies and renewed focus of the Federal Government to develop their communities, most of which had been ravaged by oil spills and sundry environmental hazards.

PAP was initiated and signed into law by President Umaru Yar’Adua on June 25, 2009. The vision was to curtail youth restiveness, militancy and destruction of oil infrastructure in the region, then under the onslaught of upheavals and violence that often forced oil companies to shut down operations. Militancy in the region had at a time brought oil production figures to barely 700,000 barrels per day.

This, therefore, gave impetus to the vision of the Yar’Adua government to pursue policies on Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration of the militants. Barely 14 years in existence, it has had a high turnover of chief executives, six of them before Ndiomu. It bears restating that none of the past CEOs has impacted more positively on the people than Ndiomu in his barely nine months as Acting CEO. Leaders are influencers. Ndiomu has influenced the people of the region to take ownership of the Programme and maximise the benefits therefrom as envisioned by the Federal Government.

• Umukoro, environmental activist, writes from Warri