AN ASSESSMENT OF THE AMNESTY PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION IN BAYELSA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The amnesty programme was set up by the President Umaru Yar’adua administration to address the conflict in the Niger Delta Region. Its three core objectives are Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration. This paper focuses on Reintegration                with a specific attention on training and job creation. The paper adopts both the conflict transformation and incremental theory and derives data using interview and questionnaires method as well as documented materials on the programme. The paper establishes that greed, pollution, resource control among others are all causes of the Niger Delta Conflict, and to camphorate this, the amnesty programme has trained several ex-militants in various areas of vocation, science and technology and the humanities both within and outside the country. But the paper identifies a major gap in the post-amnesty training especially in terms of poor infrastructure and job- creation. The paper hence recommends that beyond the ex-militants, the amnesty programme be broaden to accommodate other victims of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta, and that government should provide job opportunities for those trained to prevent them being drawn back bearing.