President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the decision of the Presidential Amnesty Office to conduct the verification on 30,000 ex-agitators captured under the programme in the last 11 years.

Tonye Bobo, a member of the Think Tank of the Amnesty Office, stated this on Thursday in Yenagoa.

Milland Dikio, the PAP’s interim administrator, had already set up a 10-man committee of ‘PAP Think Tank.’

The committee is to monitor and propagate the new PAP roadmap of the amnesty.

Mr Bobo said the verification was not a witch-hunt but a strategic way to verify those captured in the amnesty programme and those yet to be included.

He added that the verification had also received the backing of all the ex-militant leaders in the region.

“It is said that the Amnesty Office does not have the capacity to admit new beneficiaries, and we agreed.

“Now, we also agreed that we should know those 30,000 beneficiaries for us to know how to conduct the verification,” explained Mr Bobo.

Mr Bobo also promised that as a member of the new ‘Think Tank’ of the PAP, the committee would engage every critical stakeholder from the grassroots to the top to offer advice on the region’s affairs.

He noted that the new committee by the interim administrator would also be saddled with sustaining the prevailing peace in the region.

Mr Bobo further noted that the issue of PAP had to do with the re-integration of 30,000 ex-agitators captured and the development in the region.

“As one of the change agents of PAP, I am ready to bring to fore ideas that will help to achieve the desire and anticipated transformation in the region,” he said.

Mr Bobo, also a beneficiary of PAP under the third phase, commended Mr Dikio for the new assignment.

(NAN)