PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
By Amos Odhe, Yenagoa
Reverend Francis Akpanari, president of Ijaw People’s Association in Great Britain and Ireland has stressed that he did not call for the scrapping of the presidential amnesty programme.
Akpanari said that rather he was calling for improved funding to be put in place so as to reduce further hardships that several students of the programme experienced in the past.
This comes on the heels of a recent interview he granted which he said has been misinterpreted to suggest that he was calling for the scrapping of the amnesty pogramme.
In a statement on Friday, Reverend Akpanari said “I have never and will never call for an outright scrapping of the scheme, rather I’m calling for an improved and better funding scheme to be put in place for our sons so as to reduce any further hardship that several of them experienced in the time past.
“I’m basically calling for an overhaul of the entire Amnesty overseas study scheme. However I’m happy that the current configuration and modus operandi are now working through the restructuring of Col. Milland Dixon Dikio (rtd).
“What I was trying to say is that most of the beneficiaries of the Amnesty overseas study scheme had suffered severe financial hardship due to lack of funding from the beginning.
“Several students were unable to continue the programme because their fees and upkeep allowance were either not paid on time or not paid at all at the early stage of the programme.
“And this is a statement of fact as I’m personally aware of our sons who had experienced hardship in the time past.
“I’m a true son of the soil and I’m totally committed to the Ijaw cause. I cannot do anything to bring Ijaw people down,” he said.
