Mass Redeployments Hits Presidential Amnesty Office

The decision by the management of the Presidential Amnesty Office to redeploy key staff of the Programme is generating tension among personnel.

Those familiar with the development who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being victimized said the redeployments were punitive.

It was gathered that those recently posted were mostly career civil servants who were returned to their parent ministries.

They include: Oloye Kebbi (Peace Building Department), Mr. Okhuba – (Peace Building), Kennedy Febau )Peace Building Unit), Ebiere Ayamah (Vocational Training Unit) and Jude Gbaboyor (Data/ICT), whom it was deployed to Warri, Delta State.

Others are: Highcoast Ombe (Post Training Unit), Samuel Sunday (Post Training Unit), Pere Ikuetemi (Legal Dept), Gabriel Ajama (Data Unit) And Agiri Emmanuel, the Head of Data who was moved to Agabagba in Ondo State.

A source who confided in Vanguard, in Abuja, on Sunday, said, “It is true that postings and redeployments are normal within organizations but this one is clearly targeted at those of us from the Niger Delta.

“Since assuming office, the Interim Administrator, Maj Gen BT Ndiomu (Retd), has been uncomfortable with us even though he hails from the same region and the entire programme was designed to deal with the youth restiveness in the area.”

The source explained that the redeployments were hurriedly carried out based on suspicions that personnel from the region were behind the leakage of official secrets.

According to the source, another point of distress for management was the revelation that PAP had signed a contract with a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), to pay monthly premium on behalf of each staff, at a rate higher than the salaries of workers.

It was gathered that under this arrangement, the firm (names withheld), would be paid N250,000 per staff, on a monthly basis.

The source further said. “The office has ventured into a contractual agreement with an HMO.

“Going by the terms of the agreement, PAP pays N250k per month for each worker. Curiously, most of us don’t receive up to this amount monthly as salary.

“We suspect that the cost is inflated to serve as conduit for the divertion of funds.”

It was further gathered that the security department has been instructed to carry out regular seizure and search of the mobile telephones of members of staff to fish out those behind these “leaks.”

There are also fears among staff that their phone lines are being monitored.

A source close to the Amnesty office who also spoke on condition of anonymity dismissed the claims.

The source said, “There are people who by nature are resistant to the possitive change being brought to about by General Ndiomu.

“Posting and redeployment of staff is a retuine exercise in any service. Everyone deployed to serve must have at the back of his/ her mind, that a day will come to leave. All this talk of a witch-hunt is idle talk.”