Yenagoa — Aggrieved former militants in the Niger Delta region, weekend, gave the Federal Government a seven-day ultimatum to integrate them into the amnesty programme or they would breach the existing peace in the region.

The aggrieved former militants under the aegis of Niger Delta Development Ex-militants, in a petition to President Goodluck Jonathan, by Julius Joseph and Tam Odogwu, national president and secretary respectively, decried what they described as the hide and seek game some officials of the amnesty programme had been playing with them since they laid down their arms.

The former militants said they were forced to write the President, to draw his attention to the activities of some government officials, who want to scuttle the peace in the region by the deliberate abandonment of them, who were supposed to be in the post amnesty programme.
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The petition read, "we state unequivocally and with full sense of responsibility to our collective disposition not to disrupt the nascent democracy and relative peace in the region, by showing to the international community, the selective nature and outright abandonment of thousands of former militants by the government.

"We had employed all peaceful and procedural channels since January 2011 to no avail. More so, we can read between the lines that attempts were being made by highly placed individuals to scuttle our sacrifices and compromise the laying down of our arms for the collective good because of their selfish interest.

"We all contributed to the peace and the sustenance of the relative peace in the region by accepting peace and by laying down our arms to the various security agencies as directed and received a report as a proof to the handover of arms and ammunitions for the granting of the Federal Government amnesty," they added.