Kingsley Kuku

Kingsley Kuku (born 14 February 1970) is a Nigerian political and environmental rights activist. He served as special adviser to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta Affairs and was chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Quotes When I therefore became the SA on Niger Delta and the second Chairman of the PAP, I was already on a familiar terrain. The key actors in the Niger Delta struggle knew me and I also knew them. It was easier for them to relate with me. They had nominated me before to represent them in government discussions on their behalf. So, I was caught in between the government and my people. For the government, I played my role successfully by entrenching peace in the Niger Delta and stabilising the security situation in that oil production rose from 2.2 million barrels per day to over 2.7 million. That was the kind of result that the work of the Amnesty Programme produced for Nigeria under my watch. That’s a very unfair assessment of what we have done there. I have seen a lot of prominent Nigerians make such statements, but what I have done to reply some of them, is not to insult them. In the past, Nigeria has been a country where, when agencies are set up, those managing the agencies just sit down and share money, without doing what the money was meant for. So, too many Nigerians don’t believe that the things that we’ve been able to do with the Amnesty Programme were possible. But what I have done is to put together a compendium of what we’ve been able to do in the programme, with names of students and delegates in flight training schools in Oxford, England, in Lufthansa, Germany, those who were doing helicopter training in Italy. In an interview Kuku’s own story began at the centre of national relevance. He served as Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Niger Delta Affairs and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, coordinating peace efforts in one of Nigeria’s most volatile regions. When Jonathan’s administration ended in 2015, Kuku’s visibility faded, as it does for many officials whose influence is tied to a particular government. For years, he stayed largely out of the national conversation. Evolving Journey of Kingsley Kuku He noted that the Boko-Haram crisis was not a religious issue but wholly about a sect that wants to impose its will on a country, and this explains why both Christians and Muslims were being attacked. He cited the processes used in solving the Niger-Delta crisis through the help of persons who volunteered to speak with the key players in the militancy, based on their personal relationships with them or communal links to them and their families. Solving the problem of the Boko Haram sect was dependent on how much information the people of the local communities are able to provide to their local chiefs, local government leaders and security agencies MEND wants to create panic and fan the embers of disunity not only in the Niger Delta but also in the country. Has it now become the mouthpiece of Boko Haram or is it trying to please its paymasters? Whose interest is the new MEND claiming to serve or has it abdicated its self-appointed role of defending the Niger Delta? I have no apologies to offer MEND for my comments on Boko Haram and the commendable and patriotic role of the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, since the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction saga commenced. If it angers MEND, then I wonder whose interest they are fighting for. External links