TEARS OF THE NEGLECTED: THE DYING CRY OF AMNESTY STUDENTS UNDER CHIEF DENNIS OTUARO’S WATCH

By TarakiriVoice Editorial Board

There are moments in the life of a nation when silence becomes a crime — when the muted cries of the poor, the hungry, and the forgotten echo so loudly that conscience itself trembles. Today, we lift our voices not in anger, but in pain. We write with bleeding hearts, with trembling hands, and with tears that could drown the ink on this page — for the soul of one of our own, Miss Favor Benema Godswill, a young woman, a dreamer, a daughter of the Niger Delta, who has become the latest casualty of official negligence and bureaucratic cruelty.

Favor was not just a name. She was a promise — a promise of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) that once gave hope to thousands of ex-agitators and their children. She was a 100 Level student of Business Administration at Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State, sponsored under the Amnesty Programme. Her only crime? She believed in the promise of a government that pledged education, empowerment, and dignity. But the system failed her.

After months of unpaid In-House Training Allowance (ITA) — now running close to six agonizing months — Favor’s hope turned to hunger, and her hunger to tragedy. She was found dead in a hotel room, starved not just of food, but of faith in the system that should have sustained her. Her death is not just an isolated incident; it is a symbol of decay, delay, and deliberate disregard for human life under the current leadership of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Chief Dennis Brutus Otuaro, PhD.

This is not the Amnesty Programme the Niger Delta people fought for.This is not the legacy President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua envisioned when he offered peace in exchange for promise.

Today, the Amnesty budget has been increased from ₦65 billion to ₦115 billion, yet the students — the supposed beneficiaries — are left to wallow in hunger, depression, and death. What then is the excuse, Chief Otuaro? What moral justification can there be for months of unpaid stipends while young men and women you call “beneficiaries” beg, borrow, and die in silence?

Before now, PAP students were given their due respect. From 100 Level, they were equipped with laptops, study materials, and essentials for academic survival. But under this present administration, even basic allowances have become a privilege instead of a right. Now, only final-year students get laptops — a token gesture that mocks the original purpose of the programme. The students are not asking for too much; they are only asking to survive.

Chief Otuaro, are you aware that these allowances are not luxuries? They are the only means by which these students feed, clothe, and keep a roof over their heads while pursuing education in a world already harsh to the poor? Do you know that as you read this, there are PAP students sleeping on classroom floors, skipping meals, and contemplating suicide?

Favor’s death must not be swept under the carpet.Her spirit must not be silenced by the hum of official vehicles and the comfort of air-conditioned offices in Abuja.

We, the people of the Niger Delta, demand immediate action.We call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to personally intervene. The Amnesty Programme is collapsing under the weight of mismanagement, and the cries of its beneficiaries are being ignored. Every delay in payment, every broken promise, every unanswered message from these students is an indictment on the conscience of the government.

Mr. President, how many more Favors must die before something is done?How many more mothers must bury their children because of official incompetence?How many more dreams must rot in the corridors of the Amnesty Office before justice wakes from its slumber?

The Niger Delta cannot continue to pay for peace with the blood of its children.The Amnesty Programme was meant to heal wounds, not reopen them.

Today, the world must know — the students under the Presidential Amnesty Programme are suffering, abandoned, and unheard. Their allowances are trapped in a maze of excuses. Their welfare is neglected despite an expanded budget. Their voices, when raised, are met with silence.

We are calling on the National Assembly, human rights organizations, and the international community to take notice of this humanitarian crisis. The death of one student, caused by hunger and neglect, is a moral failure of the entire system.

Chief Dennis Brutus Otuaro, history is watching.Your legacy is being written — not in gold, but in tears.You were appointed to restore hope, not extinguish it.You were trusted to uplift the poor, not abandon them.

We do not seek confrontation; we seek compassion. We seek humanity. We seek a system that remembers that behind every “beneficiary” is a beating heart, a mother waiting for a call, a dream struggling to survive.

Let Favor’s death not be in vain.Let it awaken the conscience of the Presidency.Let it remind us that peace without justice is only silence before another storm.

Until these students are paid, until their welfare is restored, until accountability returns to the Presidential Amnesty Programme — there can be no peace for those who caused this pain.

May Favor Benema Godswill’s soul find in death the peace she was denied in life.And may her story stir this nation to compassion, justice, and reform.

— TarakiriVoice Editorial Board

(For the Forgotten Beneficiaries of the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme)