The National Association of the Presidential Amnesty Students (NAPAS) worldwide has appealed to the Ijaw Publishers' Forum (IPF) to call on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to increase the Presidential Amnesty Programme's annual budget to enable the PAP Administrator increase the stipends of beneficiaries including delegates' monthly stipends, vocational training and scholarship students' allowances.

The appeal was made during an official visit by NAPAS National President, Comr. Ebidouwei Miyenpirigha, and the union's women leader, Comr. Embelakpo Emeka, to extend an invitation for the PAP students' national convention holding in March 2025, to the National President of the Ijaw Publishers' Forum (IPF), Comr. Ozobo Austin, at his Warri office on Wednesday, January 15, 2025.

The PAP students during the visit expressed their gratitude to the Administrator of the PAP, High Chief Dr. Dennis Brutu Otuaro, for his uncommon achievements within the short time in office.

NAPAS also called on Niger Delta leaders and stakeholders to give maximum support to Otuaro to enable the Administrator to do more for the amnesty programme.

On the increment of budgetary allocation for the PAP, the students lamented the disparity between the economic situation of 2009 when the monthly stipend of N65,000 was proposed for amnesty delegates and the present economic situation, citing that the N65,000 stipend cannot provide anything meaningful.

"Mr president should know that N90,000 monthly vocational training allowance and N70,000 monthly scholarship students' upkeep can't create a balance for the beneficiaries in the country today," the students lamented.

Comr. Ozobo in his response, appreciated the PAP students for finding him and IPF worthy to be part of its convention and promised to provide the needed support and in reaching out to necessary stakeholders to support their forthcoming programme.

The IPF said it will lead the advocacy to appeal to Mr. President to increase the PAP's annual budget in order to not only create an enabling environment for the PAP's delegates, students and vocational trainees, but to deepen the peace as well as attract more investments to the region.

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