US Maintains Stand on Alamieyeseigha’s Pardon

Former Governor of Bayelsa State, Dipreye Alamieyeseigha

The United States of America Wednesday said its position on the pardon granted the former Governor of Bayelsa State, Dipreye Alamieyeseigha by President Goodluck Jonathan, had not changed.

The Political Counsellor of the US Embassy in Nigeria, Gregory Lawless, told journalists at a teleconference on US-Nigeria Bi-National Commission in Abuja, that “The situation has not changed.”

He said his country had not departed from its earlier statement where it condemned the action.

He, however, added that whatever the disappointment was, the US had since moved on with its relationship with Nigeria.

“We have a very mature relationship. So we can recognise our differences and opinions on issues. We are moving on, we have a lot of things to do,” he added.

Lawless also assured Nigeria of the US support to tackle violent extremism.

Responding to a question on the proposed amnesty to Boko Haram members, Lawless said: “We are a working group as government of Nigeria embraces a more holistic approach to the issue of violent extremism, whether it is in the North or other areas. We think it is a positive development. We would work with Nigerian government as it develops its own policy approach as to counter violent extremism.”

Reeling out the successes achieved so far by the bi-national commission, Lawless said the commission had successfully integrated civil society into the electoral process prior to the 2011 elections.

He said the commission had been able to sustained and elevated dialogue with energy sector officials on energy policy reforms to increase investment.

The Political Counsellor said the two countries had also agreed to explore a partnership with the Nigerian Army to build its civil affairs capacity to build trust between Nigerian citizens and the military. The US-Nigeria Bi-National Commission is a high-level forum for advancing issues of mutual concern.

Inaugurated in April 2010 by the former US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, and the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Yayale Ahmed, the commission’s five working groups meet regularly to focus and deepen engagement on issues concerning governance, energy, security, agriculture, and the Niger Delta.

The Working Groups include: Good Governance, transparency, and integrity; regional security cooperation, energy, investment, food security and agriculture as well as the Niger Delta.

The working group established benchmarks for transparent and inclusive elections, including registering voters, appointing electoral commission leaders and allocating independent election funding.

On the regional security cooperation, Lawless added: “We provided lessons learned from our post-September 11 experiences in an effort to strengthen Nigeria’s community engagement and strategic communications efforts. We offered to help Nigeria develop an intelligence fusion centre to improve their intelligence, analysis and dissemination efforts, although Nigerian officials are still deciding their scope and mission requirements for such a centre.”

According to him, the energy and investment working group has focused primarily on reform of Nigeria’s power and hydrocarbon sectors.

“We have been heartened by Nigeria’s ongoing progress on comprehensive power reform incentives private investment in infrastructure to address massive power shortages,” he said.