By Thomas Peretu
In a few days from now, High Chief Dennis Burutu Otuaro, PhD would be 90 days in office. Otuaro is the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP).
This is not just another measely 90 days of bland, incoherent, blowing of hot air but his is an eventful nay impactful 90 days of action, direction and focus.
Only last week the office organised an international workshop to reorientate and reposition, and reawaken the staffers on his vision and the task ahead. Eminent resource persons were on ground to dissect, analyse and profer plausible solutions to an otherwise intelectually moribund administrative system in place. And to infuse new strategic principles of office management into the blood stream of the workers. Topics discussed include cooperation and collaboration among staff, emotional intelligence, goal setting, personal
effectiveness etc. The Administrator have, within this period held a series of strategic meetings with the staff and stakeholders. Besides, he has embarked on a tour of partner tertiary institutions with a view to acertain their challenges and to foster a lasting responsive relationship with the institutions. He has also developed an enduring template for a seamless relationship with the institutions as well as the PAP scholarship delegates.
Dr. Otuaro as avatar of transformative leadership is, without doubt laying a solid foundation for a decidedly surefooted future; taking into cognizance the present political and economic dynamics of the nation.
An amazingly brilliant, effervescent leader, Dr. Otuaro prides himself as homeboy from the creeks. He was appointed on 13th March 2024 by
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR. This was after an unduly protracted period of head hunting and political horsetrading by various interest groups.
Otuaro
One can attest to the fact that the decision to appoint him was arrived at after a very thorough, painstaking search for the right candidate with the right temperament, passion and qualification.
It bears repeating that the appointment came at a time when all manner of pretentious characters and political boothlickers including charlatans posing as apostles. These nitwits claim to have the wherewithal to solve the miriades of challenges bedeviling the volatile Niger Delta region which lays the golden egg.
Dr. Otuaro’s intimidating pedigree, without mincing words dwarfs the best of the other candidates masquerading as pathfinders. He commands the respect and admiration of the ex-agitators. And critical stakeholders to wit. Don’t forget, he also grew up from the crucibles of the
struggle as a student leader.
It may interest you to know that Dr. Otuaro was a foot soldier during the fiesty battle for resource control, which claimed several lives in the creeks. The dministrator was admittedly neck deep in the fight for the emancipation of the ijaw nation from the stranglehold of a repressive and a defective federal structure.
Needless to state that our subject still bears scars as insignia for his participation in the ijaw struggle. Little wonder why he understands the nuances of the office he is occupying. But most importantly, Dr. Otuaro appreciates the contextual dynamics of the amnesty programme. No one can be more fit to wear the crown at an auspicious time as this, if you ask me.
Howbeit, when Dr. Otuaro was divinely
elevated from his effaceable office as a special assistant to the managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, his appointment was greeted with a rapturous applause. Stakeholders and ex-agitators alike inexorably rose to the occasion by pledging their supoort because his emergence sign post a renewed hope, which is a major cardinal ideology of the Tinubu administration
The excitement and enthusiasm on display knew no bounds. It was as though sanother Moses has come to salvage the long-sufferng people of Ijaw nation and the other nationalities sandwiched within the mangrooves of the region.
Of course, all 7bruited tales of tenure elongation nuanced, as it were by spin doctors literally fizzled out in the face of the new development. No amount of
seductive polemics could upend the course of the new trajectory.
Dr. Otuaro’s fortuitous emergence from obscurity laid to rest the veil of uncertainty and ambivalence that hitherto smothered the Presidential Amnesty Programme office.
To put it mildly, the chicanery, the despondency and the blistering attacks and criticisms heaped on the management cleared like a placid coast. Indeed, a new lease of life was released and people are eager to breathe fresh air.
An articulate and unobrusive gentleman, remarkably endowed with fecund faculty, Dr. Otuaro is expectected to change the narrative of the amnesty programme in the years ahead. Though, conceived to aid the human capital development of the Niger
Delta youths, the maagers of the programme have, over time derailed from its initial vision.
During his inauguration on assumption of office on March 18, the administrator unveiled his five point agenda which includes, identifying with grassroots by engaging major critical stakeholders towards bringing the programme closer to the people; by placing premium on closer cooperation, engagement and collaboration between amnesty workers and its target audience; absolute commitment to service, transparency and accountability; streamlining of operation for greater efficiency; and a renewed hope and optimistic outlook of the future.
Dr. Otuaro holds Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Comparative Politics and Development Studies. He is married and
has children. He is equally a philanthropist.
… Peretu wrote in from Abuja
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