The Presidential Amnesty Program: Subsisting Violence and Sustainable Peace in the Niger Delta

Abstract

This study critically examines the PAP’s effectiveness, arguing that while it initially reduced largescale violence and restored oil output, it ultimately evolved into a mechanism of elite patronage and rentier appeasement rather than a transformative peacebuilding initiative. Drawing on the greed versus grievance thesis and political settlements theory, the paper finds that the PAP’s transactional approach—characterized by stipends, contracts, and political appointments for exmilitant leaders—failed to address the structural drivers of conflict such as political exclusion, unemployment, and environmental injustice. Instead, the programme entrenched a fragile peace dependent on continuous financial inducements, incentivizing ex-militants and political actors to strategically threaten renewed violence whenever the programme’s termination was proposed. The analysis concludes that the PAP’s containment strategy has institutionalized a cycle of dependency and performative peace, undermining prospects for genuine reconciliation and sustainable development in the region. The implications are significant for policymakers and peacebuilding practitioners: without addressing the underlying causes of discontent and shifting from rent-based appeasement to inclusive, structural reform, amnesty interventions risk perpetuating rather than resolving the dynamics of subsisting violence in resource-rich, conflictprone societies.