Dikio lauds ex-MEND leader. Boyleaf, for bagging first class from Abuja varsity
The Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Col Milland Dikio (retd), has hailed prominent former Niger Delta agitator, Ebikabowei Victor-Ben, popularly known as Boyleaf, for graduating with a first class honours degree in International Relations and Diplomacy.
Boyleaf, a former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, was, last weekend awarded first class degree by Baze University in Abuja, during the institution’s 7th and 8th combined convocation.
Dikio, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr. Nneotaobase Egbe, said the feat underscored the capacity built over the years by the beneficiaries of the PAP, adding that it represented the emerging new Niger Delta.
He recalled similar achievements by some other ex-agitators like Nicholas Goodnews who graduated with first class in Mass Communication at the University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom earlier in the year, describing them as the new faces of the region.
“We have often said that protests and other forms of civil disturbances, crime and criminality is not the way out. The struggle for a better Niger Delta can be achieved if we deploy our intellectual resources and abilities by building individual and collective capacity.
“It gladdens our heart that the likes of Ebikabowei Victor-Ben (Boyleaf) is leading this new direction in academics with his other compatriots like Senior High Chief Bibopere Ajube (shoot-at-sight) doing so in entrepreneurship and manpower development.
“All of these will bring sustained peace and development. Therefore, we urge other ex-agitators and youths in the region to also rise up to the ocassion and become the change agents that will be used to market the new Niger Delta”, the statement read.
