Nigeria has resumed payments of cash stipends to former militants agreed under a 2009 amnesty in the country’s Niger Delta oil hub, a government official said on Thursday.
According to Reuters, the government has been holding talks with militants to end attacks on crude pipelines which reduced Nigeria’s output by 700,000 barrels a day for several months last year.
Authorities had originally cut the budget for cash payments to militants to end corruption but later resumed payments to stop pipeline attacks crippling vital oil revenues.
“Two months of the ex-militants’ stipends were paid yesterday … The rest of their stipends will be paid later in batches by (central bank) CBN,” said Piriye Kiyaramo, an officer in the government’s Amnesty Office.
He said the paid stipends covered August and September.
