Desperate politicians with an eye on 2011 are angling to purchase arms from Niger Delta militants that have accepted President Umaru Musa Yar'adua's amnesty, leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), Government Epkemupolo AKA Tompolo has revealed.

Tompolo spoke to journalists through his aide Prince Joseph Etella Harry Onwuchekwa, otherwise known as godfather, at the Bayelsa House in Abuja yesterday.

He said the current process of collection of arms is prone to abuse, alleging that politicians in the volatile region have already positioned agents in these centres to purchase large quantities of recovered arms with a view to building their personal armouries ahead of the 2011 elections.

He said the early discovery by the militants made them refuse to surrender their arms under the current arrangements pointing out that they wantsto surrender their arms to the presidency in a more transparent t and dignified manner.

Tompolo said the militants cannot surrender their arms openly as being proposed by the government saying it would ridicule them as they have been fighting for a cause and "coming to surrender arms in the openly would caricature the struggle".

He said the current plan where militants are expected to submit their arms without any financial reward was not feasible as no real militant will part with weapons worth millions of naira and walk away empty handed.

He said he has proposed to the government that Yar'adua should nominate five persons with no political affiliations while the Inspector General of Police, Ogbonnaya Onovo nominates five police officers that would join the militants in the creeks to collate their arms.

He said each of the nominees would be issued with identification cards, and the Division Police Officers in each of the collation centres must work with them.

He claimed that the militant groups under his control were prepared to submit 50 per cent of their arms including 7,000 AK 47 rifles, 1,000 GMP guns and about 30 gunboats. Also to be returned in the first phase of the disarmament process are land to air missiles, several explosives as well as police and military uniforms.

According to him, the original amnesty plan which his group submitted to the Federal Government, included the allocation of plots of land in each local government area in the Niger Delta for the establishment of industrial estates where the disengaged militants would be rehabilitated. It also included the establishment of a petroleum product marketing company where some of the militants could retire to.

He warned that under the current process, a lot of arms were likely to disappear between the recovery points and their final destination in Abuja.