Yenagoa — The Arch Bishop of the New Aba Province of the Anglican Communion, Dr. Ugochukwu Ezuoke, has commended President Umaru Yar'Adua, the ex-militants and the peace advocates involved in the recent amnesty plan of the Federal Government, describing them as patriots that would never be forgotten by the people of the Niger Delta region.

The Anglican Arch-Bishop, who is also the Chancellor of the Royal Peace College , said though the struggle for the emancipation of the region was not without some justification on the high level of under development, the intervention of concerned individuals including the president and his cabinet members showed that peace could come to any part of world torn by conflicts.

The Arch-Bishop, while speaking during the investiture of the Chairman of the Bayelsa State Peace and Conflict Resolution Committee, Chief James Jephthah, as a peace ambassador of the United Nations Positive Livelihood Awards Centre(UN-POLAC), said the people of the Niger Delta would forever remember those involved in bringing the violence in the region to an end with the ideals of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.

He noted that "before the offer of amnesty by the Federal Government, no amount of military force would have doused the violence that had threatened to destroy the whole of the Niger Delta." "We thank all those whom God has used as instruments of peace in returning the Niger Delta to the path of peace. If not for the amnesty, children of the region would have grown up to seek revenge."

The Anglican cleric noted that individuals, like the Chairman of the State Committee on Peace and Conflict Resolution, Chief Jephthah, should be considered as weapons used by God to douse and resolve the threat in the Niger Delta to an amicable resolution.