The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) says the programme has taken proactive steps towards deepening peace in the Niger Delta region since the inception of the leadership of Charles Dokubo, coordinator of the programme.
Murphy Ganagana, special assistant to Dokubo, told journalists in Yenagoa at the weekend that it was achieving the feat through the training and empowerment of ex-militants in the region.
Ganagana disclosed that over 1,165 ex-militants who enrolled in the programme from March 2018 till date had been trained and empowered while 11,297 others were captured in vocational training.
He also disclosed that PAP had engaged five Greek firms to train about 2,500 amnesty beneficiaries and that out of the number, 2,000 of them would be employed at the end of the training.
The special assistant also stated that 103 students were currently studying various courses in foreign institutions in the world and that, for the first time, the programme had empowered residents of communities impacted during the Niger Delta crisis.
In his words, “1,230 beneficiaries were offered scholarship and deployed in 11 partnering institutions in Nigeria in January 2019 while 54 beneficiaries are set to be deployed on scholarship offshore this year.
“As I’m talking, the National Board for Technical Incubation (NBTI) has allocated 23 technology incubation centres for cluster manufactured by beneficiaries of the Amnesty Programme for which NAFDAC had granted approval.
“Though none of the vocational training centres built by the Amnesty Programme from inception was completed as at March 13, 2018 when Professor Dokubo came in, but as at today, the Oil and Gas Vocational Training Centre in Agadagba, Ondo State, has been completed, fully equipped and commissioned.
“The Basic Skills Vocational Training Centre in Kaiama, Bayelsa State, has been completed, equipped and commissioned; foundation was laid for the vocational training centre in Gelegele, Edo State, while work is at completion stage at the Power and Energy Vocational Training Centre, Bomadi, Delta State.”
