Professor Charles Dokubo, the special adviser to the President on Amnesty Programme has said the agency has empowered no fewer than 2,187 already trained beneficiaries in small and medium scale business enterprises.
The beneficiaries, according to a statement by Special Assistant to Dokubo on Media, Murphy Ganagana, are spread across Niger Delta states- Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Edo, Cross River, Abia and Imo states.
Ganagana explained that more than 110 vendors and contractors were also engaged by the Programme through the execution of business contracts.
According to him, they were engaged “on various businesses and trades, which include wood and carpentry, fish farming, a commodity shop, building materials, building and construction, fashion designing, hairdressing, catering, timber mill, event management, restaurant and bar.
Others, he said, include rental service, bead and knitting, creative artwork, foodstuff sale, provision store, electronic materials sale, electrical materials sale, music production, poultry, mini distributorship, block moulding, baking and confectionery, tiling and interlocking, ICT and cybercafé; welding and fabrication, film making, cinematography, cassava milling, barbing salon, kerosene sale, auto spare parts, supermarket, auto mechanic, agricultural farming and marine transportation, among others”.
He noted further that a total of 800 delegates are currently receiving vocational training in various skills facilitated by qualified contractors, with a duration of about six months.
The trade areas include welding, aluminum fabrication, oil and gas power system, abrasive blasting, scaffolding and rigging, mechanical fitting, industrial painting, greenhouse farming, fashion designing and tailoring, leather works, ICT, poultry farming, fish farming, installation and maintenance of tricycles as well as ice cold engineering and fabrication”.
“Niger Delta is now known for peaceful development because there is no development without security. Amnesty Programme is now into more of training so that our beneficiaries can develop a skill after being trained, and then work. We are now focusing on getting jobs for some of those we have trained. That is the last aspect of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, the reintegration phase,” Dokubo said.
