The Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Col. Milland Dikio (retd.), has appealed for a stronger partnership with the Nigerian military to strengthen the momentum of the project.
He made the appeal when he led senior officials of the PAP to visit the Nigerian Naval Engineering College, in Sapele, Delta State and the Naval Shipyard Limited in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Dikio, in a statement on Wednesday, said the military, as an institution had a vital role to play in the newly-introduced Train, Employ and Mentor (TEM) scheme, designed to provide a new approach to the training and empowerment of ex-agitators.
According to him, a stronger relationship with them would further reposition the programme as well as expose the ex-agitators to military discipline, noting that “the military has a lot of highly installed capacity.”
He said, “On the substance of it, the core of the ex-delegates are largely from the riverine communities and so the current management of PAP is of the thought process that they have inherent skills and if we can convert that energy positively, they will contribute to our dominance of the maritime economy.
The Commandant of the Nigerian Naval Engineering College, Cdre A. Abdullahi, while speaking, listed some of the courses offered by the institution and said they were ready to work with PAP to achieve its intentions for the former militants.
On his part, the Superintendent of the Naval Shipyard Limited, Rear Admiral S. J. Oyegade, said the company would support PAP in the realisation of its goals.
