Tony Osauzo, Benin
The Office of the Amnesty Programme is soon to activate the Oil and Gas Vocational Training Centre, Agadagba in Ondo State in order to provide training for some of ex-Niger Delta agitators who are yet to be placed in either vocational training facilities or deployed for formal education.
It was learnt that as of when the new Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Niger Delta and Coordinator, Amnesty Programme, Prof. Charles Quaker Dokubo, assumed office, 11, 297 ex-agitators were yet to be sent for training out of the over 30,000 delegates that were registered for the programme.
Special Assistant to Prof. Dokubo on Media, Mr. Murphy Ganagana, who disclosed this journalists, in Benin-City, also announced that the Programme’s Power and Energy Vocational Centre in Bomadi, Delta State, would soon commence operation.
Besides, he listed other training centres of the Amnesty Programme to include Maritime Vocational Training Centre at Oboama, Rivers State; Basic Skills Vocational Training Centre in Boro Town, Kaiama, Bayelsa State and Agricultural Vocational Training Centre in Gelegele, Edo State.
He further disclosed that a total of 1,537 former agitators have graduated from institutions of learning abroad from inception of the programme, while 207 others are currently studying various courses abroad.
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According to Mr. Ganagana, between 2017 and this year, 2,633 Amnesty Programme students were studying in higher institutions in the country with 556 graduates recorded among who 34 law graduates would be called to Bar this November.
In all, the Special Assistant on Media to the Coordinator, Amnesty Programme, Dokubo told journalists that 4,903 ex-agitators have empowered by the programme from inception, with 535 of empowered from May till dated when the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta took charge.
He explained that the mandate of the Special Adviser’s office is to train and re-integrate the ex-agitators into the society, adding that the Programme will on November 7, in Port-Harcourt, flag-off entrepreneurial revolution in the Niger Delta by showcasing empowered ex-agitators and linking them to financial institutions to enable them increase their financial base.