The Presidential Amnesty Programme trained 28 ex-agitators from the Niger Delta region in fish processing at the Aquatech College of Agriculture and Technology, New Adeoyo Hospital road, off Ring road, Ibadan from March 18 – 22, 2018. The training was co-ordinated by Active Commodities Marketing Enterprises Ltd. (ACME).
At the refresher/training programme, the ex-agitators were put through basic and practical knowledge of fish breeding, rearing, processing and entrepreneurial management in order to permanently re-integrate them into the society and ensure total peace in the region.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune during the opening session of the seminar, the Senior Reintegration Officer, Post Training and Engagement Unit, Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Mrs Oyintarela Umeri, said the Federal government is determined to ensure that the ex agitators are re-integrated fully into the society.
She said, in an attempt to restore peace in the region, about 30,000 young men and women had responded to the Presidential Amnesty declaration initiated by late President Umar Yar’Adua for the Niger Delta area. The Programme was in three stages; Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR).
At the initial stage 30,000 ex- agitators put down their arms, then they were demobilised and were re-oriented to shun violence and embrace dialogue including getting what they want through peaceful means.
Umeri further noted that – the Programme, after some years, is now at the reintegration stage, and in a bid to ensure that the agitators would never return to the creeks again, the ex-agitators are now being empowered to engage them in a variety of businesses to make ends meet.
Umeri who revealed that out of the over 17,000 trained in universities across the globe in various vocational skills, over 4,000 have been empowered through business set up in a variety of trade areas.
Mrs Umeri said “so today, what we are witnessing is just a brief period of refresher training for another set because it has been a while when they were given the first training, and because the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration encourages agriculture, the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta decided to empower them in that line so that, they could have sustainable businesses which will in turn integrate them back into their community on a permanent basis and also contribute economically to their immediate family and the Country in general.
They are learning about fish processing, apart from understanding how fish is hatched, grown and processed.
Source: News Agencies
