LEADERS UNDERGO NON-VIOLENCE TRAINING IN SOUTH AFRICA

Leaders of former agitators in the Niger Delta returned to the country on Monday night from South Africa where they underwent non-violence/leadership and business development training.

Twenty one of the 33 leaders in the first batch of the training arrived aboard South Africa Airways alongside the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Hon. Kingsley Kuku.

The leader of the team, Reuben Wilson from Bayelsa State, who spoke to journalists at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, said the training expanded the horizon of participants.

He said it afforded the delegates a first-hand opportunity to see other Niger Delta youths excelling as pilots and instructors at the African Union Aviation Academy in Mafikeng.

Wilson applauded Hon. Kuku’s leadership role in the Niger Delta and his focused management of the amnesty programme, which he said is a huge success.

“We, the leaders, are very happy with the Federal Government and Hon. Kuku for fulfilling another promise made to us when we accepted amnesty in 2009. We have now learnt how to resolve conflicts using non-violence principles and that is what we are going to be practising. We have given our commitment to the government to maintain peace in the Niger Delta and we are not going back on it.

W“Thirty three of us from the nine states in the Niger Delta travelled to South Africa for this training and I’m happy to report that everything went well. We are now back home as ambassadors of peace. What they taught us in South Africa is what we will take to our respective states,” he said.

The team leader listed the benefits of the programme to include the opportunity for Niger Delta youths to become commercial airline pilots.

"Some of our brothers, including my younger brother, are now commercial pilots and instructors. We never thought this could happen."

Head of Media and Communications in the Presidential Amnesty Office, Mr Daniel Alabrah, also told airport correspondents that the Kingian non-violence training was yet another opportunity to reinforce the message of non-violence as one of the solutions to the Niger Delta agitation for development.

He disclosed that the leaders were awarded certificates by the Emory University in the United States of America after they were personally trained by renowned American civil rights activist, ordained minister and compatriot of the late Martin Luther King Jr., Dr Bernard LaFayette.

The training was facilitated by the Foundation for Ethnic Harmony in Nigeria (FEHN).

Alabrah said the amnesty programme continues to improve on its success story.

"When the amnesty programme started, a lot of people did not believe it would get this far. Today, our youths are being trained as commercial pilots and instructors in the aviation ind ustry. Others are getting internationally certified skills in various vocational fields aparom those that are in formal educational institutions in Nigeria and about 20 countries in the world,” he said.