NIGERIA TO SEND MORE NATIONALS FOR INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Nigerian President Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, second from right, greets Minister of Tertiary Education Fazal Karim while posing for a photograph with Nigerian officials and Nigerian students during the African leader’s visit yesterday to the National Energy Skills Centre in Couva. At right is Minister in the Ministry of Local Government Rudranath Indarsingh. Photo: Rishi Ragoonath

Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, has committed to sending more of its youths to T&T to acquire training in the oil and gas industry. This was revealed yesterday by Nigeria’s President Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as he attended a training function for Nigerian youths at the National Skills Centre in Couva. It was the third function which Jonathan attended since he started his official State visit on Tuesday.

The event was hosted by Tertiary Education Minister Fazal Karim, who commended the 69 Nigerian trainees under the Office of the Special Adviser to the Nigerian President on Niger Delta currently being trained at National Energy Skills Centre (NESC) in the fields of Oil/Gas Drilling Operations and Measurement and Logging while Drilling Course. The trainees were processed by a Nigerian Training Consultant, GITA ALLIED SOLUTIONS LIMITED, one of the approved service providers of the Presidential Amnesty Programme in technical partnership with PETROSKILLS INC of USA; PETRO-DRILL Corporation of USA; COPETROL Limited of T&T and WELL CONTROL Schools of Houston Texas, USA, that will be responsible for supervision of the training and certification.  

Coining the term “Tringeria” (a mix of Trinbago and Nigeria), Karim said 57 Nigerian nationals that were earlier brought in by another Training Consultant, QESS Services Nigeria LTD have already graduated and received certification from NESC in Welding, Crane and Heavy Duty Operations and Maintainance. “Through our Tringeria programme, NESC can give talent and skills to help trainees of Nigeria,” Karim said. He gave the commitment that all national training agencies will be made available to the Nigerian people. 

“I believe that emancipation through education will change a nation. I want to make Nigerian students comfortable during their period of training,” Karim said. He added that even though T&T was small in size, it played a significant role on the world’s petrochemical stage.

“We have achieved much in half a century but there is still much to be done powered by our invaluable human resource and sound leadership,” Karim said. He noted that Nigeria shared similar ideals as T&T and recognised that education and development of human capital was the only way forward.

Karim said over the past two years, T&T strengthened ties with Nigeria through its technical/vocational training programmes which were made available to Nigerian nationals. However, he called on the Nigerian Government to assist in constructing a dormitory for Nigerian students during their study period. “Not only is education important but there must be safety and security as well and we wish to offer them a home away from home,” Karim said.

Meanwhile, President Jonathan commended Karim for his proposals on training. He said Karim exuded passion and interest in developing strong ties with the Nigerian and T&T peoples. “Thank you for accepting our students to train. You are not just interested in training them but you have the passion and interest to make sure that they are trained to play a key role in the oil industry,” Jonathan said.

He urged the Nigerian pupils to take advantage of their opportunity and to undertake leadership positions. “You must be educated in different aspects of our economy. Gas technology is high and they have institutions here to train us. What we must do is to embrace science and technology to rule the world.” Jonathan said T&T nationals were well skilled to contribute to the development of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.   

Meanwhile Junior Minister of Local Government Rudranath Indarsingh said that T&T’s Government was ready to deepen fraternal and bilateral ties with Nigeria. He said T&T and Nigeria shared a deep historical link that must continue well into the future.

PRESIDENT JONATHAN VISITS NIGER DELTA STUDENTS IN TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

NIGERIA’S President Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan took time out from his three-day state visit yesterday to meet with 70 students from his country who are currently studying at the National Energy Skills Centre (NESC), Point Lisas in Couva.

Nigerian nationals Danson Ikngosa and Sandra Orye were among the batch of students on hand to welcome their President.

The men and women from the Niger Delta are undergoing training in oil and gas operations.

It was Jonathan’s first visit to the centre since the signing of a training agreement between QESS Services Limited of Nigeria and NESC in December, 2011 for training of Nigerian nationals in areas such as heavy equipment operations, crane operations, metal arc welding and industrial mechanical maintenance.

Orye who has completed only one week of training told Newsday, “Our president is such a nice man, we wish he could have stayed longer with us here.” Her colleague, Ikngosa said he too was happy “to get the opportunity and the privilege to be seeing our President (Jonathan) in Trinidad and Tobago.”

He said, “I want to assure you that whoever gets the oil and gas training in Trinidad and Tobago, we will do our best to get our experience and get our certificate and go back to our country and do something better for ourselves.”

But the trainees who were dressed in their orange coveralls with the flags of Trinidad and Tobago and Nigeria stuck in their left sleeve pockets had been seated in the auditorium in time for the 8.30 am arrival of President Jonathan.

He did not arrive until 10.35 am. He was attending Emancipation Day celebrations in Port-of-Spain. Jonathan and his wife Dame Patience Faka Jonathan were in Trinidad as guests of the Trinidad and Tobago government for yesterday’s Emancipation day celebrations in Port-of-Spain.

Accompanied by a large delegation including past and present Nigerian parliamentarians, Jonathan was greeted in his native language by the Nigerian students.

The Nigerian, students lustily sang their national anthem to the accompaniment of Kareem Brown on the steelpan forcing the locals into embarrassment and as hardly ever happens at functions, also sang the T&T anthem which was also played on the pan by Brown.

In his greeting, Jonathan said, “It is a great moment, a moment of joy when I came in and saw young Nigerians, men and women here, greeting me in my local language, the language we speak in Niger Delta.”

Jonathan is confident that upon their graduation, the trained Nigerians, will contribute “to the development of the sector in oil and gas for which Nigeria is known for.” Jonathan said he was happy to be part of the emancipation celebrations.

“We are here to celebrate success certainly at a time and a day when this great country is remembering the circumstances that brought some of the blacks to this country. Today we marking that emancipation and also celebrate the training of Nigerians. So it is a good occasion for us to begin to see where we are coming from and where we want to go.

“The issue of movement whether we are colonised by colonial masters or whether we are under apartheid regime or whether we are brought to some part of the country as slaves, is written in history,” Jonathan said.

Also speaking yesterday was Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Training Fazal Karim who told guests, “About a week ago I was privileged to present certificates to 57 Nigerian trainees who graduated from NESC in automotive maintenance.

“I am determined to expand our relationship in technical and vocational educational training and I will therefore like to propose what I believe is the next logical step in this regard, the creation of “Trinigeria” — the bond of Trinidad and Tobago and Nigeria — where the NESC can now export the talent and skills of the energy sector to help your country to help our brothers and sisters in Nigeria.”

By Cecily Asson Thursday, August 2 2012

NIGERIA'S PRECARIOUS OIL AMNESTY

August 1st,  2012. BBC News Special Report on Amnesty.

                           The amnesty is allowing former militants to retrain in a variety of skills

An amnesty for thousands of militants in south-eastern Nigeria has brought relative stability to the region, enabling its huge oil industry to recover but, as the BBC's Will Ross reports, some are questioning how long the peace can hold.

"If I'd set eyes on you back in those days we would not be talking like this," says Tobine with a menacing smile. "I would have made a call to find one or two ways to make money out of you."

Tobine means he would have kidnapped me for ransom.

Until the 2009 amnesty agreement, he was a militant in the Niger Delta where rival gangs fought each other for supremacy and targeted the oil companies. The insecurity was costing Nigeria tens of millions of dollars every day as oil production was severely disrupted.

We were doing some bad, bad things; raping, kidnapping busting the pipelines just to make money," says the man who fellow militants used to call Jah Rule.

Tobine is 25 and is reminded of these experiences every time he looks in the mirror. There is a deep vertical scar below his eye - a souvenir from the day he was attacked by a machete-wielding man from a rival gang.

But Tobine's life has taken a dramatic turn and now he hopes to get a job with one of the oil companies whose pipelines he once attacked. He is among a group of 40 trainees graduating from a pipeline-welding course in Port Harcourt.

"I'm doing great. I'm proud about myself, but I want to go higher. My parents are proud of me. I want to make them more proud," he says, adding he has no desire to return to the bush as he now wants to help his family, including his six-year-old daughter.

Anger issues

As the course ends, there is concern as to whether jobs will follow. There is a worrying lack of job opportunities.

"They say the idle man is the devil's workshop. I don't want my mind to go to any evil thing at all, so I have to look for something to do," says another trainee - 32-year-old Abiye Godgift.

It has not been an easy task for those who had the job of not only training the ex-militants, but also changing their whole attitude to life.

                 Tobine is proud of his new skills, but there is concern about employment opportunities

"These are people who in the past had questionable characters," says Ikioye Dogianga, the head of IK Engineering Global Ltd which trains personnel for the oil industry.

"They have stained their hands in blood and have done so many things, so it takes you a great deal to train them to the standard they are now.

"There were issues of them getting angry very quickly. They were highly temperamental. They felt they were the authority themselves," says Mr Dogianga who intends to offer jobs to the five best trainees in order to motivate the next class.

The amnesty was introduced in 2009 by the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua.

All 26,000 people who have benefited from the amnesty are entitled to a monthly allowance of approximately $400 (£255). For how long, no-one knows. This is an expensive undertaking with the government spending $400m this year alone.

The former militant leaders are now mostly based in the capital, Abuja, where they are living in relative luxury. Money was a key factor in ending the violence.

Although many are awaiting promised training, close to half the beneficiaries have been offered courses in a variety of skills from carpentry to marine engineering, and 20 people were sent abroad to learn to be pilots.

Not all the beneficiaries were perpetrators of the violence in the Niger Delta. Many were victims.

"When I was seven, my village was burnt down by militants who didn't want it to develop," says 17-year-old Blessing Ogunga who is studying for her O-levels at Emarid College in Port Harcourt.

                           Blessing Ogunga's father was a militant - she is now receiving an education

"I remember that Saturday morning. People said everybody should shift from the village as bad boys were coming to burn down the village."

Blessing dropped out of school at the age of 10 because her parents could not afford the fees.

"My dad became a militant as he wanted to get the money to send me to school. He wanted me, the first daughter of the family, to graduate, so I would be able to speak for the family, to stand with my rights and speak," says Blessing, who wants to be a computer engineer.

Time bomb

“Start Quote
The Boko Haram issue in the north of Nigeria is child's play compared to what is going to happen in the Niger Delta”

End Quote   (Onengiya Erekosima -Amnesty commission )

The result of the amnesty is that the Niger Delta is relatively peaceful and oil production has soared. The government says at the height of the militancy, only about 800,000 barrels a day were produced compared to the current output of around 2.3 million barrels.

But not everyone is convinced that the peace is permanent and there are fears that re-arming has been taking place in the Delta.

"This is a dangerous time bomb. The Boko Haram issue in the north of Nigeria is child's play compared to what is going to happen in the Niger Delta," says Onengiya Erekosima, the reintegration and peace-building officer in the amnesty commission.

Having played a role in persuading militants to embrace peace, he warns that a large number of guns are still in dangerous hands and says the whole amnesty has become a money-making exercise.

"Militant leaders are pretending they had more boys following them than they really had and they are doing it to make money.

"They are coming to the amnesty commission to say 'the names we brought were not the real people' and now they want to change the names," says Mr Erekosima.

There is also concern that the amnesty programme was not rolled out to all areas of the Niger Delta.

Just prior to the 2009 amnesty, there was no violence in the area known as Ogoniland. There has also been no oil production there since 1993 when Shell pulled out following years of agitation by the local population calling for a fair share of the oil wealth and an end to pollution.

"The amnesty programme was lopsided. The Ogoni people did their own agitation through peaceful advocacy… while others resorted to violence. This violence appears to have been responded to through the amnesty," says Bariara Kpalap, the chair of the region's Kegbara-Dere town council.

"In a situation where the government only looks for issues that relate to the flow of oil in the Niger Delta without thinking of addressing poverty… then peace in the Niger Delta will be elusive," says Bariara Kpalap who also feels the amnesty has favoured the Ijaw people - President Goodluck Jonathan's own community.

President Jonathan has given his full backing to the programme and has ensured the money is flowing to the Delta. But the amnesty has not been gazetted into law and some feel that makes it precarious.

"I see the future as very bleak because my impression is that if President Goodluck Jonathan is no longer in power, the co-operation the federal government has been receiving from the Niger Delta may no longer be there," says Erabanabari Kobah, an environmental campaigner.

"Some are still holding their guns and are watching what will happen," he warns.

STAKEHOLDERS ADVOCATE INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION

July 26, 2012 by Ndubuisi Francis (Thisday Newspaper)
Stakeholders have called on the Federal Government to evolve a critical infrastructure protection policy as part of the overall measures to enhance security as well as set the rules and standards, especially for quality and location of vital infrastructure in the country.

The call came just as the Special Adviser on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Hon. Kingsley Kuku, affirmed that the declaration of amnesty had culminated in a drastic reduction of wilful destruction of critical infrastructure, particularly, oil and gas infrastructure in the Niger Delta.

Kuku, who spoke in Abuja, at a two-day strategic policy workshop on “Critical Infrastructure Protection in Nigeria” sponsored by the Amnesty Office, said the forum was aimed at proactively sensitising critical stakeholders on ways and means of protecting critical infrastructure that dot the nooks and crannies of the country.

“These are infrastructure that oil the wheel of our economic and social growth. These are infrastructure that connect and bind us together as one and indivisible country. These are infrastructure that stimulate growth and help Nigeria rank among the key global players. These are infrastructure we truly have invested billions of Naira or even dollars to put in place. I am talking about our bridges, pipelines, power stations, refineries, strategic offices, shopping malls and complexes, seaports and indeed the cyber space,” Kuku said in a paper presented on his behalf by an aide, Mr. Henry Ugbolue.

In his “Overview of Critical Infrastructure Protection in Nigeria: Threats and Remedies”, Dr. Femi Olufunmilade of the Advanced Learning Network Limited, who reviewed acts of terrorism in parts of the country, noted that that Nigeria had not performed badly in the area of critical infrastructure protection.

He, however, stated that the country was in urgent need of a critical infrastructure protection policy in order not to allow the impact of terrorism fester.

“Things will get really bad if the terrorists waging war on the country decide to change their strategy by reserving their resources for targets that will inflict maximum injuries on the Nigerian state and people in the form of critical infrastructure,” he said.

He also canvassed that a vulnerability survey be commissioned to ascertain the level vulnerability of critical infrastructure across the country as well as recommend measures to fill the void of observed vulnerabilities.

Also in his presentation titled: “Building Resilience into Critical Infrastructure in the Power Sector”, the Technical Director/CEO, UNIDO Regional Centre for Small Hydro Power in Africa, Dr. Ayodele Esan, said most countries of the world were de-emphasising a convergence to national grid in their power infrastructure, and urged Nigeria to follow suit.

He noted that one of the disincentives to terrorism was to move away from big hydro power plants to smaller ones scattered across the country.

KINGSLEY KUKU TASK OFFSHORE TRAINING VENDORS ON COMMITMENT

July 31, 2012 Editor's Appointment (Guardian Newspaper)
SPECIAL Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, has asked vendors handling the offshore training of Niger Delta youths currently in 21 countries to show more passion and commitment to the programme.

Kuku, according to a statement issued by the Head of Media and Communications, Mr. Daniel Alabrah, stated this recently at a meeting with some of the vendors against the backdrop of complaints and reports from trainees.

The Technical Assistant/Head, Reintegration Unit, Mr. Larry Pepple, who represented the chairman at the meeting, cautioned that it would no longer be business as usual.

“The new vision is that vendors must exhibit passion and commitment to the programme in line with the transformation agenda of the federal government. You must show that you have the capacity and capability to provide the requisite training.

“A situation where vendors reportedly abandon their centres and leave the trainees to their fate will no longer be tolerated. It is no longer business as usual as this office will henceforth sanction errant vendors. If you eat the profit from the training early in the day, you will pay for it later,” he said.
The new Head, Offshore Operations, Mr. Obase Okongor, a deputy director deployed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained that the meeting was to rub minds in order to enhance the capacity of the vendors.

He said to facilitate their operations, an offshore desk under the programme will be established in Nigerian missions in countries the youths are being trained after due consultation with the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

“The desk officers will interface, as well as, monitor the performance of the vendors and the trainees. This office has been inundated with several complaints and we are determined to make our operations more fluid and efficient.
“We must also note that the behaviour of these youths in a foreign land affects the image of Nigeria, whether positively or negatively. So this meeting is important for us to set up structures on how to carry out our operations,” he said.

Okongor implored the vendors to join hands with the government in addressing the issue of stigmatisation of the youths as former militants.

“These are youths that have dropped their arms and have been demobilised. They are now in the phase of being re-integrated into society. It is, therefore, proper to refer to them as Niger Delta youths rather than as ex-militants. Calling them militants creates a negative image for them and for Nigeria in a foreign land.”

Vendors, who spoke at the meeting, identified some of their challenges to include late disbursement of funds, lack of co-operation from embassies on visa renewal, poor attitude of the trainees, as well as, their poor academic abilities.

Stakeholders canvass infrastructure protection policy

July 24, 2012   by Fidelis Soriwei, (Punch Newspapers)

Participants at a workshop organised by the Advanced Learning Network Limited in collaboration with the Office of the Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta has advocated the formulation of a national policy on the protection of critical infrastructure in the country.

The Chairman and Director of Studies, ALN, Dr. Femi Olufunmilade, called for the conduct of a vulnerability survey to ascertain the level of vulnerability of critical infrastructure in the country.
His call was contained in the lead paper he presented at the Strategic Policy workshop on Critical Infrastructure Protection in Nigeria, in Abuja on Monday.
He also said it was necessary for measures to be put in place to safeguard identified strategic national assets from attacks.
He said such a national policy on critical infrastructure protection should provide a platform for effective interagency cooperation among all the military, security and agencies entrusted with the responsibility of managing disasters.
According to him, such an arrangement fashioned after the CIP policy documents in the European Union and the United States will culminate in the establishment of coordinating centre for joint operations among the various security organisations rather than waiting to establish a joint task force in reaction to emerging threats.
He said, “To put this in a conventional language, a survey is required to ascertain what threats to critical infrastructure are. In this regard, a comprehensive survey report will indicate threats by categories and by locality and, ipso facto, signpost what measures are needed to safeguard them.”
According to him, critical infrastructure include government buildings, military and security formations, oil pipelines, industrial estates and public utilities such as bridges, power stations telecom facilities, and others.
The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Chairman of the Presidential amnesty Programme, Mr. Kinsley Kuku, who was represented by his special Assistant, Special Duties, Mr. Henry Ugbolue, said that indigenes should be involved in the protection of such infrastructure like pipelines.

THREE YEARS ON, PRESIDENTIAL AMNESTY PROCLAMATION PAVES THE WAY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE NIGER DELTA

THE TORTUOUS JOURNEY

As a step towards resolving the protracted insecurity in the Niger Delta, the Federal Government of Nigeria exactly three years ago, June 25, 2009, proclaimed unconditional amnesty for agitators in the zone. The terms of the amnesty included the willingness and readiness of the agitators to surrender their arms on or before October 4, 2009, unconditionally renounce militancy and sign an undertaking to this effect. In return, the government pledged its commitment to institute programmes to assist the disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration of repentant agitators.

At the expiration of the 60-day grace period - by Sunday October 4, 2009, 20,192 Niger Delta ex-agitators had surrendered huge cache of arms and ammunitions to the Federal Government and accepted the offer of amnesty. And Pursuant to the letter and spirit of the Amnesty Proclamation, the Federal Government instituted a Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) package for the ex-combatants who accepted the offer of amnesty on or before the expiration date. Another 6,166 disarmed ex-agitators were added in November 2010 to constitute a second phase of the programme to bring up the total number of persons enlisted in the Presidential Amnesty Programme to 26,358.

STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE NIGER DELTA BEFORE THE PROCLAMATION

The remarkably improved security situation in the core Niger Delta States would be better appreciated when viewed from the pedestal of the situation prior to the Amnesty Proclamation. By January 2009, militancy in the Niger Delta had virtually crippled Nigeria’s economy.  Investment inflow to the upstream sub-sector of the oil industry had dwindled remarkably. Exasperated foreign investors had begun redirecting their investments to Angola and Ghana as preferred destinations over Nigeria. At that point Angola surpassed Nigeria as Africa’s highest crude oil producer. This dwindling investments in the critical oil and gas sector threatened Nigeria's capacity to grow its crude oil reserves as planned.  Nigeria was targeting 40 billion barrels proven reserves by end of 2010. This target became unrealistic given the exodus of operators in the oil and gas sectors from the country. Clearly, insecurity in the Niger Delta was identified as key reason why investors were leaving for more stable business opportunities in Africa. Sabotage, oil siphoning rackets and kidnappings of oil workers by suspected militants virtually crippled the operations of the oil companies and exerted immense pressure on the Nigerian economy. Worse still, citing insecurity, union officials all too often called strikes to protest insecure working environment. It got to a point where Nigeria’s export dwindled to as low as 700,000 and 800,000 bpd.  By the first quarter of 2009, it was estimated that Nigeria had lost over 3 trillion Naira as a result of militancy in the Niger Delta.

CORE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF THE AMNESTY PROCLAMATION

To further underscore the fact that the proclamation of amnesty for former agitators in the Niger Delta as well as the successful management of the post-amnesty Programme saved the economy of our great nation from a looming collapse, some clarifications may be necessary:

·         With Nigeria producing as at today between 2.4 and 2.6 million barrels of crude oil per day as against the abysmally low between 700,000 and 800,000 barrels per day at the peak of the Niger Delta crisis in January 2009, the nation and its Joint Venture Partners are currently making production savings of upto 1.9 million barrels per day.

·         Computed with prevailing exchange rate of about N160 to $1, daily production savings for Nigeria and the JV partners currently stands at a minimum of N33.4 Billion per day. 

·         Given that oil production in Nigeria hovered between 2.4 and 2.6 barrels for all of 2011, it would be safe to emphatically assert that savings for Nigeria and the JV partners for year ending 2011 is estimated to be a whopping N6 trillion.  

·         Equally, but for the Amnesty Proclamation and the successful management of the post-Amnesty Programme by His Excellency, President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria and its JV partners would have lost by year ending 2011, the staggering sum of N6 trillion or much more.

CURRENT STATUS OF THE AMNESTY PROGRAMME

In May 2011, a closure was achieved in the disarmament phase of the Amnesty Programme when the Amnesty Office in collaboration with the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army publicly destroyed the arms and ammunitions submitted to the Federal Government by the Niger Delta ex-agitators who accepted the offer of amnesty in 2009. This exercise took place in Lokpanta, a boundary town in Enugu State. The public destruction, which was approved by Mr. President, was in conformity with extant DDR (Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration) codes as spelt out by the United Nations. Further, the exercise became imperative given that the continued presence of the recovered weapons inevitably acted as a destabilizing influence in the country even as the potential of illicit trade remained high.

EXITING THE DEMOBILISATION PHASE

In line with the Amnesty Programme’s core objectives of demobilizing and reintegrating the former combatants into civil society, the entire 26,358 ex-agitators enlisted in the Programme have been fully demobilised, having successfully undertaken non-violence transformational training at the Amnesty Demobilisation Camps in Obubra, Cross River State and Akodo in Lagos State. For the demobilization exercise in the Camp, the Federal Government engaged experts from Nigeria, South Africa and the United States of America. The transformational/reorientation activities in the Camp were tailored to extinguish the belief of the ex-agitators in violence and provide them a more powerful alternative – nonviolence.

Following the conclusion of the demobilisation of the entire ex-agitators enrolled in the Amnesty Programme, Nigeria under the able guidance of His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, entered history books as one of the few countries in the world that achieved a successful closure to the Disarmament and Demobilisation phases of its DDR Programme.  

PURSUING THE REINTEGRATION COMPONENT OF THE PROGRAMME

Following the completion of their non-violence training and career classification in the camp, the Amnesty Office has successfully placed a total of 11,525 former agitators in skills acquisition/training centres as well as in formal education within the country and offshore. Of this number, 4,929 are being trained offshore while the balance of 6,382 have either been returned to formal education or have been placed in skill acquisition centres within the country. Similarly, 6,067 transformed ex-combatants are currently being processed for deployment to reintegration centres (both within the country and offshore) in the fiscal year 2012.

In all, the Amnesty Programme’s beneficiaries are as at today in 39 local training centres in 12 States of the Federation; while the ex-agitators placed in offshore educational and skill acquisition centres are in the United States of America, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Malaysia, England, Israel, Sri Lanka, India, Benin Republic, Cyprus, Poland, Ghana, Turkey, Romania, Belarus, United Arab Emirates, The Philippines as well as Trinidad and Tobago. More of the trainees are due to be deployed to skill acquisition facilities in Greece, Germany and Canada.

Keying into Mr. President’s vision, the reintegration agenda of the Federal Government is to groom these ex-agitators to become key players in the emerging economies of the States in the Niger Delta. Several of them are also being prepared to become entrepreneurs who will ultimately provide gainful employment for themselves and other youths. It is the candid belief of the Amnesty Office that with proper training, many of these youths will in the coming months, be in positions to play key roles in the bourgeoning economies of the States in the Niger Delta.

CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES

·         The Amnesty Programme is currently contending with the random emergence of groups of unregistered youths claiming rights to the benefits of the Amnesty package. Explanations by the Amnesty Office that they cannot be included in the Programme since they did not come out on or before October 4, 2009 to drop their arms and accept the offer of amnesty from the Federal Government have not helped much. The Amnesty Office is currently persuading Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government to seek out ways of engaging or empowering thousands of unemployed and unengaged youths in the Niger Delta. The mandate of the Amnesty Office does not include providing training or manpower development opportunities outside to persons who are outside the 26,358 Niger-Delta ex-agitators enrolled in the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Similarly, the Amnesty Office is of the staunch view that security agencies in the country must continue to treat all militant agitations anywhere in the country as crime against our great country and thus stem this ugly trend with all the requisite doggedness and seriousness.

·         Related to this is the fate of the Programme’s beneficiaries on graduation from skills acquisition/training centres. Indeed over 5,000 of the Niger-Delta ex-agitators have already graduated from various vocational and skills acquisition centres. On this score, the Amnesty Office is effectively liaise with operators in the private sector, other agencies of the Federal Government as well as the Governors of the States in the Niger Delta to work out creative ways of generating employment and empowerment for the Amnesty Programme’s graduates. Discussions and collaborations with private sector operators are already yielding fruits as a number of Amnesty Programme’s beneficiaries have been offered paid employment in the private sector.

TRIBUTES

As the nation commemorates three years of the Presidential Amnesty Proclamation for former agitators in the Niger-Delta, we salute the courage of the Chief Driver of the Programme, His Excellency President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR. It must be recalled that as Vice-President, Dr. Jonathan was physically involved in major negotiations and consultations, which led to the brokering of the peace accord between the Federal Government and the Niger Delta ex-agitators. Dr. Jonathan defied all security advice and warnings at the time to undertake a visit to the militants-controlled creek areas of the Niger Delta, particularly the then dreaded Camp Five in Delta State. He risked his life and breached all protocols for the sake and objective of extracting peace commitment and ensuring total ceasefire in the region. So today, we salute the courage of President Goodluck Jonathan and also pay tribute to his predecessor, the Late Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who graciously yielded to wise counsel and proclaimed amnesty for the former agitators on June 25, 2009. We salute the courage and tenacity of the Late President and it is our fervent prayer that Almighty God will grant is soul eternal rest.

We also pay tribute to former chief executives of the Amnesty Programme: Major-Gen. Godwin Abbe (Rtd) and Chief Timi Alaibe for their pioneering roles in both the Disarmament and Demobilisation phases of the Programme. We salute the gallant officers of the Armed Forces of our great country who have since inception in 2009 been offering their services to the Programme. We are grateful. Above all however, we applaud the leadership of the former militant agitators in the Niger-Delta for believing in the Federal Government of Nigeria and consequently accepted the offer of amnesty. We thank them also for their unflinching backing for the post-Amnesty Programme. We salute also several eminent Nigerians who, for the love of our great country, staked their lives and toured the creeks of the Niger Delta to broker peace and achieve the disarmament component of the Amnesty Programme. The nation is indebted to you all.

Finally, permit me to reiterate our commitment to the vigorous pursuit of the vision of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to bequeath a clean, secure, peaceful and developed Niger Delta region that will eventually assume its place as the oil and gas hub of Africa. Thank you.

Hon. Kingsley Kuku

Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta &

Chairman Presidential Amnesty Programme