Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator, Amnesty Programme, Prof. Charles Dokubo, said on Tuesday, that his vision of creating a Job Placement and International Partners Engagement Unit (JP-IDPE) last year has started yielding results.

He stated this in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, at the opening ceremony of a Train the Trainer (ToT) training on Nigeria Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum for 20 graduate beneficiaries of the Amnesty Programme.

The training programme is fully funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) Nigeria, and organised in partnership with the Presidential Amnesty Programme by Market Development in the Niger Delta (MADE), a non-profit project sponsored by UK-DFID.

Dokubo, who noted that the partnership project was the first of its kind in the Amnesty Programme described it has historic, and expressed optimism that it will create pathways for other international agencies to partner the Amnesty Office.

“On my appointment and assumption of duty as Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme in 2018, I studied the existing implementation strategies and realized that little effort had been made to extend a hand of partnership to relevant international organizations.

In order to rectify this omission, I created the Job Placement and International Development Partners Engagement Unit on May 2, 2018. I am glad that my vision has paid off today. The JP-IDPE unit network produced this MADE project that we see today and we look forward to having more of it”.

He disclosed that in a Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Amnesty Office, MADE agreed among others, to facilitate linkage between the Presidential Amnesty Programme and service providers working within its fisheries and poultry sector; provide a Train the Trainer (ToT) training for 20 beneficiaries of the Amnesty Programme, and select the best five beneficiaries from the NAEC ToT programme for further training for them to become master trainers.

To ensure that the project is sustained, Dokubo said beneficiaries of the training programme would be certified as Amnesty Programme training consultants in all vocational and empowerment refresher programmes of agric-based contracts, and future agric training programmes will as a matter of criteria utilise trained MADE beneficiaries as a requisite for their contract liabilities and payments.

He said: “The JP-IPDE unit shall ensure that beneficiaries of this post-training scheme receive their full engagement package and are listed as engaged/placed in the database. This includes provision of office space and training room with the necessary office and training room setups through the already contracted job placement consultants.

“It will interest you to note that since the creation of the Amnesty Programme, we’ve not had our own beneficiaries as training consultants, neither have we setup office/training rooms for anyone. This is an entirely new model that we have formed with the help of MADE and that is why I am here today. Each of these beneficiaries will be registered with the CAC as a consulting firm; provided with an office and training room, NAEC aquaculture and poultry kits, among others. We are hereby creating a business model with multiplier effects. I commend MADE, DFID and DAI for this project.”

In his remarks, MADE Team Leader, Mr. Tunde Oderinde, said the partnership with the Amnesty Programme is about the youth of the Niger Delta and the future of Nigeria. He gave assurance that MADE will back up beneficiaries of the NAEC training with mentorship.

He said: “This initiative is not just another capacity building; it is handing over a business to our participants, just like the Coordinator emphasised in his speech, and you are actually our future consultants. The most important thing to learn about NAEC is that it is a tool that will help enterprises understand the problems around their business. It is not just one of those training curriculums; it is actually a tool to diagnose any problem in any enterprise. We are charging you not just to take this lightly but to see it as the future that is yet to come.

Within your engagement in the community and the sector you eventually settle in, some of us that will become the master trainers can begin to adapt this into other sectors. I want to tell you that it is not just garbage in, garbage out; it is about you internalising what you are receiving here and turning it into business. It is not just going to be a training that you have PAP with time supplying you with people to train; you need to go all the way out into the market. In all you do, wherever you go, you must become the ambassador of NAEC.”

Also speaking at the event, a traditional ruler, Sir Edidiong Eyoh Nsuquo Essien, commended President Muhammadu Buhari for developing the Niger Delta region through the instrumentality of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. Essien, who is the Village Head of Nsukara Ufot, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, expressed hope that beneficiaries of the training programme will live up to expectation.

•Photo shows officials and the delegates in a group photograph at the Nigeria Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum (NAEC) TOT Traning for beneficiaries of the Presidential Amnesty Programme supported by DFID Funded Market Development in the Niger Delta, held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on April 16, 2019.

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