The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) has empowered 2,187 already trained beneficiaries in small and medium scale business enterprises. The beneficiaries are spread across Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Edo, Cross River, Abia and Imo states.

Coordinator of the Programme, Prof. Charles Dokubo, disclosed this on Tuesday via a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Murphy Ganagana.

According to the statement, “Over 110 vendors and contractors were engaged by the Programme through execution of business contracts on various businesses and trades, which include wood and carpentry, fish farming, commodity shop, building materials, building and construction, fashion designing, hair dressing, catering, timber mill, event management, restaurant and bar.

“Others are: rental service, bead and knitting, creative art work, foodstuff sale, provision store, electronic materials sale, electrical materials sale, music production, poultry, mini distributorship, block moulding, baking and confectionery, tiling and interlocking, ICT and cybercafé; welding and fabrication, film making, cinematography, cassava milling, barbing salon, kerosene sale, auto spare parts, supermarket, auto mechanic, agricultural farming and marine transportation, among others.

“Also, a total of 800 delegates are currently receiving vocational training in various skills facilitated by qualified contractors with a duration of about six months.

“The trade areas include welding, aluminum fabrication, oil and gas power system, abrasive blasting, scaffolding and rigging, mechanical fitting, industrial painting, greenhouse farming, fashion designing and tailoring, leather works, ICT, poultry farming, fish farming, installation and maintenance of tricycles as well as ice cold engineering and fabrication.”

Prof. Dokubo said that plans have reached advanced stage to fast-track the training and certification of more beneficiaries, as well as exploring job placement opportunities for them.

“Niger Delta is now known for peaceful development because there is no development without security. Amnesty Programme is now into more of training so that our beneficiaries can develop a skill after being trained, and then work. We are now focusing on getting jobs for some of those we have trained. That is the last aspect of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, the reintegration phase,” he stated.

The statement said that towards this end, the Job Placement unit of the Amnesty Office has intensified profiling of qualified beneficiaries for possible jobs. 60 beneficiaries were recently profiled for employment in the nation’s public sector.

“Dokubo,” according to the statement, “has also approved the inclusion of NAEC trainees as resource persons for Amnesty Programme after approving office set up component of the project for implementation across the nine Niger Delta states following the DFID-funded Market Development in the Niger Delta (MADE) project that facilitated the training of 20 delegates in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State recently, through the Nigeria Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum (NAEC).”

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