From Tony John, Port Harcourt
Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) has thrown its weight behind all the reforms in the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), especially the new vision of PAP’s Interim Administrator, Milland Dixon Dikio, to transform the ex-agitators into entrepreneurs.
The forum, while appraising the administrative style of Dikio since his assumption of office, observed that the beneficiaries of the programme and other critical stakeholders in the Niger Delta region had continued to speak well of his performance and visionary leadership.
A statement signed, yesterday, by Dikio’s Special Adviser on Media, Neotaobase Egbe, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said PANDEF spoke when its executive members, led by its National Chairman and former deputy chief whip of the Senate, Emmanuel Essien, paid a courtesy visit to the amnesty boss in Abuja.
Essien, who read the position of PANDEF, commended Dikio’s new vision of transforming ex-agitators and beneficiaries of the programme into entrepreneurs and employable citizens to make them contributors to the economy of the region and the nation.
He said to actualise the vision, Dikio introduced a new model of train, employ and mentor and the concept of constituting ex-agitators into cooperatives in the areas of maritime security, food security and maritime transport.