From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Nigeria Police Force, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and the Nigeria Customs Service have agreed to partner Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), and employ former agitators of the Niger Delta region they had earlier trained.
This was disclosed in a statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the interim administrator, Thomas Peretu, who said that the agreement was reached after the leadership of the programme engaged in a number of public events that were largely focused on forming alliances aimed at developing platforms that can profitably employ former agitators after their training.
He said the PAP boss, Maj. Gen. Barry Ndiomu (rtd), being aware that the programme which was introduced in 2009, in the wake of hostilities in the Niger Delta region was not designed to continue in perpetuity, moved to explore employment opportunities that would be more enduring and beneficial to the ex-agitators beyond the PAP.
Ndiomu, the statement said, had visited several Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), including security formations which yielded fruitful results on how the ex-agitators under the Amnesty Programme could be engaged in a bid to help them take full ownership of their lives.
According to the statement, the PAP’s boss had during his visit to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, solicited the support of the Police High Command in the recruitment of ex-agitators into its rank and file as well as officers’ corps.
His request was premised on the fact that the PAP had over the years trained a lot of youths from the Niger Delta region who would fit into the manpower needs of the police based on the top-notch security training they had received since the inception of the programme 13 years ago.
Baba who expressed disappointment that potential recruits from the Niger Delta hardly turn out for recruitment exercises conducted by the force in the region, however, assured the interim administrator that the police readiness to partner with PAP in the recruitment of officers, especially at the grassroots.
In a similar move, Ndiomu’s recent visit to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to explore ways of mainstreaming former agitators of the Niger Delta in the recruitment, scholarship and, capacity-building programmes of the agency, also yielded positive results.
The interim administrator requested from NITDA that qualified and skilled ex-agitators should be engaged in Nigeria’s labour market through a partnership with the agency.
The management of NITDA agreed to set up an inter-agency committee charged with the responsibility of engaging ex-agitators in the new digital world.
Under this arrangement, the ex-agitators captured under the Amnesty Programme were to benefit from a series of train-the-trainer digital programmes that would offer them the opportunity to earn monthly stipends while improving their digital skills as trainers.
According to NITDA DG, “graduates of the agency’s training programmes will be provided with the necessary tools to compete with their counterparts elsewhere as global digital entrepreneurs or global employees.”
At the head office of the Nigeria Customs Service where he met with the Comptroller-General, Hameed Ali, Ndiomu was assured that the service would partner PAP in future recruitment exercises that might be conducted before the end of the current democratic dispensation.
He told Ndiomu that the service would be fair to all Nigerians irrespective of their state of origin.