By Eunice Nnachi, Yenagoa
The First Phase ex-agitators have appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to make the Interim Administrator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col. Milland Dixon Dikio (retd), the substantive coordinator of the scheme.
The ex-agitators said Dikio had been outstanding in the management of PAP as an interim administrator and had the capacity to fully actualise the mandate of the programme if given full powers of a substantive coordinator.
Speaking in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Thursday, the National Secretary, First Phase, Pastor Nature Dumale, said Dikio’s commitment in transforming ex-agitators into independent employees and entrepreneurs through his novel Train, Employ and Mentor (TEM) model had started yielding expected results.
He recalled that recently 346 ex-agitators became the pioneers of TEM following their graduation from a notable skill acquisition facility in Ondo State.
He said 80 per cent of the graduates would be employed by the training firm in line with the provisions of TEM describing the Dikio’s initiative as the best solution to the problems of unemployment in the Niger Delta.
He said in the next six months, Dikio through TEM would have ensured the graduation of over 5000 ex-agitators with employable skills and entrepreneurs capabilities.
Nature appealed to Niger Delta elders, leaders, youths and all stakeholders to throw their weight behind Dikio to enable him actualise his vision for PAP and the Niger Delta.
He described the PAP boss as a rare asset discovered during Buhari’s administration saying the Niger Delta would remain eternally grateful to the President if he would make him a substantive coordinator.
He said: “It’s on record, that 346 delegates from the Niger Delta region just graduated from Bradama International Skill Works Limited Agadagba Ondo. Out of this number of youths, 80 per cent of them are going to have job placements. They are going to employ them with the same training they have given them.
“We are calling on all Niger Delta leaders, opinion leaders, youth leaders, elders, politicians to rally round Dikio and give him more support for greater achievements and development in the region.
“The greatest development, you can give to any young man or to any person is to give him skill and not just to give him skill, to also meaningfully engage him so that he can become independent and also become an employer of labour in future.
“What Dikio has done is indeed laudable and encouraging. It is the first time in the history of the Presidential Amnesty Programme that we see this kind of success. This his flagship programme called TEM, Train, Employ and Mentor has succeeded. This is the first graduation out of many graduation that will be unfolding in record time.
“Some of the students will be graduating in the next two months. Some of them will be graduating in January, some of them in February and so on .
“We are begging President Muhammadu Buhari to please confirm Col. Dikio retired as the substantive coordinator of the presidential Amnesty programme and Senior Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs.
Since he assumed office, Dikio has not apportioned blames to any of his predecessor. office. We admire his character, it is strength indeed. What he has done since he assumed office, is to hit the ground running. He has been developing visions upon visions that have changed the narrative of the region.
“We are appealing to President Muhammad Buhari to please confirm him as the substantive coordinator of this programme so that he will be able to finish the visions he has put in place. Over the years we have had people take over positions like this and began to initiate their own ideas. They abandoned what had been done and began to initiate their own concept and at the end of the day, bastardize the entire process”.
Nature expressed delight that over 250 ex-agitators were being trained by a professional firm in Ogoni on environmental cleanup.
“Over 250 ex-agitators are engaged in Ogoni land under a professional that has a track record in environmental cleanup. They are in that site, learning how to clean the environments and they will be employed”, he said
Nature said they were passionate about the Niger Delta Sustainable Plan, which he said Dikio had started working on to capture the next generation of youths and discourage them from militancy and other vices.
