Boroh urges Niger Delta Youths to focus on development

The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Brig-Gen. Paul Boroh (Rtd), has enjoined youths in the Niger Delta region to resist distractions and focus on developing ideas that will enhance their economic status and bring about growth in the region.

Speaking on Monday at the batch B graduation ceremony of 200 Niger Delta Ex-agitators who graduated from their nine months intensive automobile course in automobile manufacturing, engineering and maintenance at Innoson-Kiara Academy, Nnewi in Anambra state.

Boroh who commended the graduands for making President Mohammad Bihari and the federal government proud in their performance during the training, said the focus of the Presidential Amnesty Programme is to create the enabling environment for youths in the Niger Delta region, particularly the ex-agitators to have sustainable sources of livelihood as they reintegrate with their communities.

He implored the young automobile craftsmen and women to use their skills positively to impact the local economy.

The amnesty boss said that the entrepreneurship drive of the Presidential Amnesty Programme was geared towards creating an enabling environment for beneficiaries to develop their full potentials in different vocational skills, with a view to making them lead productive and creative lives in line with the ongoing reintegration process of 30,000 Ex-agitators in the Niger Delta region.

The CEO of Kiara-Innoson Academy, Mr. Endi Ezengwa, in his welcome remarks, said the trainees were exposed to practical automobile engineering works during their practical training at the factory, informing that out of the 199 candidates that sat for the National Technical Certificate (NTC) from the National Business and Technical Examinations Board, 195 bagged distinctions while 4 others made credits.

Ezengwa said the Innoson Car Manufacturing Company was willing to absorb the graduands, with a salary of 60,000 which would be reviewed upwards at the end of a probation period of one year, just as he requested the state governments in the Niger Delta Region to create an enabling environment for the graduands to enable them put into practice the skills they have acquired through the nine months training at Innoson-Kiara Academy.

“We encourage the respective state governors to actively engage with us even before they finish the course so that they will now know who they are and where they are coming from so that we can now match them with existing systems and with existing youth empowerment programmes in those states. We are willing to establish mini automobile factories in those areas”, he said.

He commended Gen. Boroh for his vision and sincerity in driving the youth empowerment scheme through various vocational trainings, describing him as a focused man who has his people at heart, informing that the course covered automobile manufacturing, auto maintenance, auto mechanical, auto electrical, auto painting and welding, among other aspects of the automobile engineering production chain.

He noted that the Amnesty Office under Gen. Boroh has introduced innovative approach to fill the manpower gaps in critical skills among youths in the Niger Delta, pointing out that the problem of unemployment has been exacerbated by the absence of critical skills among the youths in the region, assuring that the automobile training at Innoson Kiara Academy was poised to fill the skills manpower gap.

Earlier, the Project coordinator and representative of the Vendor, Prince Momoh Jacob Aminu, explained that the rationale for the training was to ensure that beneficiaries of the Presidential Amnesty Programme are equipped with sellable skills that can get them employed to earn a living and be properly reintegrated into the society.

“The idea been that every one that participates in this training should be able to have mastery of a particular area and then everybody now works compositely towards the end product.

Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, President of the trainees, Mr. Ajalaja Felix Raphael from Warri North in Delta State, reiterated that the ex-agitators were satisfied with the leadership of Gen. Boroh in the manner he is handling the programme, saying that they were grateful to the Amnesty boss for giving them such opportunity to be trained at the centre.

On her part, a female delegate, from Cross River State, Miss Gloria Edward, said the automobile training has developed their capacity to several business opportunities in life and that she and her other female colleagues in the training were confident that the Amnesty Coordinator will empower them the beneficiaries at the end of the programme to enable them establish their automobile businesses.

High point of the graduation ceremony was the presentation of three vehicles a bus, 4×4 wheel hilux and a 32seater bus , assembled from the scratch to the finish by the Ex-agitators.

It would be recalled that last year Innoson Kiara Academy trained 120 delegates in automobile and another eighty delegates in its first batch of the training where the trainees assembled a luxury bus from scratch to finish.

Mathew Dadiya, Abuja