The Office of the Amnesty Programme under the administration of Professor Charles Dokubo, has disclosed why the office is building its own training centers, saying that in the past beneficiaries were not properly trained and certified.
The Amnesty Office said it decided to build new training centres and activate the old ones built by the previous administrations, but were left to fallow because it discovered that sending the beneficiaries to different places to be trained, was not bringing the intended results.
Speaking to journalists in Warri, Delta State during the weekend, the Special Assistant to Dokubo on media Mr. Murphy Ganagana said that in the past, some amnesty beneficiaries were trained for only two weeks and without certification, wondering what kind of skills such beneficiaries will learn in just two weeks.
He said this was one of the reasons why Professor Dokubo, when he assumed office, decided that hence forth the amnesty beneficiaries will have to be trained in the amnesty office training centres which will be spread across the Niger Delta region.
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He further said that plans had been concluded to activate new training centres in Ondo, Rivers, Delta, Bayelsa and Edo states where training programmes will last at least six months and certificates insured to the beneficiaries.
Ganagana also said that the Amnesty Office had also signed General Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) with various institutions like the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), who will send their lecturers the various training centres to train the amnesty beneficiaries.
He added that all training programmes had been institutionalized, adding that the office will no longer send their beneficiaries to individuals for training.
“We have a large number of beneficiaries that have been left untrained. What the new coordinator is doing is that he is building more training centers and activating two other training centres that have been completed by previous administration, but left to fallow.
“If you deploy people to some individuals, they may not train our people well. So the Coordinator is saying that we should partner institutions like PTI, to come to our training centres to train our beneficiaries,” Ganagana said.
He added that, in Ondo State, the Oil and Gas Vocational Training Centre, Agadagba, would soon be opened while the programme’s Power and Energy Vocational Centre in Bomadi, Delta State would commence operation in earnest.
Ganagana listed other training centres of the Amnesty Programme to include Maritime Vocational Training Centre at Ogwoama, Rivers State; Basic Skills Vocational Training Centre in Boro Town, Kaiama, Bayelsa State and Agricultural Vocational Training Centre in Gelegele, Edo State.
He said as at the time Dokubo, assumed office, 11, 297 ex-agitators were yet to be sent for training out of the over 30,000 delegates registered for the programme.
He further disclosed that 1,537 former agitators had graduated from institutions of learning abroad, while 207 others were currently studying various courses abroad.
Ganagana said between 2017 and this year, 2,633 Amnesty Programme students were studying in higher institutions in the country among whom 556 had graduated.
Francis Sadhere, Warri
