Niger Delta Amnesty Programme empowers 2,187 trainees

By Loveth Ojogun

The Presidential Amnesty Programme has empowered 2,187 already trained beneficiaries in small and medium scale business enterprises.

According to Murphy Ganagana, media aide to Prof Charles Dokubo, coordinator of the programme, over 110 vendors and contractors were engaged through execution of business contracts on various businesses and trades, which included wood and carpentry, fish farming, commodity shop, building materials, building and construction, fashion designing, hair dressing, catering, timber mill, event management, restaurant and bar.

Others were rental service, bead and knitting, creative art work, foodstuff sale, provision store, electronic materials sale, electrical materials sale, music production, poultry, mini distributorship, block molding, baking and confectionery, tiling and interlocking, ICT and cybercafé; welding and fabrication, film making, cinematography, cassava milling, barbing salon, kerosene sale, auto spare parts, supermarket, auto mechanic, agricultural farming and marine transportation, among others.

The beneficiaries are spread across Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Edo, Cross River, Abia, and Imo states.

Also, a total of 800 delegates are currently receiving vocational training in various skills facilitated by qualified contractors with duration of about six months.

The trade areas include welding, aluminum fabrication, oil and gas power system, abrasive blasting, scaffolding and rigging, mechanical fitting, industrial painting, greenhouse farming, fashion designing and tailoring, leather works, ICT, poultry farming, fish farming, installation and maintenance of tricycles as well as ice cold engineering and fabrication.