Presidential amnesty boss wants Niger Deltans to explore maritime opportunities
The Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Col. Milland Dikio (retd), has challenged the people of the Niger Delta to take advantage of the maritime opportunities in the region to grow and nurture successful business ventures.
He expressed hope that if stakeholders looked inwards and tap the unique natural endowments in the Niger Delta, the region in no distant time would produce a new set of wealthy entrepreneurs.
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Dikio gave the charge in Calabar, Cross River State, at the weekend, when he unveiled the first set of ferries owned by Abitto Global Services Limited, an indigenous firm established by an ex-agitator, Richard Akinaka.
The PAP boss in a statement issued on Sunday by his Media Adviser, Nneotabase Egbe, regretted that people often focused on the risk factors, and discouraged themselves from starting and in the process allow lofty ideas to die.
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Dikio said, “Our people live in creeks unconnected by road but God has given us roads, the rivers are our roads and for those who don’t know, many great powers are maritime powers.
“The waterways can carry any load, any load at all, it can carry it. The waterways of the Niger Delta is full of money but people don’t know. Stop making excuses and just take the initiative.
“People live where there is snow all year and they adapt to it, they adapt to that environment. And that is what this is all about, adapt to your environment, dominate the environment, the water environment”.
While congratulating Akinaka for the bold step in floating the ferry business, Dikio urged him to expand it to other riverine parts of the country and also go public by allowing people to buy shares and be part of the business.
Dikio also reiterated his call on the people of the region to pull their resources together and form partnerships and cooperatives to pursue and actualize their business dreams.
Earlier, Akinaka had said his foray into business was borne out of the need to find solutions to problems, saying he understood the basic challenges of the people.
He appreciated Dikio for his support and inspiration to the ex-agitators community in the region and appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to confirm him as substantive PAP boss.
Explaining the business to the amnesty boss, Akinaka said, “We did this design, we have four concepts of what we have designed and the military version. We have not begun what we did and we have supplied about eighteen pieces of it to NNS Pathfinder through the government of Rivers State.
“Now, this is the first one, this is a 26 carrier, that’s why you see the name AWLP26. We have a 20 carrier too, which is ready.”
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