TheCable

The federal government has appealed to militants in the Niger Delta to lay down their arms and embrace the amnesty programme, which will end in 2017.

Paul Boroh, special adviser to the president on Niger Delta and coordinator of the presidential amnesty programme, ‎made the appeal while addressing four ex-militants in his office in Abuja on Friday.

Boroh urged the ex-agitators who were trained as engineers to develop their skills and be progressive in learning.

He said the reason President Muhammadu Buhari decided to extend the programme by two years was to stabilise the Niger Delta region through human capacity development.

“Amnesty programme will not last forever. It will end next year. I thank God that you have finished your training. You can fit into ministry of mines and power or private sector,” he said.

“You must continue learning. There is no end to learning. In the next few years, I want to see you getting better and higher. You must be developing your capacity to move higher.”

Speaking with journalists afterwards, Boroh said: “First, I appreciate the president for sustaining this programme because if not for his giving us the go ahead to continue training the capacity of the ex-agitators, it would have been difficult for us to achieve this great feat today.

“You can imagine a group of persons who have transformed from militancy to be electrical engineers; obviously I’m very proud of it because it has been a success story. And my appreciation goes to Mr President who in his determination and commitment in stabilising the Niger Delta region through human capacity development as well as infrastructural development.

“In this case is two in one, the ex-agitators, 23 of them have developed their human capacity in terms of skills acquisition in transformer maintenance and establishment. This has transformed these persons from who they were to the present as well as the refurbishment of transformer which will now supply power to the environment where it is deployed.

“For those still in the creeks, this is a challenge. It is an opening, a wider platform for them to emulate and embrace so that their capacity will also be developed, instead of wasting the human resource elements in them. This means opportunities are open to them whether they are agitators or not.”