OLOGBO- Twenty five delegates of the presidential amnesty trainees yesterday graduated from the Ogbebor Leadership and Skills Acquisition Academy.
The trainees drawn from Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States were taken on rubber technology, products manufacturing techniques and other sociological and communication skills.
Sponsored by the Presidential Amnesty Programme as part of its efforts to empower ex-agitators from the Niger Delta region, the six months programme according to the President and Chairman Board of Directors of the academy Col. Paul Ogbebor, was most rewarding to the trainees.
Ogbebor said, the on the job training of the youths in rubber technology would qualify them for the National Business and Technical Examination Board (NABTEB) Modular Trade Certificate on rubber technology.
He commended the initiative of the presidential amnesty office for the bold initiative designed to expose the trainees to agro-allied skills that would be useful to them now and in the future.
He commended the Federal Government’s agriculture initiative which is targeted at reviving erstwhile abandoned rubber plantations and businesses which are currently yielding Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and India about fifty billion US dollars and 1.5 million jobs created in the affected countries.
Said he “it is axiomatic that rubber cultivation if sufficiently revived, could generate for Nigeria the coverage at 5 million direct and indirect jobs and earn the country 60 billion us dollars income every year.”
He therefore advocated that all state governments in rubber producing areas of Nigeria be made to key into rubber cultivation, processing and marketing for the economic revival of the affected states.
Speaking at the ceremony held at the Paulosa Industrial Complex Ologbo, representative of the Presidential Amnesty Programme Mr. Lambert Daunemighan, described the successful training of the ex militants as most welcoming as they have been equipped with skill that would help them improve on their living standards.
