The National Committee of Yoruba Youths (NCYY) has urged the president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, not to scrap the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) initiated by the Federal Government to rehabilitate the ex-militants in the Niger Delta after his inauguration on May 29.
Еhe President of NCYY, Mr. Oladimeji Odeyemi, made this statement during a press conference in Ibadan yesterday, May 6. It was a reaction to the statement made by an Itsekiri chief in Delta State, Chief Ayiri Emami, who reportedly advised Buhari to probe and scrap the PAP.
“We once again restate our call on the incoming administration to sustain the tempo of the Presidential Amnesty Programme and continue with its funding,” Mr. Oladimeji Odeyemi said.
The group also described the outgoing PAP chairman and special adviser to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Kingsley Kuku, as a man of high repute, unquestionable integrity and worthy of emulation. “Kuku and his team have turned the amnesty programme into a model to evaluate performance and service delivery,” he added.
Speaking about the group’s achievements, he noted: “Today, with the successful implementation of the amnesty programme, our crude oil production hovers between 2.2million barrels and 2.4million barrels per day. The amnesty programme in just four years has succeeded in training both locally and offshore about 20,000 youths out of the 30,000 beneficiaries enlisted in the scheme, a feat that has produced trained manpower to provide services in the oil and gas, power, maritime, agro-allied and the aviation industries in Nigeria.
“So far, no fewer than 2,000 of these ex-agitators have completed their Bachelor and Masters degrees in various fields. These are human assets that will be ploughed back to render useful services to the nation.”
According to him, “the PAP has almost 500 Itsekiri youths as beneficiaries of the amnesty programme”. “Out of this lot, about 100 of them are studying in various institutions abroad courtesy of the programme Ariyi wants the incoming government to scrap. What a conflict of consensus!” he said.
The post Yoruba Youth Begs Buhari Not To End Amnesty Programme For Ex-Militants appeared first on NEWS.NAIJ.COM - Nigerian & worldwide news..