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Prof. Charles Dokubo, the Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) said that the job placement initiative for beneficiaries of the programme has yielded desired result.
Dokubo expressed this in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, at the opening ceremony of a Train the Trainer on Nigeria Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum (NAEC) for 20 graduate beneficiaries of the Amnesty Programme.
A statement signed by Mr Murphy Ganagana his Special Assistant on Media, said Dokubo’s vision of creating a Job Placement and International Development Partners Engagement Unit (JP-IDPE) last year has resulted in a win-win situation.
According to him, the training programme is fully funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) Nigeria, and organised in partnership with the PAP by Market Development in the Niger Delta (MADE), a non-profit project sponsored by UK-DFID.
Dokubo said that the partnership project was the first of its kind in the programme and will create pathways for other international agencies to partner the Amnesty Office.
“On my assumption of duty in 2018, I studied the existing implementation strategies and realised that little effort had been made to extend a hand of partnership to relevant international organisations.
“In order to rectify this omission, I created the Job Placement and International Development Partners Engagement Unit on May 2, 2018. I am glad that my vision has paid off today.
“The JP-IDPE unit network produced this MADE project that we see today and we look forward to having more of it”.
He said that MADE agreed among others to facilitate linkage between PAP and service providers working within its fisheries and poultry sector.
“And to provide a Train the Trainer (ToT) training for 20 beneficiaries of the Amnesty Programme and select the best five beneficiaries from the NAEC ToT programme for further training for them to become master trainers.
He said that for sustainability of the project, beneficiaries of the training programme would be certified as Amnesty Programme training consultants in all vocational and empowerment refresher programmes of Agric-based contracts.
“And future agric training programmes will as a matter of criteria utilize trained MADE beneficiaries as a requisite for their contract liabilities and payments.
“The JP-IPDE unit shall ensure that beneficiaries of this post-training scheme receive their full engagement package and are listed as engaged/placed in the database.
“This includes provision of office space and training room with the necessary office and training room setups through the already contracted job placement consultants.
“It will interest you to note that since the creation of the Amnesty Programme, we’ve not had our own beneficiaries as training consultants, neither have we setup office/training rooms for anyone.
“This is an entirely new model that we have formed with the help of MADE and each of these beneficiaries will be registered with the CAC as a consulting firm,” he said.
Dokubo also said that the beneficiaries would be provided with an office, training room, NAEC aquaculture and poultry kits among others.
In his remarks, MADE Team Leader, Mr Tunde Oderinde, said the partnership with the Amnesty Programme was about the youth of the Niger Delta and the future of Nigeria.
He gave assurance that MADE would back up beneficiaries of the NAEC training with mentorship.
“This initiative is not just another capacity building; it is handing over a business to our participants.
“The most important thing to learn about NAEC is that it is a tool that will help enterprises understand the problems around their business.
“It is not just one of those training curriculums; it is actually a tool to diagnose any problem in any enterprise.
“Within your engagement in the community and the sector you eventually settle in, some of us that will become the master trainers can begin to adapt this into other sectors.
“I want to tell you that it is not just garbage in, garbage out; it is about you internalising what you are receiving here and turning it into business.
“It is not just going to be a training that you have PAP with time supplying you with people to train; you need to go all the way out into the market. In all you do, wherever you go, you must become the ambassador of NAEC”.
Also speaking, a traditional ruler, Sir Edidiong Essien, commended President Muhammadu Buhari for developing the Niger Delta region through the Amnesty Programme.
Essien, who is the village Head of Nsukara Ufot-Uyo of Akwa Ibom, said that beneficiaries of the training programme would live up to expectations of the government and people.