Many of the public engagements undertaken by Major General Barry Ndiomu (rtd) since he assumed office as Interim Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) have been centered around building partnerships geared towards creating platforms that can gainfully employ ex-agitators in the Niger Delta, who have gone through training under the Amnesty Programme.
Aware that the Presidential Amnesty Programme which was introduced in 2009 in the wake of hostilities in the Niger Delta region was not designed to continue in perpetuity, Ndiomu has since moved to explore employment opportunities that will be more enduring and beneficial to the ex-agitators beyond the PAP.
According to a statement by the Special Assistant on Media to the Interim Administrator, Thomas Peretu, since he took charge in September, 2022, the PAP boss has visited several Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government (MDAs), including security formations where he has had fruitful conversations on how ex-agitators under the Amnesty Programme could be engaged in a bid to helping them take full ownership of their lives.
Earlier this month, Maj Gen Ndiomu (rtd) paid a courtesy call on the Inspector General of Police, IGP Alkali Baba Usman, at the Force Headquarters in Abuja, where he solicited the support of the Police High Command in the recruitment of ex-agitators to its rank and file as well as officers’ Corps.
Gen Ndiomu’s request was premised on the fact that the PAP has over the years trained a lot of youths from the Niger Delta region who would fit into manpower needs of the Police.
Ndiomu told the IGP that the Nigeria Police would find some of the ex-agitators very useful to the Force based on the top-notch security trainings they have received since the inception of the Programme 13 years ago.
The IGP, who expressed disappointment that potential recruits from the Niger Delta hardly turn out for recruitment exercises conducted by the Police Force in the region, however, assured the interim administrator that the Police was ready to partner the PAP in the recruitment of officers especially at the grassroots.
In a similar move, Gen. Ndiomu recently visited the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to explore ways of mainstreaming former agitators of the Niger Delta in the recruitment, scholarship and capacity-building programmes of the agency.
At the meeting with NITDA’s leadership, the interim administrator requested that qualified and skilled ex-agitators should be engaged in Nigeria’s labour market through partnership with the agency.
After the engagement, Ndiomu confirmed that his request was embraced, which according to him, required the management of NITDA “to set up an inter-agency committee charged with the responsibility of engaging ex-agitators in the new digital world.”
Under this arrangement, Niger Delta ex-agitators captured under the Amnesty Programme are to benefit from series of train-the-trainer digital programmes that would offer them the opportunity to earn monthly stipends while improving on their digital skills as trainers.
According to NITDA DG, Kashifu Inuwa, “Graduates of the agency’s training programmes will be provided with the necessary tools to compete with their counterparts elsewhere as global digital entrepreneurs or global employees.”
General Ndiomu’s search for opportunities for ex-agitators also took him to the head office of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), where he met with the Comptroller-General, Hameed Ali, who assured him that the body was ready to partner the PAP in future recruitment exercises that may be conducted before the end of the current democratic dispensation.
He told Ndiomu that the Service would be fair to all Nigerians irrespective of their States of origin.
“Even though we may not grant the South-South any special concessions, efforts will be made to ensure the quotas allocated to each state are filled in addition to the four mandatory persons per local government model of recruitment already entrenched in the system,” the comptroller-general stated.
