An additional 1,500 ex-agitators have benefitted from the Presidential Amnesty Programme’s (PAP) single-digit interest loans by the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL).
The programme had trained 400 ex-agitators on its special Train, Employ and Mentor (TEM) programme.
However, the training of the fresh 1500 ex-militants, which took place at designated centres in Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom was in continuation of a programme for NIRSAL loans which PAP commenced last year.
The initiative was part of efforts of PAP to raise the economic prospects of people of the Niger Delta region by attracting financial support for small and medium scale enterprises.
At the training in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, the Interim Administrator, PAP, Col. Milland Dikio (rtd), said the focus was to facilitate and enhance single digit interest loans for entrepreneurs in the region.
Dikio who was represented by the Head of Reintegration, PAP, Mr. Alfred Kemepado, said the training would help the beneficiaries of the loan to grow their businesses and mitigate risks.
Dikio in a statement signed by his Special Adviser, Media, Neotaobase Egbe, advised beneficiaries to use the loans to become successful entrepreneurs, warning that diverting the facility would create more hardship for them and further plunge the region into extreme poverty.
At the Yenagoa and Port Harcourt Centers, Dikio who spoke through his Special Adviser on Projects, Mr. Godwin Ekpo, urged beneficiaries to form cooperatives and focus on agriculture.
Dikio said: “The facilitators were very engaging and it just gives us hope and we are hopeful that once we are done with these set and we go into the next batches, the subsequent things we will do with these people will yield result.
“We have asked them to form themselves into cooperatives, look at the agriculture value chain, production, processing, packaging and logistics end to see where they fit in.
“A lot of them have shown interest and I am hoping that maybe by tomorrow they will form themselves into different clusters in the value chain of several products.
“We are saying to everybody that cares to hear that the Niger Delta is ready for development. Come back to the Niger Delta, come back and invest here. We are ready to receive you and we are ready to support you.”
A senior Reintegration Officer in PAP, Mr. Benjamin Appah, who stood in for Col. Dikio in Warri, explained how the beneficiaries were drawn across the region for the various centers.
He said: “The names were compiled across impacted communities, PAP success stories, PAP cooperatives and the documented bonafide beneficiaries of the Amnesty Programme. We received the names through their camp leaders, their cooperatives and the post training units.
“We also gathered from the success stories of people who have been previously empowered by the amnesty office and are doing well in their businesses.”