Pauline Onyibe, Yenagoa
The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) has integrated the South-East business model in its training and empowerment of ex-agitators to reduce beneficiaries’ over-dependence on monthly stipends.
The Interim Administrator, PAP, Col. Milland Dixon Dikio (rtd), explained that the new model would transform delegates into skilled entrepreneurs and employable citizens.
Dikio in a statement signed by his Special Adviser, Media, Nneotaobase Egbe and made available to journalists, said the new model was designed to make trainees contribute meaningfully to the economy of the Niger Delta region and the country.
Dikio, who described the new system as an end-to-end empowerment model, said that PAP would partner with organisations ready and capable of training its delegates, employing successful trainees and mentoring them to achieve post-training proficiency.
“Thereafter, they will be encouraged to branch out or own subsidiaries of the parent company. The catch is that since the delegates are potential employees, they will be well trained to fit into the company offering the training. Those who do not make it will have themselves to blame for a missed opportunity,” he said.
While addressing students under PAP’s Scholarship Programme, Dikio urged them to pursue entrepreneurial initiatives that would make them employers of labour instead of waiting for companies to engage them.