The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Brig. Gen. Paul Boroh (retd.), said the Federal Government had offered employment to 350 Niger Delta ex-agitators who graduated from various tertiary institutions across the world.
He said the 350 graduates were among the about 30,000 ex-agitators sponsored for various studies abroad by the amnesty office.
Boroh disclosed this in an interview with the State House correspondents after attending a meeting of the Niger Delta Inter-Ministerial Committee presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Friday.
He said the ex-agitators who benefited from the job opportunities had already been posted to various federal ministries awaiting approval of the 2018 Appropriation Bill by the National Assembly.
“The Federal Government ensured that about 350 of them have been employed in the various ministries in the country.
“We are only waiting for appropriation so that once they report to their various ministries, they will start earning their salaries,” he said.
Boroh also faulted reports that some of the ex-agitators studying abroad had been abandoned following the failure of the amnesty office to pay their school fees and allowances.
He explained, “I will never allow any of my children schooling outside this country under government (sponsorship) to suffer. So as we speak, 96 per cent of those on offshore scholarship have graduated and returned home.
“I have only a few, in fact not more than 10,000 of them left in the entire globe where they have been schooling in the US, UK, Asian countries and South Africa – they have graduated and have come home.
“The ones that refused to graduate and are trying to make life unbearable for themselves would have themselves to blame. It’s their own cup of tea. The Federal Government is not responsible for them anymore.
“We have achieved 96 per cent. We have only few left, from the 30,000, we have a balance of about 10,000 left that need to be reintegrated and we are looking at Mr. President’s vision of alternative to our oil in reintegrating our youths, that has to do with agriculture and that is the focus for which the programme is on now. We are focusing on agriculture as a way of life for the youth in the Niger Delta region.”
